Izabel kept going. “Would that have made a difference to you?” She started taking the photographs out of the file and putting them all over the table.

He looked away.

“Now, if I were the killer, like they thought, I wouldn’t mind looking at these, because I would have felt that I had saved them from living in this fake, perfect world. But I’m not the killer, so seeing these families, all dead, it makes me sick. Does it make you sick?”

“Yes,” he said, not looking at the pictures.

“Yesterday you made it seem like you killed them for the same reason that they thought I could be the killer.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“That’s how it seemed to me, too. I thought we were the same like that, maybe.”

He looked at her, over the pictures.

“But now I don’t think that. Now I think you killed them thinking you were saving them from having their hearts broken when their parents died.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I think your dad died and it broke your heart and you didn’t want anyone else to grow up and have their hearts broken.” Her stomach turned, provoking him this way.

“My dad’s alive.”

“We can’t find him. Where is he?”

Patrick didn’t say anything but his eyes were getting wet. They shone in the light of the room.

“It doesn’t matter,” Izabel said. “That’s not my point. It’s that the connection I felt yesterday—it’s gone. You don’t get it. How shit it is here.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I don’t believe you.” Everything she said came out sharply.

“They act like we don’t miss the air.”

“No.”

“They act like we don’t remember lying in the grass in the sun.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You don’t really get it.”

“They act like their displays in the mall are good enough for us.”

She shouted at him, “You’re not angry about it how I am!”

He stood up and yelled, “I killed them because it’s not real!”

Did that mean she could leave? She wanted to run out of the room. But Paz said in her ear, “That might be enough, but press him to confirm who he killed.”

His lawyer looked frozen. She wondered if he’d actually come in here thinking Patrick wasn’t the killer.

“Killed who?” Izabel said.

Patrick sat back down.

“Killed the people in these photos?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“But you cut their houses, and that killed them.”

He half-nodded. They couldn’t use that.

“Can I get a moment with my client?” the lawyer said.

“Do you need a break, Patrick?” Izabel asked. “That’s fine. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you—if I leave at this point, I’m not coming back in.”

“I don’t need a break,” he said.