Gone by Randy Wayne White

questions? More important—if we expect to have any fun tonight—who’s going to join me?” The man raised his empty glass, his face masked with another smile, but suspicious. From Darren’s tone and the way he eyed me, I could tell he expected drinking company—if I expected him to confide what he knew.
    I replied, “My uncle found a good mojito recipe in Havana. Otherwise, I stick to red wine.”
    The photographer, not listening, was already lining two fresh rocks glasses on the bar, the bottle of scotch nearby.

SEVEN
     
    W ALKING ME TO THE DOCK THROUGH SHADOWS, N ATHAN took my elbow and said, “Are you sure you’re okay to drive? I hate you crossing that bay by yourself. It’s so damn dark.”
    He was right about that. Through an opening in the foliage, I could see my skiff, the dock, then a horizon of water so black that a heaven of stars did not brighten it, nor a crescent moon, new and waxing, that was drifting west over palm trees toward Mexico.
    “You’ve got to make Darren quit smoking,” I replied, sniffing a strand of my hair, then my shirt. “It stinks even worse than his whiskey. I’ll have to wash everything and take two showers. Where else can I do it but home?”
    “ Here . . . please? Seriously, Four. You can’t see a goddamn thing out there. When Darre drives me home later, he’ll drop you off. He already said so.”
    Later? In my opinion, Darren had no intention of taking Nathan home. No matter what the man pretended, his patient manipulation and gentle words only made his intentions more obvious. Nate might be shy, but he isn’t dumb, and I suspected he knew the truth, too.
    It was already 9:45, an hour after sunset. Amazing how fast time had passed after I’d sipped down a glass of liquor that, at first, tasted like peat moss soaked in vodka. After that, it had tasted smoother, but I’d been too focused on what Darren was saying to risk getting drunk. So I’d dumped most of the next two glasses into a potted palm, determined to remember details about the life Mrs. Whitney had lived while she was under the spell of Ricky Meeks.
    After I’d explained to Darren about Olivia Seasons—without naming names, of course—he was eager to help and knew more than I could have hoped. It wasn’t because he was chummy with Mrs. Whitney. It was because he was fond of booking a cabin on an overnight luxury yacht that sailed four times a month to Key West, then back again the next day. Twice, he’d seen Meeks and Elka Whitney aboard that vessel, which is how he’d learned so much without even exchanging a word. Or so he claimed.
    The boat, named Sybarite , was moored at Fishermans Wharf, near Fort Myers Beach, and was unlike any luxury cruiser I’d ever heard about. For one thing, the price of a one-night cabin cost more than I make during a month of fishing, even at peak season. Another oddity was that a regular person couldn’t buy passage, even if he offered twice the fare. New passengers had to be recommended by established clients or invited aboard by the owners. Or they had to be someone obviously special in a rock star sort of way.
    It had taken Darren an hour of hinting around, and several more whiskeys, before he’d finally described those cruises in plain words—but only after reading the definition of sybarite to us from the dictionary.
    “Hedonist . . . sensualist. Voluptuary, libertine . . . pleasure seeker!” Darren had spoken each word in an alluring way as if reciting a list of fine wines, each delicious. The dictionary did nothing for me, but I will admit that I began to feel my body changing when his low voice detailed some of the scenes he’d witnessed. Not at first, of course. It was a slow feeling that came over me—a heated restlessness made more intense because of the whiskey I was sipping.
    Dinners aboard Sybarite were formal, tuxes and evening gowns, he’d told us, for those who chose not to eat in their cabins. There was gambling once the boat was