The humidity in the back room of the Thirsty Egret wasn't just weather; it was an entity. It clung to the skin like a damp wool coat, smelling of stale hops and the slow, rhythmic decay of the mangroves outside.

I sat at the bar, staring at a glass of bourbon I didn’t want, wondering how a woman who once owned three city blocks of Manhattan office space had ended up in a town where the primary mode of transportation was a golf cart with a frayed canopy.