across the shoreless river.

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Travelers”

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.