The scene was a reclaimed highlander home of one hundred years, owner to a reverend called the “Shepherd of the Hills,” whose house now makes a dining room and restaurant for the retired well-to-do. This detail is made known from the minister's portrait inlaid on the wall beside their table and from the historical excerpt from the inside cover of the Orchard restaurant’s felted, bi-fold menu.

They were seated in the former Hawkins-Menninger house, which was now a wood-paneled dining room next to an elder woman at the adjacent table whose phone was strung with a lanyard by a noose knot around the case.

“What is in that lanyard," the younger mother asked the son.

“It's an AirTag. She tied an AirTag to her phone.”

Mother and son rolled their eyes. Father buttered his roll.

The joke is that AirTags are found with iPhones, not on iPhones. There's no point tying the beacon to the tracker lest in losing one, one loses both — the same flawed logic as burying the map to the treasure within the treasure chest.

The younger family concluded dinner ahead of the elder family, leaving hurriedly ahead to the car, cursing the frost, crunching the frozen ground with their steps, but thanking themselves for filling their bellies.

In a luxury vehicle, they sped not two turns from the former preacher's former home till the younger mother made it clear she was having no luck finding her phone.

“It's not in my purse,” she said.

“You aren't sharing your location,” said the son, already thinking to check Apple's “FindMy” service. “Here,” he said. “Login to your ApplelD, and we can track it with your account.”

She did.

“It says we're right on top of it.” However, nothing was heard upon “Play sound.”

What was unclear to the son, and what was especially unclear to the mother and father, was that the phone had automatically connected to the car's Bluetooth, which was not programmed to relay FindMy tones, incidentally muting the now lost device. This software quirk will likely remain, for who loses a device within range of the Bluetooth headphone connection?

“It's obviously at the restaurant,” she said. “Turn around.”

They did.

The son was asked to go inside. Reluctant per embarrassment, he acquiesced.

To the middle-aged host and manager, the son said, “Have you seen a phone? My mother misplaced hers.”

“We haven't bussed that table yet if you'd like to take a look.”

So the son made a naked walk backwards, back into the dining room.

FindMy in hand, he cued the sound, but nothing played. He looked under the cushions, but nothing was there. The elder family was finishing their port and eyeing him curiously. He thought — an awful thought — “If iPhones could be found like AirTags, I’d have found it already.” But no! What was he saying?! What a stupid idea. But turning his head up from the table, he caught a glance of the Shepherd of the Hills, Reverend William Hawkins, and his inlaid portrait on the wall: smirking. But of course.

Karma's a b***h.

Humiliated, the son cowered away through the dining hall, hoping to be unseen, but no.

“Any luck,” the manager asked.

Realizing what had happened, the son replied, “As it turns out, the phone was in the car all along.” “Glad you found it.”

Through the minister’s home’s front door, the son could feel the shrill wind calling to him from the car. It was his father’s voice, relieved and innocent, just a pawn to another’s plotline. “Quentin,” called his father. “We found it under the seat.”

The ride home was silent.

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