“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.