Not someone who loves you and might protect you.

Someone who was watching you.

He knows he can’t be paralyzed by fear, so he must deal with the problem at hand. Now that he has the flash drive, Kyle is terrified to look at it.

He thinks he read somewhere that inserting the flash drive will create an entry on his computer’s log that the particular flash drive had been inserted. He isn’t sure how the log entry could be permanently erased. So. How is he going to do this?

He goes to an ATM and withdraws a few hundred in cash, all in twenties. He then drives over to South Austin to a Best Buy where he has never shopped and, using cash, buys a cheap laptop with a USB port. He sets up a false name as the user account on his new laptop. Sitting in the car, he slides the flash drive into the computer.

The data inside isn’t what he thought it was going to be. The drive contains files but nothing about him or his family. There is one large spreadsheet, tabbed into months, from over fourteen years ago. This is old news. They appear to be a list of dates, numbers, and dollar amounts. The full amount comes to more than $200,000.

Kyle stares at the screen.

This might be perfectly legit. A normal record of payments made to her. All of the payments have a word next to them: either Lark or Firebird. In the next column are amounts of money, each ranging from a few thousand to nearly $800,000.

The figures next to Lark are smaller; the payments to Firebird are larger.

This is an old record of payments, but he has no idea what it’s for.

He opens another folder. Pictures. Pictures of kids she’s placed from Russia, smiling American families. Organized by surname. He goes to the subfolder marked POLLITT. Afraid of what he might see, unable to look away.

He opens the folder. Photos of all the miles of completed paperwork, organized, he presumes as an unofficial backup. This he skips through. Then pictures. Of him and Iris, boarding the first of their flights that took them to Russia. Danielle had taken these pictures. They’re smiling, in a determined way. Not celebratory. It’s too early to celebrate having Grant.

Pictures of them in Russia. Looking tired but thumbs up. Danielle told them to be quiet, to not be too “American”—this meant loud and assertive—to be controlled. This was a business trip.

Pictures at the orphanage. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. The buildings, choked in snow, the branches of the trees cloaked in white. In one photo a guard dog lopes around a corner, looking, hunting for trouble. An orphanage with guard dogs. Why? What were they keeping in? Who were they keeping out?