I searched the room for any photographs, the old-fashioned kind or a digital display. There was a single photograph in the room, Daiyu at perhaps ten or eleven, holding a fluffy white dog in her arms, laughing with delight at the camera. The image was tucked into a silver frame. No photographs of little Daiyu with her cousins, or extravagant birthday parties with friends, or even a studio portrait with her parents. The lack of these personal moments displayed in her bedroom seemed telling. “Is this your dog?” I asked.

“Her name was Mochi. My mom gave her to me for my eighth birthday.” She picked up the silver frame and studied the photo. “My father forced me to give her away two years later because she knocked over a potted orchid plant and broke it.”

I had to hold back on all the obscenities I wanted to call Jin. Instead, I said, “Your mom gave you Mochi to keep you company?”

Daiyu let out a small breath and nodded, setting the picture down.

I imagined her as a kid in this massive house, all alone except for her father’s associates who likely never spoke to her. And Jin forced her to relinquish the one companion she had. I knew my childhood had been rough, and many times I had felt so alone. Daiyu must have experienced a different kind of loneliness. But in the end, maybe lonely was lonely.

“You don’t ever stay with your mom?” I asked, my tone softer than I intended.

“My parents divorced when I was three,” she said. “My father wanted full custody to spite my mother. As punishment for daring to leave him. She lives in Hong Kong, and I see her once every few years.” She fingered the diamonds scattered across her throat. “What about your parents?”

“They’ve been married for twenty years,” I replied without thought, having memorized my fabricated identity so it had become a second truth.

“Do you have siblings?”

I shook my head. “I’m an only child.”

“I’ve always wished for siblings. . . . ,” Daiyu murmured and was disrupted by a soft chime. She picked up her Palm at the side of her bed and moved her fingers across the screen, an amused smile quirking the corners of her mouth. “Angela wants to know if she was interrupting anything. She’s on her way up.”

I assumed she had security clearance as Daiyu’s friend, since Angela obviously knew the way to her bedroom.