“Yes,” I answered quietly. “That’s what he said. We met in the hotel bar yesterday evening.”
The officer scribbled something into his notebook.
“Do you know his real last name?”
The question caught me completely off guard.
I stared at him, speechless.
“No… He only told me his first name.”
A heavy silence settled over the room.
The detective released a quiet sigh.
“Unfortunately, you’re not the first woman he’s approached this way.”
Her words hit me harder than I expected.
“What… what do you mean?” I whispered.
Without saying anything, she opened the folder.
Several photographs were clipped inside.
Every one of them showed Andrey.
But in each picture he stood beside a different woman.
Different hotels.
Different cities.
Different smiles.
“He is a professional serial fraudster,” she said calmly. “His pattern is always the same. He targets women around your age, gains their trust quickly, collects personal and banking information, empties their accounts, and disappears before anyone realizes what happened.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed before my legs gave out.
“No…”
I shook my head.
“That can’t be true… He was so kind… so thoughtful…”
Tears burned behind my eyes again.
This time it wasn’t only heartbreak.
It was humiliation.
Confusion.
The crushing realization that everything I had believed over the past twenty-four hours had been carefully manufactured.
“We’ve been tracking him for months,” the detective continued. “He constantly changes identities and travels with forged documents. He’s extremely careful.”
She paused.
“But this morning he finally made a mistake.”
I looked up immediately.
“He tried withdrawing far too much money from your account.”
My pulse quickened.
“He… tried again?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“That attempt gave us a lead. That’s why we’re here. We need your help.”
She closed the folder.
“Try to remember everything.”
“Every conversation.”
“Every gesture.”
“Anything that seemed insignificant.”
I covered my face with my hands.
Fragments of the previous night flooded back into my mind.
His smile.
The way he looked at me.
His reassuring voice.
His gentle touch.
The endless questions about my family, my work, my children, my savings.
Then one horrifying realization struck me.
He hadn’t simply stolen my money.
He had been studying me.
Every answer I gave.
Every emotion I showed.
Every weakness I unknowingly revealed.
He had already decided I would be an easy target long before I realized I was being tested.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed through the hallway.
Someone outside was speaking urgently into a police radio.
“He may not have acted alone…”
Another voice answered.
“We have reason to believe he has accomplices.”
A fresh wave of fear settled over me.
But this fear felt different.
Heavier.
Darker.
This was no longer just the story of a charming stranger who had betrayed my trust.
It had become something far more dangerous.
Without even realizing it, I had been pulled into a criminal operation far larger than myself.
Chapter 3. A Trail That Vanishes Into Thin Air
“We need to review the hotel surveillance footage immediately,” the officer said before turning and hurrying into the corridor.
I remained seated on the edge of the bed, unable to move.
The words kept circling inside my head.
Serial fraudster.
Fake identities.
We’ve been hunting him for months.
Each phrase made the nightmare feel even more real.
The female investigator remained in the room with me.
“Valentina Petrovna,” she said gently, “I need you to go back through last night as carefully as you can. Every minute. Every conversation. Even the smallest detail could help us.”
I slowly closed my eyes.
The hotel bar came back into focus.
The soft amber lighting.
The half-finished glass of wine.
And Andrey’s calm, reassuring smile.
He had sat beside me so naturally that it had seemed like pure coincidence—as though fate itself had arranged our meeting.
Only now did I realize how quickly the conversation had shifted.
At the time, his questions felt casual.
Looking back, every one of them had served a purpose.
“He asked whether I lived alone,” I said quietly. “Then he asked about my children… about my pension… He even wanted to know where I kept my savings.”
The investigator’s expression immediately changed.
She straightened in her chair.
“Exactly as we suspected,” she murmured. “He wasn’t making conversation. He was building trust, one question at a time. That’s his method.”
Just then, another knock sounded at the door.
A second officer stepped inside.
“We found something on the security cameras.”
Both of us looked at him.
“He left the hotel at exactly 6:12 this morning.”
“Was he alone?” the investigator asked sharply.