THE DAY AFTER HE FINDS the women, he paces the boardwalk, up and down and up and down and up and down. All the stores sell the same things—T-shirts printed with pictures of neon sunsets, wire cages filled with sad, slow hermit crabs whose shells are covered with glitter and painted designs: baseballs, moons. But at one of the shops, above the crabs, a row of cameras hangs from plastic hooks, the disposable kind in a bright yellow wrapper—his grandfather used to bring them along on their crabbing trips, or take pictures of Luis and his grandmother on the porch, his grandmother giving him a silly poke in the cheek so that he would smile, and in a few days Luis could hold the glossy images, feeling like a piece of himself was now kept safely inside. He chooses a camera from the display and brings it to the counter. He tries to control the shaking in his hands when he passes his money to the clerk. He know he’s taking a risk, knows what will happen if this goes wrong. Men in black boots kicking down his door. The cops who laughed at him, coming to pick him up, cuff him, haul him away. He thinks of more words. WOMEN, HURT, KILLED. They are the truth, but how little help they would provide him. How little they convey. And still, he knows he needs to try. The women are there every time he closes his eyes.

He jumps at every touch, every person who passes by a little too close, every bird that swoops above him on the boardwalk, flapping its wings in a craze. He waits until he doesn’t have to go to work and leaves early in the morning, when the sun has just edged over the ocean and sits low in the sky. The tips of the reeds are pale gold. He takes photos of the motel sign, the sunset that lights up one ray at a time, the parking lot to its right, the swath of marsh he cut through before. He will have to photograph his path without capturing his footprints—he hopes the police will still be able to find the way. He hopes it will be enough.

His stomach starts to flutter and twist the farther in he steps. In every breath he takes, he swears he smells it now, tastes it: The flesh. The decay. It’s in his lungs, a part of him. He covers his mouth with his shirt, takes a photo looking back toward the motel, to show its size in the distance. He knows he must be close now. The mud has started to creep up his boots, sticky and thick. He takes one more deep breath to prepare himself. Mud, bodies, grass, salt.

Will it be worse? he wonders, before he parts the segment of tall reeds that hid the clearing. Will it be worse, the second time, knowing what’s there?