CHAPTER ONE
Edmund Cooper, federal agent, stands at the edge of the training field and looks up. There is flashing movement between the trees in the forested area beside the athletics oval. Ohio State University maintains an obstacle path in the woods there, and students sometimes run drills. Two students emerge from the tree line now. Cooper watches one of them carefully.
She’s a very slight figure, her smallness exaggerated by a baggy gray OSU sweatshirt and black training pants cut off at the knees. She looks healthy. That’s positive. In the photos from two and a half years ago she looked like a wreck. Now her cheeks are ruddy from exertion, her focus keen. She runs hard, though, the armpits of her sweatshirt stained dark. Her skin is white, but her legs are very tan.
And she’s buzzed her hair. It’s a regulation-style Number One, like you’d get in the corps, or in jail. Cooper tries not to read too much into that. He doesn’t really know this girl, except for what he’s seen in the file.
He waits by the edge of the oval as Emma splits from her running partner and talks with the coach. Patience is one of Cooper’s particular talents.
She’s heading for the locker rooms when he calls out. “Emma Lewis? Miss Lewis?”
It’s there in her body language: that jerk, the instant of animal tension. The flat assessment in her eyes, even once she realizes he’s wearing a suit, holding up credentials.
He stays exactly where he is. “Miss Lewis, my name is Edmund Cooper. I work for the government. I’d like to speak with you, if I may. Somewhere public, if that is your preference.”
It’s okay if he sounds rehearsed. Formal and polite is fine. Emma waits a few beats, then takes the business card he’s holding out. Cooper is reminded of feeding deer off the back of his mother’s porch in New England.
“You work for the government?” She’s still perspiring after the run, but her breathing is already back under control. She glances at the card, at him. “You’re a federal agent, this says.”
“That’s correct. I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
She makes a single styptic blink. “I don’t have any more information about the Huxton case. I’ve told the police everything I know—”
“No, no,” he says. “Miss Lewis, this meeting is not in regard to that case. This is unrelated. Can we perhaps sit down somewhere to talk?”
Hesitation before she relents. “Sure. Uh—here is fine, I guess.”
She directs him to a picnic table in a grassy open area beside the equipment shed. Nice and public, but with enough distance for privacy. It’s sunny, though. He’s sweating a little in his jacket.
Emma has a towel draped around her neck and a canteen on the table to her right. The dark stubble on her scalp is like a fine down. It suits her, actually. She looks compact, contained. Fierce. Cooper makes sure to sit across from her at the table, give her space.
“Thank you for speaking with me. It’s nice to meet you.”
She doesn’t respond to that. “Did you fly from Virginia?”
“No, I drove.”
“That’s a long drive.”
“Yes, it is. You study psychology here at OSU, is that right? Hoping to specialize in pediatric psychology? Your professor said you were inspired by a positive experience with an excellent therapist—”
“Yes.” She tilts her head, lets the sun fall on her face. “Mr. Cooper, why have you come to see me?”
Time to plunge in. “Miss Lewis, have you heard of the Behavioral Science section of the FBI?”
“Yes.” Her gaze is direct. “They do psychological assessments—profiles. They did a profile on Huxton.”
“We help in cases like that, yes. Violent crimes. Behavioral Science is a young area—we’ve been working active cases for less than a decade. But we seem to be one of the sections producing results.”
“You catch killers.”
She’s quick. He knew she was quick. “We look at the evidence and the information we have and try to figure out a pattern of behavior. Once we have a pattern, it allows us to narrow down suspects, even predict what a perpetrator might do next. It helps us find them faster.”
“Okay.”
He understands the change in her expression straightaway.
“It’s not one-hundred-percent accurate, Miss Lewis. Nothing is. We just do our best. But our success rate is generally high.” Not with Huxton. Huxton was a mess. Cooper buckles that shit down. It’s not helpful here. “The reason we’re successful is because we do our homework. We go into jails and institutions and interview the perpetrators we incarcerate. It’s a lot like a research project. The information we gather is compiled in a database and used to inform our profiling work.”
“Great.” Emma’s posture is very stiff.
There are times Cooper wishes he still smoked. He could light a cigarette, look more normal, relaxed. If you seem to relax, it relaxes the subject.
“Miss Lewis, we’ve interviewed about thirty-five incarcerated perpetrators from all over the country. But there’s a cohort of people we still don’t have access to. And it’s not because we can’t see them. They just… won’t speak to us.” He’s been looking at her, but now he really looks. “I’m talking about juvenile offenders.”
The OSU Buckeyes cheer squad is rehearsing on the other side of the oval. Cooper hears the rallying calls as a far-off stir of echoes.
“Juvenile killers.” Emma rolls the syllables in her mouth. Then she reaches for the canteen and takes a swig, like she’s washing away the taste. “There can’t be many teenage serial killers, though.”
“There’s enough.” He doesn’t want to come in hard, but he’s getting the feeling she responds better to that. “Everyone starts somewhere.”
“Like it’s a career.” She looks toward the oval.
“Bundy started at fourteen.”
She stares at him. She looks very young. He resists the instinct to be gentle. They need this. Her, or someone like her. There aren’t many people like her.
“Miss Lewis, we think the reason these teenage offenders won’t talk to us is because they distrust authority figures, including our interviewers. And this is why I’ve come to speak with you. We need someone to—”
“No.” She shifts, ready to rise.
“Five inmates. Five interviews, total.”
“Ha. Still no.”
“You would have support. A partner. A unit. It would be entirely safe—”
“Is that what you think?” She stands. “Mr. Cooper, you’ve come a long way, but you’re asking the wrong person.”
“I don’t believe I am. And I’d like you to think about what I’m offering.”
Her jaw locks and she breathes out her nose. “Okay. What are you offering?”
He keeps his voice even. “The chance to come in on a kind of scholarship. You’d defer your summer classes and come live on base with us over the break. You’d be paid as a candidate and given some bureau instructional training. If forensic psychology is something you decide to pursue, you could enter our program. Your education after your freshman year would be subsidized. Or if not, you could return here to complete any further units in pediatric psychology.”