But maybe he had just been shutting down an old fraud alert from years ago.

Maybe Gregory was telling the truth.

Maybe Beatrice had spent it all on the house.

Gregory ate his pie slowly, scraping every bit of cherry filling off his fork.

He talked to Dustin about local football scores and completely ignored me.

When the waitress dropped the green paper check in the middle of the table, Gregory didn’t reach for it.

He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and stood up from the booth.