She shredded the paper.

Dear Killer,

Maybe you’re not really killing families to kill them. Maybe you’re sending a message. Like you’re straight out of The Sopranos. Maybe there are a lot more people who owe you money, who need that message, who need to pay up. Who is it? Is there some underground gambling ring I don’t know about? Somewhere, is there someone having fun?

She shredded the paper.

Dear Killer,

I’ve been trying to come up with ideas for my own underground gambling ring. I’ve heard stories about cockfighting and rat races. All sorts of things you can bet on. I’ve thought of pretty dark ones. Like betting on which animal would live longer when exposed to the air. Can you believe we still have animals, killer?

She shredded the paper. A light went on in the pod that meant her time was up.

Izabel went to the food court to get something to eat. A young man named Lucas took her order, a poké bowl with ponzu and cucumber. She wondered if life would be so different without name tags. If life would be so different if she never learned another man’s name in her life.

As she ate, there was a breaking news story on her tablet. A federal agent had been sent in from the capital to help with the investigation—Inspector Paz. The article showed her picture. She was not smiling. Izabel thought she looked like a woman who could get things done.

She took her empty bowl and chopsticks to the window with the conveyor belt that went back to where they washed the dishes. Next to it, on the wall, was a poster someone had taped up. It was Baba Yaga’s house on chicken legs with skulls all around it that were drawn a little too realistically. But it was kind of beautiful to feel another kind of fear for a second.

Back at home, Izabel and Kaito shouted quick hellos to each other.

“Everything good?” he asked, coming to the door of his office.

“Yeah,” she said.

“And Cami was fine?”

“Totally,” she said. “Any news on the application?”

“No,” he said. “I’d tell you.” And he disappeared into the dark room again.

She tried to think of something useful she could do. I could finally go through Cami’s winter clothes, she thought.

So she put clothes that Cami had grown out of into a bag, after unfolding the shirts, holding them up, looking them over, checking each tag, and folding them up again. She stretched her arms and arched her back and then went through another drawer. It felt like accomplishing something. But then she was done.

There was less than an hour before Cami came home. She went to the couch with her tablet. She turned on an old show where people made cakes competitively.