Behind the fountain a section of the mall was closed off. A sign said water attraction coming soon. Izabel had read about it. A stream that ended in a long shallow lake. Kayaks and paddleboats. The ceiling would be extra low to help minimize the amount of air it would require. They would paint it like the sky.

Izabel had been excited about it. She missed the water, and running her fingers through a boat’s wake, as it began, beside the boat. Her mother used to take her kayaking. The next day Izabel would always beg for them to go again, but her mother would press her fingers into her upper arms, into the backs of them, and complain that she was sore. “Another time,” she would say.

Once, before the air turned, Izabel went by herself. She realized there was a way to move an oar through the water such that it looked right, but the boat hardly moved. And then there was the way that worked: her fisted hand perpendicular to the water, her arm bent to 90 degrees, and then the hard pull back, keeping the oar broad, with that drag, that resistance. She crossed a lake. She crossed back. The next day she was holding her arms like her mother had.

But the point, the point was that, with the murders, now the water attraction seemed frivolous.

Cami kept throwing pebbles and making absurd wishes. Izabel could hear a news report playing on someone’s tablet nearby. People had started flooding a small security company in town with requests for cameras to be posted outside their homes. But there weren’t enough cameras, or robots to post them, or workers to man the robots. The police had asked that the company not put up any of the cameras they did have, so there would not be a problem over who got them and who did not. The police asked that the people trust them to catch the killer.

Izabel and Cami sat next to each other in the food court and shared a pile of French fries.

“I haven’t woken up with blood again,” Cami said.

“No, honey, of course not.”

“I thought that once girls started to wake up with blood, it kept happening.”

“You mean your period? That wasn’t your period, honey. Didn’t Daddy tell you? I had a nosebleed and it went all over us.”

“I can’t have a baby yet?”

“No, no. It was only a nosebleed. When you’re older, you’ll get your period. But it will just be blood between your legs, once a month. Not all over your head like it was the other day.”

Cami’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oh no.” Izabel pulled her in. “What is it?”

“I wanted to have a baby.”

“One day you’ll have a baby. But not now. What would you do with a baby now?”

“I would read her books.”