“He’ll come back,” Cooper says into the silence.

Emma stares. “What is going on? What’s wrong with Bell?”

“Gutmunsson is…” Cooper sighs and sits down, loosening his jacket. “Simon Gutmunsson was arrested for a series of murders between 1978 and 1980 in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. During the arrest, there was a standoff, and unfortunately one of the Marshals on the scene was attacked. He died later in the hospital.”

Emma feels a great cog turning. “Gutmunsson killed Bell’s father.”

“Yes.”

“He told me it happened, but not how. That’s—” She rolls it over in her mind, both the information and what Cooper has done with it. “That’s cruel.”

“It’s necessary.” Cooper maintains his stolid calm. “Bell knows we need this interview.”

“Well, you clearly didn’t tell him that when he came on board.” She narrows her eyes at Cooper. “And if it’s so necessary, why wasn’t Gutmunsson on the list before?”

“He wasn’t on the list before because I didn’t have the permissions before.”

Emma gets up from her chair because the need to move is strong. She wants a little distance from Cooper, too, so she can see him through a wider lens. “Why is Gutmunsson the hardest subject?”

“You don’t know anything about the case?”

Emma thinks. If Gutmunsson was arrested in 1980, that was the year after Huxton. She spent most of that year between her parents’ house and her therapist’s office, in the daily grind of recovery. There are whole months of that year she doesn’t even remember.

“Enlighten me.”

“I suggest you read the file.” For the first time, there’s a flicker of disturbance in Cooper’s expression. “Gutmunsson is a difficult subject because he’s smart. His parents had him IQ-tested at fourteen—he was in the ninety-eighth percentile then. Now… I don’t know how you’d measure him now.”

“So he’s an intelligent, manipulative predator. What else?”

“He communicates with me.” Cooper drops that into the conversation like he’s uncomfortable with it. “I was the second unit agent on the case. But I can’t be the one to go see him—give him what he wants and he just keeps taking. He’s incarcerated at St. Elizabeths, in DC. I’ll drive you both up there. I can brief you further on the way.”

“You can’t ask Bell to do this.” Why it’s really obvious to her and not to Cooper, Emma can’t imagine. “That would be like asking me to interview Huxton.”

“Huxton is dead.” Cooper says it like a full stop. Now he’s not expressionless. Now he’s showing some intensity. “And we are waging a war here, Miss Lewis. These offices are the primary line of defense. Every day I keep fighting.”

“I get that, but—”

“So please understand me when I say this. Huxton is dead—we can’t learn anything more from him now. But Gutmunsson is alive. Something he might say, something he might allow to slip out, could form the basis of another insight, another piece of the puzzle. Bell knows that. He knows we need that.”