t’s hard to imagine a safer space in Houston than West University Place. Its unofficial motto is “The Neighborhood City,” and on a sweet spring night that was blessedly cool and clear, with mature live oaks spreading their protective branches over the tidy streets and the azaleas blooming in a riot of coral, fuchsia, and the whitest white, that’s what it seemed to be: a cozy, friendly oasis in the middle of a big, complicated metropolis. A place where four girls just entering their teens could head out for ice cream and cookies, unaccompanied, to a spot called Tiny’s Milk...