Page 116 of Sexting the Pakhan

Pavel turns halfway in his seat. “Pakhan.”

I don’t look up. “What?”

“Lenkov is moving.”

That pulls me back.

I lock the phone and put it face down on my knee, but the image remains behind my eyes: two girls, hands linked, one smiling, one trying not to.

“Where?” I ask.

Pavel listens, then says, “Garden shed. He’s crouched near the back-left corner. Malik can’t see his hands.”

“Families still inside?”

“Yes.”

“Then Malik stays where he is.”

Pavel repeats the order.

Stepan looks toward the kindergarten. “If Lenkov opens the ground now, he may expose the cases.”

“He still has to carry them out.”

“And if he has someone inside watching?”

“Then that man watches us do nothing until the children leave.”

Stepan gives a small nod.

My phone vibrates again. I look down despite myself.

Unknown Number:Sorry. Wrong chat.

There it is. The sensible thing. The explanation that should end the matter.

I should type,No problem. Or better, nothing. Let her have her mistake back. Let her close the thread, put the phone away, and return to her children without imagining my eyes on them longer than necessary.

My thumb moves over the keyboard.

I don’t type.

Instead, I unlock the screen again and look at the photo one more time. This time, I notice the wall behind them. Paper leaves. A classroom board. A banner cut off at the top: WELCOME FAMIL?—

The same event.

My body goes still.

No. That is impossible.

I zoom in before I think better of it.

A painted mural is visible through a window behind the girls. Flowers on a fence. A sliver of a blue bird. The angle is wrong, blurry, incidental, but I have been watching that same painted fence for the last forty minutes from the service lane.

The children in the photo are here.

At Little Birch.