After a few splashes of water, she patted her face dry and then quickly brushed her teeth. She ran a brush through her hair, pulling it back into a serviceable ponytail. Her shirt was hopelessly wrinkled, but she couldn’t summon the energy to change it. She didn’t really care how it looked anyway. Taking a deep breath, she turned to head out into the living room. I can do this.
She settled onto the sofa, tucking her legs up so she was curled into a ball. Agent Kincannon took the recliner, leaning forward to place a glass of water on the table next to her. She blinked back the sting of sudden tears, absurdly touched by his thoughtful gesture. Not wanting him to see her emotional reaction to such an ordinary event, she reached for the glass, taking a small sip of water to wet her throat. “So, Agent Kincannon, where do we start?”
“How about we start with you calling me Thomas? We’ll be seeing a lot of each other for the foreseeable future, so I think we can dispense with the formalities, if that’s all right with you?”
Keeping her fingers wrapped around the glass, Claire nodded. “Okay,” she said carefully, feeling her way into this new conversational territory. “Where do we start, Thomas?”
He leaned forward, and she caught a whiff of his soapy-starchy scent as he moved. He rested his elbows on his spread knees and clasped his hands together in a loose fist, expanding his imprint in the chair.
He’s so big, she thought, taken aback by how much space he occupied. She wasn’t used to having a man in her apartment, especially such a large man. Ivan had been slight of stature, whereas Thomas was tall and broad. She could reach out a hand and touch his shoulder without having to stretch. The room seemed to shrink around her as he focused on her face, the space collapsing until only the couch and chair remained.
“Why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Ivan?” His tone was friendly, belying the intensity of his gaze.
“What do you want to know?”
“Were you two close?”
She nodded. “I think so. We worked together for several years, so we got to know each other pretty well.”
He cocked his head to the side. “How well?”
She frowned, searching his face for a clue as to what he was really asking. His eyes were flat, expressionless—the blue of a quiet sea. No help there. “I’m not sure I know what you’re asking.”
He leaned back, crossing his arms across his broad chest as he cast a meaningful glance toward the bookshelf. She followed his gaze to the picture of herself and Ivan, taken two months ago during his last visit.
“I am so happy, milaya, my dear girl!” he’d said, using his favorite pet name for her. “The project is going very well, and I have you to thank for it.”
She smiled up at him, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face. “It seems like we’re finally getting through to the government—they can’t just leave these sites unattended and hope for the best.”
“They are learning,” he replied, patting her shoulder. “They listen when a pretty woman talks, eh?” He winked at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh at his expression, as if he took personal credit for her successful presentation.
“Were you romantically involved with him?” Thomas’s voice interrupted her memories, pulling her back to the room. He was watching her carefully, like a stalking cat, waiting to pounce on any weakness. Focus.
“No.”
He raised a brow, his doubt plain.
“No,” she said, this time with an edge. “We were not sleeping together.”
Thomas stood and walked to the bookshelf, picking up the photograph and studying it as if seeing it for the first time. “You seemed rather close,” he remarked, extending the frame to her, his tone oh-so-reasonable.
“He was my mentor,” she bit out from between clenched teeth. “He was like a father to me, and I won’t have you twisting that into something dirty, something it’s not.” Her hands tightened around the glass, fingers pressing into the sides so hard she could see the tips turn white as they flattened against the smooth, wet surface.
“Okay.” He set the frame back on the shelf, turned and walked over to the recliner, settling himself into the chair again. “Tell me about it.”
She shook her head, unsure of where to start. “We met five years ago. I had just started at the Nuclear Safety Group, and one of my first assignments was to provide support to the international decommission team, Ivan’s group.”
“What does his group do?” His voice was soft and unobtrusive, steering the direction of her story without distracting her. She kept her eyes focused on the water glass, tracing the lines of condensation while she spoke.
“They advocate for the safe and effective disposal of nuclear material from decommissioned nuclear power plants. There are a lot of plants in Russia that are crumbling in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which is a huge security risk. In some places, it’s so bad that anyone could walk in and steal radioactive fuel. Ivan’s group pressed for greater security, tried to coordinate with the government to secure the money needed to provide it.”
“And you worked with him?”
“Yes. The first time I met him was at an NSG dinner. He was in town to drum up U.S. support for the latest round of talks with the Russian government, and I was seated next to him at the table. He turned to me, looked me up and down, and said, ‘My dear, you are too pretty for this job. No one will take you seriously. You should get out while you’re still young, find yourself a husband.’” She smiled wryly at the memory. “He was so...charming about it that I couldn’t get angry at him. Over the next few days, I sat in on the meetings and eventually convinced him that I knew what I was talking about. After that, he decided to take me under his wing and introduce me to his contacts in Russia.”
She paused, glancing up to find Thomas watching her, his gaze steady as he listened. He nodded encouragingly, so she took a deep breath and continued.
“That’s how we started working together. He was always very kind to me, making sure I was comfortable and included. He went so far as to introduce me to his family, take me to his daughter’s concerts, his wife’s dinner parties. I returned the favor when he was stateside, showing him around D.C. and keeping him fed and entertained when we weren’t in meetings. Not that kind of entertainment,” she said darkly, seeing his brows rise slightly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Thomas replied, eyes wide with false innocence. She glared at him, but he merely smiled in return. “Was there ever any indication he was involved in something...shady?”
She shook her head forcefully, denying the question before he’d even finished asking it. “No. No way. Ivan was a good man—he’d dedicated his life to keeping these dangerous materials out of the wrong hands, and there’s no way he would have compromised that.”
“Not even for money? It sounds like securing these sites takes a lot of cash. Is it possible he was selling a bit on the side, not enough to be suspicious, but enough to fund some other operations?”
Claire blinked at him, not following this line of thinking. Was he serious? “Why would he do that? Why would he sell off spent fuel, only to turn around and use the money to keep spent fuel from getting into the wrong hands?”
“Maybe he didn’t think he was selling to the bad guys,” Thomas said, shrugging a shoulder as if he didn’t care either way.
“That’s not logical,” she pointed out, needing Agent Kincannon to understand the fallacy of his argument. “Anyone who wants spent fuel has questionable motives, and Ivan knew that better than