But he didn’t go anywhere. Jimmy was already standing right behind him, his broad shoulders blocking the aisle. Jimmy wasn’t in uniform, but he had his old department windbreaker on, and his hand was resting near his belt.

“Sit back down, buddy,” Jimmy said. His voice was low and steady, the kind of voice that doesn’t invite discussion.

Just then, Martha’s friend from the local news station walked through the front door, followed by a cameraman with a large, heavy lens. The red recording light was already glowing.

Marcus looked at the camera, then at Jimmy, and finally back at me. His face had gone completely pale, a dull, pasty gray under the fluorescent lights of the restaurant.

I looked back at the booth where Tracey and Kayla were sitting. Tracey was holding her mouth, her eyes wide as she looked at the printed mugshot on the table. Kayla was staring at Marcus, her face pale, her silver charm bracelet silent in her lap.

Within ten minutes, two local police cruisers pulled into the parking lot, their blue lights flashing against the restaurant windows. It turned out Marcus—or Julian, or whatever his real name was—had an active warrant for fraud in neighboring Lake County.

They escorted him out in handcuffs, his expensive gray suit looking wrinkled and cheap in the bright daylight.

We drove home in the Buick. Nobody spoke for a long time. The silence in the car wasn’t angry anymore, just tired. Kayla sat in the back, looking out the window.

When we got back to my kitchen on Maple Street, Tracey sat down at the table. She looked at her hands, her thumb rubbing her wedding ring.

“I am sorry, Mom,” she whispered. Her voice was small. She smelled of her lavender spray, but it didn’t smell like excitement anymore. “I wanted it to be real so badly. I wanted her to have something special.”

“I know, honey,” I said. I went over and turned on the stove to make another pot of tea. “We all want that.”

Kayla came down the stairs. She had taken off her shoes. She walked over to the table and laid the gold-edged business card on the linoleum. It looked small and harmless now, just a piece of cardboard with fake gold paint.

“Can we just have some toast, Grandma?” she asked.

“Of course we can,” I said.

I stood at the counter, buttering the bread while the toaster hummed. Marcus was gone, and the local news would probably run the story at six o’clock to warn other families. We had our eight hundred dollars, and Kayla was safe. But as I looked at Tracey and Kayla sitting quietly at my old table, I knew it would take some time before the warmth came back to our afternoons. I put the plate of toast on the table. It was just a Tuesday, and we had to start over.