Free Gone by Randy Wayne White Page B

is!” the woman said, getting madder. “I’m trying to find out if they’re actually wealthy or just have a lot of money. There’s a difference.”
    The way Mrs. Whitney said it told me the difference had to do not only with snobbery but also something that ran deeper. “You’d recognize the name,” I replied. “I imagine you and your friends go to the same parties, if—” I stopped myself before saying if you still go to parties . Instead, I finished “—which might help you sympathize with the girl’s situation. Knowing you have more in common than just him.” I tapped the photograph again, but she still wouldn’t look at it.
    “What would you know about the people I socialize with? Outsiders and real estate bums crash parties all the time on Captiva. Tell me her goddamn name or you can waltz your big ass out of here!” The woman was being mean again, but not in the same way. This was more like a test, with some jealousy thrown in. Mrs. Whitney was dying to know who Ricky Meeks was with, which gave me hope she’d open up if I could win her confidence.
    I stayed calm, just as I did with Loretta when she’s being stubborn, and named fund-raising parties in Palm Beach and Sarasota I’d heard about from some of my fishing clients, including Lawrence Seasons. Then I took a chance and added, “They’re part of the same group that goes to house parties and fund-raisers in Naples. A wealthy section called Port Royal—you know the place?”
    The woman didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. “How could someone like you know about parties in Port Royal?”
    Thanks to what I’d overheard on my boat, I added other convincing details. “The girl’s family attends the big Valentine’s fund-raiser every year. The Wine Fest, too—which is bigger than the polo thing in Palm Beach. And why they don’t bother with it anymore.”
    Until that instant, Mrs. Whitney hadn’t looked at me, not really. I’d been a faceless female who might have been hired to trim bushes or clean floors but who, instead, had invaded her privacy with pestering questions and some bad memories, too. Now the woman was assessing me, concentrating in a way that seemed to sober her. “You understand more than I gave you credit for,” she said finally.
    I looked the woman in the eye but didn’t offer a comment.
    After a few more moments, she said, “Okay. So you might possibly know the difference between wealth and flashy money. You know people in our circle, anyway. But, bottom line, you’re not going to tell me the family’s name. Are you?”
    “If we decide to trust each other, I will—but only if I get their permission first. I won’t say I’ve never broken a promise, but it’s not something that comes easy.”
    I learned something new about Mrs. Whitney from the way she misunderstood me. “Comes easily or comes cheaply?” she asked, pretending not to care much either way. “You expect me to pay for the name of a girl you want me to help? Just for laughs, name a figure. A thousand? Five thousand?”
    The woman would have paid that and more to find out what she wanted to know. I could read it in her eyes. That’s how desperate being with Ricky Meeks had made her, which for the first time, caused me to feel spooked and wonder what I was getting into. But I stayed calm, and told her, “You took what I said wrong. No point in discussing it.”
    “Honest and trustworthy,” Mrs. Whitney shot back with a sneer. “I suppose you’re brave and reverent, too.”
    I had to smile at that. Mrs. Whitney didn’t have any psychic powers, that was for sure, or she’d have seen I was not the virtuous woman she’d just described. “Dependable,” I responded. “That’s about all I can claim. So you might as well drop the subject of money or the girl’s name.”
    When the woman was angry, her nostrils flared. They flared now, spouting cigarette smoke. “You’re a stubborn little bitch. Know that?”
    “If it was your