She walked further than she needed to, so she could relax in a private bathroom—she remembered where all the private ones were on that floor. She tried not to think of all the people who had thrown up in there, or had diarrhea. Instead she thought about all the women who had to juggle wipes and a cup for a urine sample, who chose to put the cup’s lid on the edge of the sink or on top of the toilet paper dispenser, who wondered what counted as contaminated and what didn’t.

She wasn’t ready to go back and be brave, braver than a regular woman who sometimes got bacterial vaginosis. I’ll be that brave person starting at seven o’clock, she thought. Not before then.

She leaned against the wall by the sink. She needed to know what happened in Tampa, she decided. She didn’t open her app; she searched Tampa, serial killer, 2017, arrested. His face came up. He was caught after someone saw a gun in his bag at work.

Chapter Thirty

Paz looked Izabel over before the press conference, and she nodded, to herself it seemed. Then she looked Izabel in the eye and said, “Incite him.”

“How?” Izabel asked.

“Make him sound weak. Call him names. We’re not sure what sets him off so we’ll have to try a little of everything. Mention his mother if you can.”

“His mother?”

“It’s usually a trigger.”

“But—”

“Look, if it doesn’t come up, it doesn’t come up. I’m just saying, if you have the opportunity, mention his mother. Or something about his abilities as a lover.”

“I’m going to sound insane.”

“Insane is fine.”

“I don’t like blaming mothers.”

“Well, look, we’ll go back in time and give everyone access to birth control and abortions and great parents so that no one keeps secrets or has a kid they don’t want and then we won’t have all these papers about kids and their twisted relationships with their mothers, but until we get a time machine, this is what we’ve got.” Paz adjusted Izabel’s shirt. “You ready?”

“I guess,” Izabel said.

Paz gave a statement addressing, broadly, what had happened in Izabel’s first encounter with the killer. She had told Izabel that they would focus on that and not mention the second time if they didn’t have to. Then it was Izabel’s turn at the podium.

“Can you tell us, in your own words, what it was like when you saw him?” a reporter asked.

“I didn’t think. I stopped the car and got out, ran up to him, and then went into the house through the tear he—his knife had made.”

“Did you see the knife?”

“Yes, and I described it to Inspector Paz.”

Paz nudged her.

“It was large, like he was compensating for something.”