The bill had just landed when the waitress leaned in and said his card was declined. Color left his face. He patted his pockets, laughed once, and said the bank must have frozen it after a trip. I offered to split it. He refused, already standing, already steering me toward the door with a hand at my back. I thought he was embarrassed. I was wrong about the reason.
Halfway across the parking lot she caught my arm. Her voice was barely a breath. I lied. She pressed the receipt into my palm and went back inside before he turned around. Under the printed total, in frantic pen, were two words: drink drugged. My glass had tasted slightly bitter near the end. I had blamed the lemon.

I stopped under the lot light and said I had left my phone on the table. He offered to get it. I said I would be faster, walked back in, and did not come out. The manager locked the side door. The waitress had already set my water glass aside and called the police. He waited by the car for eight minutes, then tried the handle, then left when a cruiser turned into the row.

The test later confirmed what she had written. She had seen his hand pass over my glass while I was in the restroom, and the declined card was the only way she could separate us without a scene. I never learned his real name. I learned hers. On the way home I sent the restaurant a tip large enough to cover the meal he had tried to walk away from, and a note with two words of my own: thank you.