Baiting & Fishing Page 20

Chapter 20

  During the flight from Sarasota to Nassau, Marcella told him that the only way to the island was by boat. They would have to take a yacht from Paradise Island to Collonia's private island. He chuckled. It occurred to him that he could possibly get into this “lifestyles of the rich and famous” business to the extent it included private yachts and isolated Bahamian islands.

  When the plane landed in Nassau, a car was waiting for them on the tarmac. They walked down the stairs and climbed into the back seat while porters unloaded their luggage. The chauffeur was waiting to load it into the trunk. Ray wondered for a moment if the porters could tell that his suitcase was purchased on sale from Target instead of custom made by Louis Vuitton in Paris like Marcella's. Ray noticed the expression on the chauffeur's face when he picked up Ray's suitcase and was pretty sure it was the first time the chauffeur had ever touched a suitcase from Target. He had the feeling the chauffeur hoped it was the last time. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing. Marcella did not seem to notice.

  The car took them to a marina on Paradise Island where the yacht was docked. He had expected it to be a nice boat. The reality of it blew him away. The captain and the staff waited at the top of the gangplank to meet them. The yacht was an 80' monster carrying a crew of five: a captain, mate, mechanic, cook, and a chambermaid (who doubled as a waitress). Ray and Marcella went directly to the aft deck where snacks and drinks were laid out for them. The captain went to the bridge and prepared the vessel for departure.

  Ray said, “You didn't tell me you owned a cruise ship.”

  She shrugged, “Actually, this is not mine. It belongs to Aurelio. I sold Roland's yacht and turned over the proceeds to the Techtron receiver. I plan to buy a boat for myself, but haven't gotten around to it. Aurelio's family is spending the holidays in the south of France, so he didn't need the boat.”

  “What kind of boat are you going to buy?”

  “I haven't decided as to the type, but I know I want a boat I can use for fishing and for cruising. Something in the 30-40' range, probably.” She smiled at him, “Perhaps we can while away some hours over the winter looking at boats on the Internet.”

  They munched on cheese and crackers and sipped lemonade while the boat cut through the glassy seas. The day was so clear, beautiful and still it was hard to tell the sky from the water. It was as though they were somehow suspended in a netherworld that was not-liquid and not-air. Ray felt that experience mirrored how he felt about his life at that point. He hung sort of suspended between two worlds, not feeling very much at home in either of them.

  Sooner than Ray expected, the yacht slowed and approached a small island. It entered a lagoon through a pass that was perhaps 30 yards wide. The island was in the shape of a horseshoe, with a large lagoon in the middle. The boat pulled up to a dock jutting far out into the lagoon from a white-sand beach which ran along the entire inside perimeter of the island. Beyond the beach was a thicket of banyan and mangrove trees. Near the end of the dock was a structure Ray initially took for a boathouse. When the yacht pulled alongside the dock and he got a closer look, he realized the structure was actually the house. The mate unloaded their luggage and placed it on the dock. Then the yacht pulled away and headed out to sea.

  Marcella picked up her suitcase and said, by way of explanation, “We rough it here. Aurelio has a caretaker who minds the house when no one is here, but there are no servants present when anyone is using the house. I have always liked that: I can come here an be totally by myself, if I want.”

  Ray picked up his suitcase and followed her inside. It was a relatively simple house. One large room made up the kitchen, dining and living area. She led him to the master bedroom where they stowed their gear. Then she showed him the combination exercise room and “media center” which was a combination high tech office and entertainment center boasting the latest technology for Internet, satellite telephone and TV access and a killer big-screen TV, which Marcella said he could use if he could figure out how to turn it on. She made a face and said, “When I am here I never turn on the TV and I only check my email and phone messages once a day.”

  Ray knew he wouldn't be spending too much time watching football on that big-screen TV that season. He smiled to himself at the thought of such a waste of a perfectly marvelous TV.

  She read his mind and laughed, “You can watch football on it if you want!”

  There were also two very small guest bedrooms, with a shared bathroom. It was small but well laid out so it did not feel cramped. All in all, Ray thought it was the most perfect place he had ever seen in his life...... and that was even before he saw the coolest thing about it.

  They unpacked, which did not take long, since each of them had brought only a couple of changes of clothes and several bathing suits. After that, they went for a swim. Ray was enchanted by the fact that the dock and the house were built over a coral reef. The place teemed with life. Swimming from the dock was an experience in close-up encounters with marine life.

  They swam for a while, until the sun began to hang low over the island. Marcella suggested they get out of the water because the sharks tended to move in over the reef late in the day. She said that she was not particularly fond of swimming with sharks. Ray seconded that without a moment's hesitation. They rinsed off first in the outside shower and then took turns with the fresh-water shower in the bathroom.

  By the time they had dressed, it was dark. Ray came into the main room after his shower and was greeted by the wonderful smell of blackened fish and a cold bottle of Kalik waiting for him on the counter. They ate fish sandwiches for dinner and then cleaned up the kitchen together.

  When they finished the dishes, Marcella dug out a bottle of the finest Jamaican rum and poured them each a glass. She took his hand and beckoned him to follow her. The “sitting area” was recessed, three steps down from the rest of the structure. Ray realized that put the floor of that area of the room right at or below the water level, depending on the tide. He sat next to her on the couch and waited to see what she had up her sleeve, never imagining the amazing thing that was about to happen. She flipped a switch which caused the floor to open up. Ray instinctively lifted his feet. Then he realized that a screen of some sort underneath a plexiglass floor had been rolled back.

  They had a bird's eye view from directly on top of the reef. Soft lights illuminated the reef with its rainbow of colors, teeming with fish and other marine critters. Marcella snuggled up beside him and said, “Is that cool, or what?”

  His only response was to put his arm around her and concentrate even more intently on the activity below.

  They sipped their drinks in silence. Way too soon for Ray, she turned off the lights, “We're not supposed to leave the lights on very long at night.” She flipped the switch to close the sub-floor. “Too much light at night interferes with the natural activity of the reef. We can watch as much as we want in the daytime. Sometimes I sit here for hours and hours doing nothing but watching the fish. At night, we have to give them a break, .... hard as that is, I know.”

  Ray wanted to beg her to turn the lights back on, but he knew she was right. Far be it from him to disrupt the life of a coral reef, there were so few remaining.

  Since the curtain had fallen on the main stage and Marcella had put the kibosh on the idea of watching TV, they went to bed early. Just before he drifted off to sleep, Ray realized it was the first time he and Marcella had spent the night together when he didn't have to leave early for work. He wondered if that would prove awkward.

  He needn't have worried about that. When he got up the next morning, coffee was ready in the kitchen and croissants and fruit were on the counter. He wandered outside and found Marcella preparing a small runabout for a day on the water. The boat was a 23' open bough outboard filled with fishing gear. He laughed, “If I had to guess, I'd say the yacht and the house may belong to Aurelio Collonia, but that boat has your name all over it.”

  She laughed, “Yes,
this was a present I bought for myself when I turned 50. My world was crashing around me. My husband was about to go to prison. I needed to fish – a lot – so I bought this boat and asked Aurelio to let me keep it here. He and his kids use it for a ski boat.”

  She looked at the coffee cup in his hand, “Let's make another pot of coffee to take with us and then when you're all set we'll go.”

  He dressed while she finished readying the boat. He brought a thermos of coffee with him when he came back outside. She sat at the bow, dangling her feet over the edge, resting her chin on the railing. Her fishing hat hid her face, but he knew she was studying the horizon for any signs of weather they might need to be concerned about before venturing out into the ocean. Just before she started the engine, she pulled out her Blackberry and checked the weather radar. She looked up and grinned, “What on earth did people do before Weather.com?”

  He laughed, “Too many of them got caught in a lot of storms they didn't know were out there.”

  “Yup, and wrecked ships and dead sailors litter bottom of the ocean all along these islands. I'm determined not to join them.”

  They fished and then talked while they drifted, then they fished some more. There being no limits on fish in those waters, she pulled in an amazing haul of every kind of fish imaginable. If it was edible, she kept it. If it was not, she threw it back. By early afternoon, he said, “What on earth are you going to do with all that fish?”

  She smiled, “You'll see. Bag up what you want for dinner and maybe breakfast tomorrow.”

  He bagged some grouper and a very nice sea bass. The rest he left loose in the cooler. She nodded her approval and said, “We can get some shellfish to go with that in the lagoon.”

  She changed course and soon pulled the boat up to a dock on a small island. He did not see a town, but there were lots of boats, both commercial fishing vessels and recreational boats. A large black man greeted Marcella by name. She motioned toward the cooler. He boarded the boat and muscled the brimming cooler onto the dock. He smiled, “Mrs. Wilson, you haven't lost your touch, I see.”

  She smiled, “It's a gift, for sure.”

  He carried the cooler (by himself) to the end of the dock and dumped the fish into an even larger receptacle. He rinsed the cooler and then returned it to its place at the back of Marcella's boat. He said cheerfully, “Babies will be eatin' fine tonight. How long are you here for, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “Only a few days, but I plan to fish a lot.”

  “Excellent! We'll see you tomorrow.”

  She laughed and raised her hat, “Lord, I hope so.”

  As she pulled away from the dock, Ray asked her what that was about. She said that was a sort of drop off point for people who had caught more fish than they needed; the local fishermen collected it and distributed the fish among poor families in the nearby islands who might have gone hungry otherwise. He thought that was a wonderful idea. Ray was impressed that Marcella would know about such a place.

  When they got back to the lagoon, they dove for lobsters, and came up with a couple of nice ones. They threw one back when they realized there was no way they could eat two lobsters plus all the fish Ray had kept. Then they returned to the house for lunch. The grouper made great sandwiches for lunch. They saved the sea bass and lobster for dinner.

  Ray grilled the fish. Marcella made daiquiris. They ate on the dock. After lunch, they lazed in the shade, alternately dozing and talking. She filled in some details to her life's story which were totally consistent with what she had previously told him but which also explained some of the confusing parts of the story Karen had pieced together.

  Marcella was relaxed and peaceful as he had never seen her before. It was as though in the Bahamas she were able to shed some of the rich society lady persona she assumed in the United States. In this house on the water she seemed more at peace and content than he had seen her anywhere else. He couldn't figure it out. She was so natural and at-home here, and she clearly loved it. Why didn't she just move to the Islands, or even the Keys? What was she doing in Sarasota, where she obviously did not fit in or have any connections at all?

  She brought him another drink, laughing, “I think we forgot something.”

  She leaned over and kissed the top of his head, “Merry Christmas.”

  “Oh, my gosh, I totally forgot today is Christmas. I have a present for you.” He hurried into the house and came back with a package he had obviously wrapped himself. He made a sheepish face and said, “It's been a long, long time since I wrapped a present for anybody. It looks like hell on the outside and it's not much on the inside, but the minute I saw it and I had to get it for you.”

  She looked up at him and smiled, “Thank you. I am sorry but I didn't buy you a gift.”

  He waved his arms and turned around, beaming, “This is gift enough. A few days in paradise! I will treasure this gift forever.”

  He saw tears in her eyes, but she looked away. When she turned back toward him, her eyes were dry.

  She said, “Ok, let's see what this is.” As soon as she glimpsed the contents of the package, she threw back her head and laughed out loud. She put on the hat, which was just a tiny bit too big. Fortunately it had a chin strap to keep it from blowing off. It had all the usual feathers and fishhooks you usually see on a floppy fishing hat, but it was pink and it had embroidered letters on the front that read: Women Anglers Rock!

  “I hereby retire my old hat....”

  He said, “Not so fast. Don't retire it just yet. Try this one out first and make sure that it doesn't have any negative effect on your fishing mojo. Then and only the should you consider retiring the old one.”

  She made a face. “Actually, I found that old hat; I fell in love with it because it was so hideous. This one is even uglier, and it is special because you picked it out. This will be my new fishing hat. Thank you so much!” She stood up and kissed him.

  They went for a swim, then they went for a walk on the beach. She explained that the island was not high enough for a permanent house. “The island is not under water during a normal high tide, but it is usually inundated during tropical storms. That's why Aurelio got it so cheap. The prior owner essentially thought he was unloading it on some stupid Yankee who didn't know what he was getting. In reality, Aurelio knew exactly what he was buying. The island is close to Nassau, so it's an easy weekend retreat for someone from Miami.”

  Ray looked puzzled, “So what happens to the house in a storm?”

  She grinned, “Thanks to a combination of genius, money and a geeky college student who wanted to get laid, the house is safe.”

  “Explain that.”

  They had returned to the dock. She sat down and propped her feet on the railing and said, “Well, when Aurelio went looking to buy an island all of the ones that filled the bill were under water part of the year. Initially that was fine. He decided he would just buy a big yacht and park it in the lagoon during the times in the year when it was safe to do so. During hurricane season, he moved it to Costa Rica or Venezuela. But, he soon realized he loved the island and wanted a permanent structure here so he could pop over in the summertime whenever the weather was okay. He made some inquiries among the architecture students at the University of Miami school of architecture. He sort of offered to fund a design contest involving how to deal with the problem.

  “Only one student was interested so, instead of having a contest, the school simply put the student in contact with Aurelio. Turns out the kid mainly wanted to get married and wanted a cheap place to take his wife on a honeymoon. Significantly, she was an architecture student as well, but her interest was residential architecture, whereas his was commercial. Aurelio agreed to let them use the island if they'd spend some time considering his problem and present him with a proposal. He even gave them the use of a boat. (Not the one we came over here on. He chartered a smaller one for them.) They spent their honeymoon here alternately swimming, making love and making drawings. When they returned to Miami,
they were bummed out because they said the only solution they came up with would be very expensive, although they thought it might work. It turned out not to be as expensive as they feared, especially since the house Aurelio ultimately built was to be a lot smaller and less elaborate than they envisioned.

  “The solution was a sort of two-parter. First, when the water rises, the dock raises with it. The pilings can extend 25 feet. In a big storm, if the water goes higher than that, the dock will break loose of the pilings and be held by anchor chains that are 65 feet long. When the water goes back down, the dock lowers too. So far it has never raised up high enough to come off the pilings; that would entail major repairs to the understructure, but as long as the water doesn't raise more than 25 feet, the dock goes up and comes down like an elevator. The house is very low and has safety features that will withstand 145 mile-an-hour winds. It has taken direct hits from hurricanes on more than one occasion and has never suffered any significant damage.”

  “Wow!”

  She nodded. “It's amazing. Aurelio spent a lot of money on this place, but not as much as he probably would have if the island had been high and dry. He'd have put a palace on a dry island! His tastes run a bit on the opulent side.”

  “Why do I think you had something to do with the design of the house?”

  “Because I did. Once Aurelio was reconciled to building a very small house that had to be able to float, he decided it actually should be something like a houseboat, making maximum use of all space. He asked for my input since I had spent more time on boats than anyone he knew. I laid out the interior according to my own tastes.”

  He laughed and asked, “I'm guessing the glass floor was your idea?”

  She nodded, “Every place I have ever traveled where they have tours with glass bottomed boats, I have taken them. I love watching the life under water but I do not enjoy diving. This is the perfect alternative. The floor was a significant additional expense, but after Aurelio – and especially his kids – saw it, they all agreed it was worth it.”

  Ray and Marcella spent the rest of the week exactly as they had spent Christmas day. They fished. They swam. They whiled away hours every day watching the reef through the glass floor. They talked for hours. They each checked email and voice messages only once a day, and returned no calls or messages. The day before New Year's Eve when she checked her email, she grinned and said, “We have a special New Year's treat courtesy of Aurelio. He's sending the yacht over a day early so we can have a special dinner and move in closer to Nassau. They have awesome fireworks at midnight to ring in the new year. We can spend the night on the boat and then leave on the 1st whenever we are ready.”

  “That sounds great. I thought you said you and Aurelio don't get along.”

  She chuckled, “That's true. We can't stand each when we're together. I guess in many ways we are too much alike. We are both control freaks and when we're together we clash. As I told you, I don't work for him regularly any more, but I do occasional special jobs. It is in his best interests to stay on my good side. It is in my best interest to let him.”

  He shook his head, “I am not sure that follows. It would seem to be in your best interest to sever ties with him. With your high profile and the feds always watching, it seems smuggling jewels places you at enormous risk.”

  She made a face, “That may be. If the feds catch me, they'll put me in jail. If I tried to bail on Aurelio completely, he'd put me in Davy Jones' Locker, and I am neither kidding nor exaggerating.”

  Ray was astonished, and it must have showed.

  She shrugged and said, “You must know what gangsters do to people who, to their way of thinking, double cross them.”

  “But you are more like a member of the family than an employee.”

  “All the more reason for me to stay in the business. What's the matter with you, haven't you ever seen The Godfather?”

  “That's a movie.”

  “It may be a movie, but there are some very true things about it. First and foremost is the theme that members of the family are supposed to work in the family business whether its a laundry or a world-wide smuggling ring. Tonio was from Sicily. He did things according to the old ways. In his world there was honor among thieves in a sense. They operated according to their own rules, but there were rules and limits. Tonio was a smuggler and a money launderer. That was what he did. He did both of those things the way he learned in the Old Country

  “Aurelio was born in the U. S. and has lived in South Florida for way, way too long. He is a big fan of the American Mafia. The Chicago families have never let him into the fold but they have occasionally undertaken joint ventures, particularly when it allowed the Chicago families to operate in the territory of the thugs that run the drug trade in Florida. On occasion, when needed, Aurelio could hire some of Mafia muscle when he needed to get rid of someone.”

  “Is it true he killed one of his employees for smuggling drugs?”

  A black look passed over her face, then she smiled. “Actually, whether or not he killed the person or someone else did is something I do not know, nor do I want to know. This much I do know. One day when I was maybe 23 or 24, he brought all of us together in Miami. It was the only time I saw any of his other employees. He made certain that none of us spoke to each other. We were each flown in with an escort, marched into the enormous living room of his house where we were lined up, with our escorts behind us. Aurelio lectured us for about ten minutes on the rules of our organization. He spelled out what we were allowed to do (which basically amounted to doing exactly what we were told) and what we were not allowed to do (which basically amounted to be anything else). He warned us about compromising his operations by free-lancing.

  “I wanted to laugh, thinking that no one in their right mind would even think of free-lancing. We made so much money as it was, why would anybody try to do side-jobs? For a minute, I thought the whole thing was a joke.

  “Then, he took out a photo of a girl, who had been shot in the head, and passed it around. He told us that was what happened to people who double-crossed him. He never said he did it. He never accused anybody else of doing it. He said, 'Consider yourselves warned.' After that, our escorts took us back to the airport and we were sent home. It was intended to intimidate and scare us. It sure as hell worked on me.

  “Tonio had recently died and Aurelio was the closest thing I had to family. I was scared to death, but I felt I did not have any choice other than to continue to work for him. I have no illusions that he takes me for anything other than a long-time employee even now. The same rules apply.”

  “How many people were there?”

  She thought about it for a minute. “I think six. One of them was Brenda, Tonio's widow who married Aurelio after Tonio died. I didn't know any of the others.”

  “You listened to that lecture and saw those photos and didn't do anything about it?”

  “You mean like call the cops?” She laughed, “What was I supposed to say, 'Hello, Mr. Policeman, I am a diamond and art smuggler. I think my boss may have offed an employee who double-crossed him, and I think you should arrest him.'

  “I'm not that crazy.”

  Ray shook his head, “They would have probably given you immunity or at least a very lenient sentence.”

  “First of all, I have no intention of going to jail at all, ever. Secondly, that happened a long time ago. The kid was just some stupid brat who didn't know what a good opportunity she had working for Aurelio. What is more, she was smuggling drugs. There is a hierarchy among smugglers; drug dealers are the bottom feeders of the profession. The legal process takes too long and it isn't effective when it comes to drug dealers. Aurelio deals with drug traffickers in his own way.”

  “You mean he has killed others.”

  She laughed. “I think Aurelio sees himself as a sort of modern day Robin Hood, although he's such an ignorant bastard, I doubt he's ever heard of Robin Hood. He sees himself as a sort of anti-drug vigilante. If he catches
a drug runner, which happens occasionally because this island is a perfect place for smugglers to hide, the crew ends up missing and the Coast Guard tends to 'find' the boat adrift off Key Biscayne. He has also been known to have his people shoot down planes he knows to be carrying drugs in from South America. He has lots of connections. He often knows when the planes are coming. The ATF agents are so overwhelmed, they are totally ineffective. Aurelio sort of helps them out from time to time.”

  “Are you suggesting he has a deal with the ATF?”

  She waved her hand and shook her head, “Oh, there is no 'deal'. Neither Aurelio nor any of his employees has never spoken to an ATF agent or any other law enforcement officer. Aurelio sees law enforcement in America as being too far beneath him to bother with actually discussing deals. It is interesting, however, to note that after he started 'helping' in the drug war, the intensity of the scrutiny the FBI and the IRS had been leveling at his employment agency seemed to lessen somewhat. It isn't a 'deal', but I think it is something of an unspoken understanding. The ATF or the FBI always takes credit for 'capturing' the contraband; the stories never say that they just 'found' it.

  “The other thing that helps Aurelio is that we never bring smuggled jewels or art into the U.S. We bring in only money. We take the goods from one foreign country to another. We bring back money, which we put into the American economy. Money laundering is a crime, of course, but in the big scheme of things, it's the sort of crime the government can choose to ignore, especially since the government knows it isn't drug money. They care a lot about drug money.”

  Ray sat down and shook his head, “You are talking about some kind of alternate reality.”

  She made a face and a rude noise, “What the hell do you think is going on out there in the big bad world? You mosey around in South Florida writing heart-warming stories about nice people or funny stories about Florida's collection of odd-balls. You obsess over saving the Everglades, not that that isn't important. But, out in The Big World there's a lot of other shit going on! You play by one set of rules, the rules of the laws of the United States of America and of Southern society. There are a lot of other rulebooks, Ray. There are a lot of other ways to see the world.”

  “So you think that smuggling is okay?”

  “It depends on who's asking the questions and which rules you apply. According to the laws of most countries, smuggling is a crime mostly because it cheats the government out of taxes. To those people who are already paying zillions in taxes and or bribes and payoffs to said governments, what's the harm in delivering some jewels or art without adding a tax bill.”

  “Do you ask where the stuff comes from?”

  “Of course not. Although most of the artworks I have ever moved come with provenance.”

  “How do they do that? What do they put down for your transaction?”

  “There are written receipts, usually including forged tax documents. For provenance the important thing is the information on the seller and the buyer, not the taxes. Aurelio's clients are sophisticated buyers and sellers. We never got into the forgery part of it; that was always handled by European specialists. We just made the deliveries. I have to confess, I almost always checked the documentation to assure myself the forgeries were good enough to pass a quick inspection if I got caught. Most of them were excellent.”

  Ray put his hands on his head and said, “This is giving me a headache. Can we stop?”

  “Sure. Remember, you're the one who wanted more information. So, do you want to take Aurelio up on his offer or not?”

  “Since you have waxed so eloquent on the dangers of getting on his bad side, I feel as though I have little choice.”

  “Especially since that yacht is the only way for us to get back to Nassau to go home, unless you're prepared to swim. The runabout can't go that far with out extra gas.”

  He sighed. “I need to go for a run. I hate a treadmill. How long is that beach?”

  “It's a mile and a half from one point to the other.”

  “Will I look silly running back and forth?”

  She laughed, “I do it all the time. Do you want some company?”

  He answered, just a little to quickly and a tad too loud, “No!”

  She shrugged and said, “Suit yourself.” She turned around and walked out to the end of the dock where the kayaks were tied up. She took off in a kayak, fast and smooth, headed straight for the pass to the ocean. She didn't look back.

  Ray ran hard for a couple of hours and then went back to the house where he showered and drank a beer. He was troubled by their conversation, but after a couple of hours of thinking about it, he concluded she was probably right about the fact that in her world different rules applied and he would be wrong to apply his standards to her behavior. As soon as that thought occurred to him, he stopped himself, realizing that line of thinking put him on a terribly slippery slope. He wasn't sure what to do about that.

  Soon his thoughts turned to worry about Marcella. She had been gone for more than three hours. The weather was clear and the seas were glassy, but he began to worry nevertheless. He sat there with his eyes fixed on the pass. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he saw her. He noticed that after three hours of paddling, she her stroke was as smooth and as fast as when she left. She tied up her kyak and walked toward him. She was sweaty and her skin glistened in the sun. She knelt down in front of him and said softly, “I am sorry to upset you. I know you don't understand. Sometimes I don't either. It's a fine line I feel I need to walk with you. If I tell you the whole truth, I'm afraid it will drive you away. If I keep secrets, I'm afraid that will drive you off because you won't trust me.”

  He took her hands and did not respond for a long time, “I guess I sort of feel the same way. When I am with you, especially on the water, it feels so wonderful I can't even begin to describe it. But when we are together on land, sometimes you make me feel like a dweeb. My head tells me you are wrong. My heart wants to believe you. So, I am just confused.”

  She said softly, “What do you think we should do?”

  He answered, “Right now, I think we should go fishing. We can deal with the serious issues that keep us apart when we're back home in Sarasota next week. While we're here, let's just fish and have fun.”

  She reached up and put her arms around him, “You don't have to ask me twice. Now, where did I put my new hat?”

  They fished for a while and then drifted until late in the afternoon. Marcella insisted on being back at the dock before dark because she said the pass was tricky in the daylight; she wouldn't risk it at night in a boat without sonar. They watched the sun go down and then ducked inside before the insects swarmed. They watched the reef for a while and then they went to bed early, but neither was in the mood to make love. There was a large question mark between them. It had always been there. Now, it had grown to the point they needed to address it. There would be time for that after they returned to Sarasota.

  They rang in the New Year with French champagne under Bahamian fireworks. It could have been magical, but Ray felt a cold, hard knot of uncertainty in the pit of his stomach.

  They flew back to Sarasota mid-day on January 1. He started the year fearing what the coming months would bring.