By 9:45 PM, the aggressively bright fluorescent lights inside a giant Dollar General are enough to give anybody a headache, especially if you’ve been there all day. Ariel would know. She’s worked there for two years, watching most of the town pass through her register. But one family stood out. They always came in just before closing, carrying a smell of cat urine, their children clinging close, hair hanging over their eyes, never looking up. The family always bought the same things: a jug of water… and a large bottle of vegetable oil. On June 29, Ariel rang them up like usual. The next day, she saw them on the news. Sixteen children, crammed into a 12-by-12 room, in what’s now called the Ohio “House of Horrors.” And one question lingers: what were they doing with the vegetable oil?