FBI section chief Donald Raymond sounds pissed even at a distance. “I call down to your office, they tell me you’re in Columbus. What the fuck are you doing in Ohio, Ed?”

Cooper’s habit is to always respond to Raymond with calm. “Don, we talked about this.”

“I thought you were kidding. You’re not kidding? You seriously want to send an eighteen-year-old girl into maximum security prisons to interview serial murderers?”

“She won’t be going in alone.”

“Oh, right, sure. She’ll be going in with your other candidate, what’s-his-name… Travis Bell, who’s—” There’s the sound of Raymond flicking through file notes. “Who’s not even old enough to buy a beer. That’s great, Ed.”

“Don, we tried sending agent interviewers in to see these prisoners. You could hear crickets three states away. If we send in teenage interviewers, at least we’ll have tried something different. And these aren’t green kids, remember. They’re veterans.”

“This Lewis girl,” Raymond says. “She survived the Huxton thing, right? How many did Huxton do? Nine?”

“Nine,” Cooper confirms.

“So number ten got lucky.”

Through the plexiglass of the phone booth, Cooper tracks Emma’s retreating figure. “It had nothing to do with luck. She didn’t get rescued. She fought. Escaped.”

“Okay, so she’s a soldier. Same as this Travis Bell. He’s Barton Bell’s kid? From the Gutmunsson case? Jesus.”

“Yes.” Cooper pauses, so they can both give the Gutmunsson incident the moment of somber contemplation it deserves. “Bell went into USMS training soon as they let him. Takes after his dad, the instructors are saying.”

“Good for him.” Raymond pauses. “This is gonna be a tough gig, Ed. You really want to send these kids back into the nightmare?”

Raymond is not known in the bureau for his insight. This is the first insightful thing he’s said since the conversation started and Cooper runs with it, speaks now with the terrible authority of battlefields served. “After a thing like that, Don, I don’t think the nightmare ever lets you go. You just get better at dealing with it. These two are dealing with it. Let’s give them a chance to help.”

Raymond huffs. “All right, then. You want to give it a try, you let it run. But listen to me, Ed. This is a one-time pass. They come in, they do the work, claim their per diem, go home. I find out they’ve overstepped, or I hear one single whisper about this in the press, and I’ll pull the plug so fast you’ll hit your chin on the drain hole going down. Are we perfectly clear?”

“Sir, yessir.” Cooper finds himself slipping into his old Marine disciplines when something sticks in his craw.

“Now, any updates on Pennsylvania? Carter said there were two bodies this time.”

“That’s correct. I’m still waiting on forensics—I’ll give you a full report when I return to base.”

“All right, keep me in the loop. Goddammit, these monsters just keep multiplying like the fucking Hydra.” The sound of Raymond’s pen clicking. “Did the Lewis girl even agree to come on board?”