Cooper nods. “You’ll be provided with identification—the interview times are already set up. You go in, conduct the interview, write up your report, and submit it with your travel receipts. It should be pretty straightforward.”

This is all happening very fast. Emma thought there would be more preamble.

“Back up a little,” she says. “These interviews… This is the second run at them, is that right?”

“That’s correct,” Cooper says.

“What went wrong the first time?”

“The subjects… I explained this with you. They don’t talk to us.”

“They refuse to speak? They clam up?”

Cooper grimaces, undoes the button on his suit jacket. “Sometimes it’s like that. They withdraw. You can see the shutters roll down. Other times they reply in monosyllables. Swear. Whine. Last time we tried to interview McMurtry, he gave us a long diatribe about his treatment in prison—everything up to and including the quality of the toilet paper.”

“But nothing about the murders,” Emma says.

“That’s right.”

“And that’s the information you need.”

“We need details. What was their state of mind prior to each crime, what were they thinking about. How did they select their victims, what preparations did they make, if any. We don’t really expect any useful insight into motive from teenage subjects. Half the time they don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. But information about preparation, process, aftermath… that’s all stuff we can use.”

Emma watches Cooper’s face as he speaks and notices the cold in her fingertips. The room itself is cold, and in its emptiness she can hear the humming echo of the air-conditioning. Her chest feels tight. She’s about to go into prisons and talk to people like Huxton. No—Huxton was forty-two. She’ll be talking to teenage versions of Huxton, then.

It occurs to her again that she has almost no understanding of her own motive in this situation. Why is she doing this?

Bell fills the silence. “We’ll do our best, sir. What time should we—”

A knock on the door before it opens. The woman from Behavioral Science—the receptionist from the foyer—walks in and hands Cooper a folded note on yellow memo paper.

Cooper scans the note, rises, re-buttoning his jacket. “Excuse me, I’ve been called away. Tomorrow’s interview is at Beckley. That’s a four-and-a-half-hour drive, and you’ll need to report here at oh eight thirty tomorrow morning and collect materials before you leave. Don’t forget to keep your receipts.”

“Wait, what?” Emma starts to lift from her chair. “My suitcase is still in the trunk of my car—”

Cooper turns to the receptionist. “Betty, would you mind, with these two?” The woman nods. She is a white woman, about sixty, her hair blue-rinsed and perfectly coiffed. Cooper glances at Emma and Bell again as he walks toward the door. “Talk to Betty about photo IDs and dorm allocations. Unpack, get settled. I’ll speak to you again tomorrow, after the interview.”

He and Betty leave. Emma stares.

Bell gathers the folders, straightens them carefully. “He’s under the gun. There’s an active case in Pennsylvania—”