That was what a stout man in golf shorts told them as he hustled back toward the farmhouse. Shaw looked at North. North shrugged. They kept going.

Goat yoga had been listed on the early evening activities. Shaw had never done goat yoga, but he’d done plenty of regular yoga, even some hot yoga, although he’d never managed to drag North to any of the classes. But goat yoga—well, Shaw wasn’t going to let that pass. And he wasn’t going to let North pass either, although North rolled his eyes so hard the whole way to the barn that Shaw was afraid they might fall out of his head.

They found a woman with long, gray hair sobbing in front of the barn. Right then, she had her hands in front of her face, and she was wearing approximately a million tarnished rings—either cheap silver, Shaw thought, or badly plated copper. When she shook with sobs, her skirt brushed straw along the ground. She had what Master Hermes, Shaw’s spiritual adviser, would have called an excellent aura, even with all the crying.

“If you even breathe a word about her aura,” North muttered as they approached, “I will wring your scrawny neck.”

“Yeah, but, look, normally, I wouldn’t even—”

“Not a word.”

A few men and women milled about. Closest to the barn were two older couples, the men visibly relieved that the goats had disappeared, the women wearing something like thirty-thousand dollars’ worth of work in their tucks and lifts and peels. A third woman stood with them but slightly apart; Shaw pegged her as the wife of the man in golf shorts who had been hurrying back to the farmhouse. Then, near a patch of clover, three girls in their mid-twenties stood in a loose knot, all of them in expensive yoga pants that left very little to the imagination. They kept throwing North looks; if they tried any harder, they might give him a concussion. Last of all, Shaw noted a pair of women with three black children of various ages milling around, the oldest, a boy who had to be thirteen, lost in the virtual world of his phone while the two younger kids chased each other up and down a low hill.

“We can at least ask what’s wrong,” Shaw said.

“We know what’s wrong. The goats are gone.”

“I just want to talk to her. Make sure she’s ok.”

North hooked Shaw by the collar, spun him around and grabbed his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, Shaw saw the yoga-pants gang take note of this, and the girls began a hasty conference, probably reassessing their chances with North.

“No,” North said.

“But I—”

“No. No mysteries. No investigations. No trouble. We came here because you’ve been through hell—”

“I’m fine.”

“—and you’re not sleeping—”

“I’ve got my ashwagandha. I’ll take it tonight. You’ll see.”