She feels a cool streak of wet on her cheek. “There’s nothing shiny about me.”

Simon looks at her kindly. “You think your glow is gone. You think that by saving these new lost ones, it will come back, but that’s not true. It never left. You’re only a little tarnished. Rub off the rust and your beacon is revealed, like a sliver of light in the dark.” He sighs and stands, moves to his desk. “Now all these compliments have exhausted me, and I have a paper to write. Goodbye, dear Emma. It’s been lovely to see you. I’ll look forward to our next conversation.”

“That’s all?” Emma stands also. “Simon, I need more. How do we find out who he’s choosing next? Simon.”

When she steps forward involuntarily, too close to the barricade, Pradeep takes her gently by the arm.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bell thinks he can endure just about anything so long as it’s not a woman suffering.

He remembers his uncle Luther—who wasn’t really his uncle but had been his father’s partner since basic training—coming to the house to tell Rosa Bell that her husband was dead. She made a long, low, ululating moan as she collapsed in the doorway. Travis could hardly comprehend his own pain, and here was his mother’s: no high, dramatic screams, just bone-deep groans, pain felt in the dark, hollow well of the body. It chilled and wrenched him by turns.

His sisters shambled around for weeks, blank-eyed and dry-lipped. He was supposed to be there for them, but their suffering made him feel picked clean. It made him want to punch a wall.

He has a similar feeling of helplessness now as he stands outside the door of the women’s bathroom in the foyer of St. Elizabeths, listening to Lewis dry-retch following her interview with Gutmunsson.

“Fuck this,” he mutters. He turns and knocks twice on the wood in warning. “Lewis, I’m coming in.”

Her voice is threadbare. “All right.”

The bathroom is full of old-fashioned tile and fixtures, spacious and echoey. They’re the only people in there. Emma flushes the toilet she’s been leaning over and leaves the stall. She washes her mouth at the handbasin, swilling and spitting out water.

“I’m okay.” She looks more wan than he’s ever seen her. He reminds himself he’s only known her a week. It’s battlefield camaraderie, this feeling like they’ve been friends for years.

“You keep saying you’re okay, but every time you say it I believe it less and less.”

“No, really.” She dries her face with paper towels. “He just… He hit me with some questions about Huxton. It caught me by surprise, is all.”

“Lewis, you know trading in personal information with Gutmunsson is bad strategy. I said that at the beginning.”

“Then why did you suggest to Cooper that I go in without a wire?”

There’s a beat of acknowledgment. He tongues his back teeth. “I did that to protect your privacy. Cooper wants the information, regardless of the cost. He wants you in there with a goal in mind. But Cooper isn’t the one dealing with this guy. You are. Don’t commit more than you’re willing to.”