Kincaid walked to the window, which was made of a thin translucent paper that allowed in natural light. She placed her hand on one of the speckled walls and thought that if she gave it a solid punch, her fist would land in the next room. So much for proving that fellow guests couldn’t possibly have overheard an argument between the victim and the accused. But what truly puzzled her was that the police noted no signs of a struggle. Given the size of the room, that seemed all but impossible, especially considering the fact that Lynell Yi had apparently been the victim of manual strangulation.

“Tourists from the West still love to stay in hanok,” the husband said, collapsing her thoughts. “They do not come to Seoul to stay in a high-rise they can see in New York City or London.”

Kincaid nodded. She understood his passion, and unlike Janson, she could certainly understand why the young lovers might have slipped away from their modern apartment nearby to experience an amorous night in a traditional Korean home. Maybe she was just more romantic than Paul—or maybe Paul had previously been inside a hanok and had been reminded of the six-by-four-foot cage he’d been kept in during the eighteen months he spent as a prisoner of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That would certainly be reason enough for him to dismiss the hanok as a desirable place to stay. Either way, Kincaid didn’t think Janson’s theory that the young couple had been on the run held much water.

Following her visit to the Sophia Guesthouse, Kincaid waited in line for a dish of spicy chili beef then headed south back to the U.S. Embassy. By then it was nearing five o’clock Korean time, and she was hoping to catch Jonathan exiting the embassy after calling it a day. Jonathan was probably in his mid- to late twenties, not a teenager but certainly closer to Lynell Yi in age than most people employed at the embassy. And when Kincaid asked if there was anyone in the office who knew Lynell Yi well, the ambassador’s glance toward the doorway made her suspect that Jonathan might hold some of the answers to questions she had about Yi’s job, maybe even her relationship with Gregory Wyckoff.

Jonathan exited the embassy at a quarter after five and walked to the subway station at Chongyak. There he took the 1 line, and Kincaid hopped into the subway car trailing his. He got off just two stops later and boarded the 3. On the 3 train, he seemed to settle in for a lengthy ride. And lengthy it was; he didn’t step off the train again until they were south of the Han River in Gangnam-gu, the district made famous—or infamous—by that obnoxious pop song Kincaid heard over and over at clubs around the world.