The judicial system didn’t know what to do with Dennis. He was considered to be too young to go to a juvenile facility, let alone prison, even though he was guilty of assault at the very least, and a case could certainly have been made for attempted murder. He had no relatives willing to take responsibility for him. No families in the foster care system would take him.

The temporary solution had been to house him in the county mental hospital. Partly her fault, Anne thought. She had been the one fighting to keep him out of the juvenile system by arguing that he was sick and needed help.

She had quit teaching to finish her degree in child psychology in part because of Dennis Farman. She had taken the training course to become a court-appointed special advocate for children specifically because of Dennis. Someone had to act as his voice in the court system and try to explain to him what was going on.

Troubled as he was, guilty as he was, he was still a little boy lost with no one in his corner. Anne had stood up and taken the job.

It wasn’t that she wanted the job. It wasn’t that she held any affection for Dennis Farman, personally. He was inherently unlikeable. The crime he had committed was shocking and terrible. It wasn’t even that she believed he could be salvaged or saved. She simply couldn’t stand by and watch a child be cut adrift for the rest of his life.

Vince wasn’t particularly happy about it. He worried she would only be disappointed at the futility of her battle and would, in the end, be heartbroken. Since her husband was one of the world’s leading experts on the criminal mind, it was difficult to argue with him on the subject. Anne had known only one homicidal child.

There was no doubt Dennis exhibited classic signs of being a sociopath with no ability to empathize with others. He was filled with rage at the rough hand life had dealt him. Anne suspected he had attacked Cody to make someone else hurt as much as he did. And to further complicate and twist his profile, Dennis had been harboring dark, sexually tinted fantasies for a long time—especially troubling in a child so young.

“You think I’m a freak. I know you do. Everybody does. Everybody hates me.”

“I don’t hate you, Dennis. Nobody hates you. Everybody hates what you did to Cody.”

He scowled and looked down at the table, pretending to draw on it with his thumb. Anne wondered what he was imagining. She would never forget the day she had discovered Dennis’s notebook masterpiece depicting naked women with knives in their chests. It was the first time she had ever really understood the concept of a person’s blood running cold.

“He didn’t die,” Dennis said. “What’s the big deal?”