What happened to them after that, I did not arrange, and did not enjoy as much as you might think, and would not have prevented if I could.

The resort, its balance unpaid, canceled their room upgrades.

After a frantic round of phone calls, Jason managed to get the three of them into a cheap motel several miles inland from the beach — a place with a broken ceiling fan in Evelyn and Chloe’s room, and, for Jason, a squeaky twin mattress beside a window that would not fully close.

It was not a punishment I had designed.

It was what their actual money could buy, once mine was no longer available, and there is a certain clean justice in a person being returned, abruptly, to the exact size of their own resources.

That evening brought a second disaster of their own making.