They jaywalk—Kit is gasping at the scandal of it—with the street stretching out beneath her, it feels, like a frothing river, and Nina spots her and breaks off. Padgett makes herself not snap her head around to look for a van. There’s something off in the air, smoke from a fire or maybe that new Thai place, or just the same fear in her throat and the palm of her hand, pressed up against the little girl’s. Hurrying along next to Nina is a man, thuggish and stocky as a bodyguard, whom Padgett takes a minute to recognize as Gabriel, the husband who since a year ago does something-something systemizing with the Vic. It’s made him rich, richer even than before, and he is puffing now in a coat Nina had made for him in Rome.

“Where’s Daisy?” Kit asks. They’re right in front of the school. “Daisy!”

“Go to her, Kit,” Nina says, her eyes lightbulbed with panic. Her girl Daisy has the same shoes, which counts for friendship at their age. Kit lets go and scurries. Nina takes Padgett’s hand, a big ring poking at her. “It’s awful,” she says right away.

“What is?” Padgett asks. Nina’s face is so grim Padgett thinks for a minute the kidnapping has been pulled off, but Kitsune is right there, pigtailed and authoritative with her father’s chin. Beyond her is the door of the school, chained and padlocked, the metal so ridiculously thick and clangy it’s like an old cartoon. Padgett sees the shades drawn, shades she’s never seen, sternly all the way down the big fingerprinted windows.

“Closed,” Gabriel says, “for the duration, until further notice.”

“Further?” Padgett says. “Notice of what?”

“Vic didn’t tell you,” Nina says.

Padgett’s phone is all bells now, rung with the regularity of dance music, the kind drugs make better. They’re all, most of them, from her husband. “I think he’s finding out,” she says. “He went in early today, to talk to New York when it opened.”

Nina and Gabriel share a glance, the language of a marriage they’ve made work. Gabriel reaches up absently to fiddle with the ear stud Nina thinks is sexy. “There have been accusations,” he says.

“And only accusations,” Nina reminds them both, her tone indicating, of course, that the accusations are true.

“Sexual improprieties,” Gabriel says, “with a staff member and a student.”

“Between them,” Nina says. “And don’t say student, like it’s some coed. A child. A child was attacked.”

Padgett gives up on her phone. “What?”

“Right here is where,” Nina says. “Kitsune School. That guy with the who-knows-why colored contacts who looks like my old boyfriend kind of.”

“Reynard?” Padgett draws a police sketch in her mind, tosses it out. “No he doesn’t.”

“A little. Without the beard.”

“He has a beard?”