“Dan,” Juliette hissed, turning back to her son. “Fix this. Call the bank. Tell them your wife is having some kind of episode.”

“Mom, stop,” Sarah muttered, pulling at her mother’s arm again.

“I can’t just fix it,” Dan said.

He was tapping frantically on his screen now, his face pale.

“It takes twenty-four to forty-eight hours to clear a security hold once the audit protocol starts.”

“Then use your personal card,” Juliette said, gesturing impatiently with her manicured hand.

“That is the personal card,” Dan said, gesturing to the black plastic on the table. “Everything is linked, Mom. The mortgage, the utility accounts, the cards. It’s all under the same security umbrella.”

Juliette stared at him, her mouth slightly open.

The cicadas in the nearby oak trees seemed to grow louder in the silence.

“So we have no money?” Juliette asked. “None at all?”

“We have cash,” Dan said.

He reached back into his pocket and pulled out his leather wallet again.

He pulled out two crumpled twenty-dollar bills and a five.

“Forty-five dollars,” I said. “That should buy about three pounds of the premium ground round at the market. Plus tax.”