“V4U!” Kitsune is doubly astonished, at her father and at her luck. She bounds into a room that once had no purpose and now is where Kitsune lies on her back, barefoot, and holds a tray-sized screen over her, embedded with a prototype the Vic brought home like a conquering hero, V4U a working name for a system of things to watch. Padgett finds the name robotic and sort of sleazy, also the feeling she gets from Kit’s eyes when she gazes at it. They are both watching her go.

“Do you know,” the Vic says, “how many times I tried you?”

Padgett’s body has been rabbit-thumping for so long she’s forgotten how it used to feel, a normal rib cage and fingers that just stay there. “My phone was being an idiot,” she says, “and Vic, the chains on the door, Nina hysterical, all the gossip, Kit asking questions, I just wanted to get home.”

The Vic nods like that’s fair enough. Kitsune is already giggling in the room. Another baby, is what the room, Padgett just figures out, is really for. “We can call Teresa, or who’s the other nanny.”

He means Tessa. Teresa doesn’t work for them anymore. “I’m fine,” she says. “I’ll take her. Me and V4U.”

“You sure? Did you have something today?”

“I was going to make,” Padgett says, “some panicked phone calls.”

Her husband’s face sets. How easily the truth slides in, like a bookmark. “We dodged a bullet,” he says again.

Padgett feels like the bullet is still hovering, though. “You think it’s true.”

“I think Ariel hired a creep, yes,” the Vic says, although his eyes are sliding away from her. “And she was always one, too. She was conning Maureen all the time, telling her everything she thought she wanted to hear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Padgett, I don’t have time.” He uncovers the phone. “She lied to Maureen. Took too much money. There’s a lot of gears here and I’m shutting them down, but I have to move and I have to move things. Wednesday was supposed to be my Friday.”

Padgett’s purse has overturned. Things are clattering, all kinds of things, and it’s tears, the way things are going, on her face. “I’m just glad,” she says, “Kitsune’s OK.”

The Vic hangs up his phone. His arms are around her, all around her like she’s hiding in them. She is. She is really crying but also, isn’t she, a scam and a con. “Nothing happened to Kitsune,” he tells her.

“OK.”

“I’m telling you. He’s a creep but it’s probably hysteria. And I know what kid.”