At two o’clock I walked into the Lafayette Street branch of Cape May Savings, the air inside smelling of old paper and carpet cleaner, and slid my debit card through the window to Martha, a teller I had known for years, with her silver-rimmed glasses and her small apologetic smile.

I need to withdraw eight thousand four hundred dollars from my personal savings, I said.

“I see the account here, Ms.

Vance, but there is a red flag on the screen.” What kind of flag, I asked.

“The funds have been transferred into a restricted escrow holding.

According to the system, this account was linked to the primary Duncan commercial line on April tenth as secondary collateral for the beachfront construction bonds.”

I never signed an authorization for that link, I said.