She starts to say I don’t know but then she stops herself. He’s not a dumb kid. “Well, I guess there are a few reasons. She might have been there to meet someone. Someone she didn’t want in her house. She might have been forcibly taken there. Or maybe she was killed at home and the killer put her on the park bench.”

“He didn’t try to conceal her. He wanted her found.”

She gulps at her wine. “I guess.”

Grant has a look on his face like he’d like to kill the killer himself. “The killer had to be comfortable with killing her in the open. Someone could have seen. Even super early on a Sunday morning.”

“Maybe. Maybe they were both in the park and he didn’t intend to kill her.”

“He.”

“I think it’s probably a man. But, hon, this could have been a random thing. Maybe she saw someone breaking the law in the park. Maybe a guy tried to kidnap her, to assault her, and she fought back.”

Grant frowns. “If I were looking for a victim, I’d go to a park in Austin, where there’s foot traffic at night, not way out here where the park’s normally empty.”

“I can’t guess what might be in the mind of someone like this.”

“But we have to,” Kyle says. “I mean, what if this is a stranger and he comes back?” He’s walked in with his own glass of wine, takes a long sip. Iris sees him wince at the alcohol on his swollen lip.

“You don’t need to scare the children,” Iris says, tight-lipped.

Grant stands. He has the look on his face Iris recognizes, when he wants to say something but can’t decide whether or not to say it. He opens his mouth, then shuts it. “People are texting me,” he said. “About what happened. I haven’t answered. Not a one.”

“That’s probably wise,” Kyle says.

“I can’t ignore my friends forever.”

“Just tell them you can’t discuss it,” Iris suggests.

“That works so well with teenagers,” Julia calls from the kitchen. “Tell them that the police say you can’t talk.”

“Is that to make him look cooler?” Iris asks.

“We don’t care about that right now, Mom. If he invokes the police, people back off. We need one message as a family.” Julia comes into the living room, sounding like a public relations executive instead of a teenage student.

They all look at her in surprise. Iris thinks she should have scrolled through more of the messages to learn how Julia deflects people.