In the light, Padilla saw little hourglass smears pressed into the carpet; tiny shapes that Padilla studied until he realized they were footprints. These footprints circled the bodies, tracking from the woman to the man, then into the kitchen and out again, around and around each body. The prints led into the hall toward the bedrooms.

Padilla stepped past Bigelow along the hall. The footprints faded, grew dim, and then vanished at the final door. Padilla stepped into the dark room, his mouth dry, and flashed the room with his flashlight before turning on the lights.

"My name is Frank Padilla. I'm a policeman. I'm here to help."

The little girl sat on the floor at the foot of her bed with her back to the wall. She held a soiled pillowcase to her nose as she sucked her index finger. Padilla would always remember that-she sucked the index finger, not the thumb. She stared straight ahead, her mouth working as she sucked. Dried blood crusted her feet. She could not have been more than four years old.

"Honey?"

Bigelow came up behind him, stepping past to see the girl.

"Jesus, you want me to call?"

"We need an ambulance and Social Services and the detectives. Tell them we have a multiple homicide, and a little girl."

"Is she okay?"

"Call. Don't let the people outside near the house, and don't let them hear you. Don't answer their questions. Close the front door on your way out so they can't see."

Bigelow hurried away.

Frank Padilla holstered his weapon and stepped into the room. He smiled at the little girl, but she didn't look at him. She was a very small girl with knobby knees and wide black eyes and blood smudges on her face. Padilla wanted to go to her and hold her the way he would hold his own daughter, but he didn't want to scare her, so he did not approach. She was calm. Better for her to remain calm.

"It's okay, honey. It's going to be okay. You're safe now."

He didn't know if she heard him or not.

Frank Padilla stood looking at the tiny child in the bloody house with the miniature footprints she made as she walked from her mother to her father to her brother, unable to wake them, going from one to the other, circling through red shallows like a child lost at the shores of a lake until she finally returned to her room to hide in plain sight against the wall. He wondered what had happened to the little girl and what she had seen. Now, she stared at nothing, nursing her finger like a pacifier. He wondered if she still wore a diaper and if the diaper needed changing. Four was old for a diaper. He wondered what she was thinking. She was only four. Maybe she didn't know.