The Shell Collector (8 page)

“Do you ever sleep?” I ask.

“Who is this?”

“Maya. Maya Walsh. From the
Times.
”

“Of course. Sorry. Been one of those days. So how did it go?”

I imagined him waiting around breathlessly for my call. Instead, it sounds like I’m just one of many things on his mind. “It went great,” I tell him. “The shells definitely link back to Ness … Mr. Wilde, I mean. And the case you had the shells in, did it belong to Mr. Arlov by any chance?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because he recognized it. And when I asked him if he knew Mr. Arlov, he said they were very close. I think those were his exact words. And then get this—he wondered why Dimitri would have taken the shells from him. They were definitely Ness’s.”

“And you recorded all this?”

“It should all be on your device. Hold on a sec.” I unbutton my blouse, work one arm free, move the phone to my other hand, and wiggle out of my top. Unsnapping the back of my bra, I let it fall away and unclip the recorder from the underwire. “Yeah, the little light is still on. So I should’ve gotten it.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, he tried to convince me the shells were real. Was adamant about it.”

“I bet.”

“He even had me look inside the torus at how all the wear marks were different. But I was thinking maybe the molds are a one-off, you know? A different mold for each shell.”

“Wait. He did what?”

“He showed me the foot rubbings for the slugs. Each one was unique. But I figure he just—”

“How did he show you the inside of the torus?”

I took a deep breath. My heart was racing from the long day and the coffee and the confrontation. “He cracked them open,” I said. “Which he never would’ve done if they were real, right? I mean, forget the value of the things. He’s a collector. If those were real—”

“Maya, you still have the shells, right? Tell me you have the shells.”

I rest a hand on the bathroom counter. My hair is mostly loose from my clip, is hanging around my face. “I told you, he … the shells. He had me look inside—”

I hear Cooper take a deep breath and let it out. I imagine him still at his desk, working all night in the pale glow of that solitary lamp, and now he’s probably pushed back from his desk, is running his hand up through his hair.

“So he destroyed our best evidence right in front of you,” Cooper says.

I don’t say anything. I just study myself in the mirror. The room spins around me.

“Look, it’s okay,” he says. “Just come to my office when you get back in town. Bring the wire. That might be enough to get a search warrant. And you may have spooked him into doing something dumb. We’ll keep an eye on him.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s okay. He’s a crafty guy. If he wasn’t, we’d have nailed him by now. Get some sleep. We’ll regroup when you get home.”

“Okay,” I say. I appreciate him trying to make me feel better, but it doesn’t dent how idiotic I feel. “See you soon.”

“G’night, Maya.”

The phone clicks.

I check the time and debate calling my sister, who loves hearing about my fuck-ups and is great at making me feel better about them. I decide it’s too late. I run a bath instead, letting the water run hot enough to throw up steam. I’m about to step in when my phone rings. I answer immediately, expecting Agent Cooper or possibly even Henry.

“Hello, Maya?”

Ness. It’s crazy that I recognize his voice. “How did you get this number?” I ask.

“The internet. You’re listed, you know.”

I wiggle out of my pants and underwear and test the water. Scalding hot. I get in anyway.

“What do you want?” I ask. “It’s late.”

“I was calling to see if you were coming back tomorrow. To look at that journal some more. I need to let the outer gate know.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I think I got what I need.”

“Okay.”

There’s a long silence. Like he wants to say something else but doesn’t know how. I don’t allow myself to care or be curious. I just slip down until my shoulders are submerged, only my head and the hand holding the phone out of the water. I can feel the tension melt out of my muscles and joints in the hot water.

“I was thinking,” Ness says.

I wait.

“You used to do those shelling columns. And you’ve obviously got a story you’re working on about me. And you’re curious about those shells you brought over—”

“The ones you destroyed,” I say.

“So I was thinking maybe I could show you where they came from. Give you a shelling angle to your story. I think … I think I might be ready to share some of my secrets. My shelling secrets.”

I start to ask if by “secrets” he means how he forged the shells, but something even worse pops out of my mouth. “Did you kill Dimitri Arlov?” I ask.

“What—? No. Are you serious? Absolutely not. He was … a very good friend. Absolutely not.”

“Did you know that he stole from you?”

“No. I didn’t. And … you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” I say.

“Okay,” Ness says. “But you’ll have to trust me. Come spend a week with me, and I’ll take you shelling. I’ll show you … where they came from. I think I
want
people to know.”

“You’ll show me where those lace murexes came from?” I ask, making sure I understand.

Ness hesitates. I wonder what he means by letting people know, what he means about sharing his secrets. Does he know the feds are closing in on him? Does he think he can save himself with a confession or by appealing to the press or to the public? Is he that desperate?

“Yes,” he finally says. “I’ll show you where the laces came from. Give me a week of your time, and I’ll give you the story of a lifetime. I promise.”

“You’re doing
what?
” Henry asks me.

“I’m going back up there,” I tell him. “For one week. And you’re sitting on my cable.”

Henry gets off my desk, and I unplug the charger for my laptop, wrap it up, and shove it in my bag.

“What do you mean, you’re going back up there? We’ve got to get your second piece out next week. We’re running part one again on Sunday. Everyone wants to know when you’re getting to Ness.”

“Sounds like she already got to him,” Dawn says from her desk.

I flip her the bird.

“This is bigger than that piece,” I tell Henry. I lower my voice to a whisper. Everyone in the newsroom is watching us. “This is front page. Real news. I’m telling you. Have I ever been wrong about these things?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

I check my email one last time. Nothing that can’t wait. I shut down my computer.

“If you leave here without telling me what in the hell’s going on, you won’t have a job when you come back.”

“I won’t
need
this job when I come back.” I turn and walk past Margo’s desk toward the elevator. Margo smiles and wishes me luck. I don’t ask her what she means.

Henry hurries after me. We both know the other is bluffing: he won’t fire me and I won’t quit.

“Do you hear yourself right now?” he asks. “You’re the one who didn’t want to go in the first place. Is this the feds? What’re they investigating? You’re not fucking him, are you?”

I whirl around at Henry and point a finger at him. He nearly crashes into me. “I’m not fucking him,” I say. “Ness Wilde is
exactly
who I thought he was. His family stands for everything wrong in this world, and he sits on his private estate where everything is fake, nothing is real, and he sits in the middle of these … these shells within shells, and he is working on something awful. I’ve seen a glimpse of it. I mean—Henry, he has these trees that don’t belong there. Palm trees. Thousands of them. He’s totally messed up. His driveway is a freaking fortune in crushed shells.”

“That’s why we have to run these stories, Maya. The one on his grandfather is brilliant. It sounds just like him. Living alone, buying up land that he knows will be beachfront one day—”

I shake my head. “No. I told you, you can’t run that piece. Promise me. We skip to his father.”

Henry crosses his arms. I place a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to bring you the piece of our lifetimes, Henry. I swear. I can feel it. You’re the one always saying that real journalism is dead. Dead as the seven seas. Well, this is the kind of story that will bring it back to
life
.”

“I need more than that, Maya. C’mon. Give me something. A hint. A headline.”

I hesitate. If I had the shells, I would show him those. And then I remember I have something a fraction as good. I dig my phone out of my bag and bring up the image gallery, sort through the recent pics. I find the one of the three lace murexes sitting on my kitchen counter. It’s the pic I sent to my sister as a gag.

When I show Henry the picture, his eyes widen. “So he bought you,” he whispers, his voice dripping with disappointment.

“They’re fake,” I tell him.

Henry pinches the picture to zoom in. Studies the image closely. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“I’m sure.” I lower my voice. “Henry, he cracked these open in front of me and tried to convince me they’re real. The feds are investigating where they came from. I’m telling you, they’re fakes, but they’re
good
fakes. They could crash the shelling market. Or send it skyrocketing. Hell, I don’t know.”

“So why are you going back up there?” Henry asks.

“Because I think he wants to come clean. He said he wants to show me his secrets. The guy is losing it, Henry. The feds say he never leaves his property. I think he trusts me, and he wants to let me in on something. I think he wants to confess. But Henry, you have to promise to keep this between us. He insisted on no leaks for a week. No stories. He made me promise.”

Henry nods. Slowly. I have to pull the phone away from him. I slip it into my bag.

“I’ll call you when I’ve got something,” I say.

I leave Henry rooted in place and hit the elevator call button. Dawn is standing a few paces away, getting a cup of water from the cooler. She smiles at me. As I step inside the elevator and ride down to the lobby, I wonder how long she’d been standing there. I wonder how much she heard.

The drive up to Ness’s estate is different this time. At first, it’s hard to say why. I stop at the same service station in Massachusetts to quick-charge the car. I see the same scenery as before. The trip takes the same five hours on the expressway. But then I realize that no journey is ever truly the same the second time around. What felt interminable the first time now passes with a quickness borne of familiarity. It makes me wonder if life seems to accelerate as we get older simply because our days and our experiences become routine. The things we recognize flash right by, where once they held our attention. Only the new bears careful contemplation, and the new gets harder and harder to come by.

As I cross into Maine, I remember to call my sister. I haven’t told her about this trip, partly because life has been hectic the past few days, partly because I know she’ll worry about me. Which is a bad sign that I’m making some kind of mistake.

She picks up after three rings. Her greeting is a half-whisper, like I’ve caught her in a meeting. “Hey,” she says. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry if it’s a bad time. Just wanted to let you know I’ll be out of town for a week in case you don’t hear from me.”

“Assignment?”

My sister works for an investment bank and lives vicariously through what she calls my “abnormal life.” Of course, my life feels perfectly normal to me. I did have to admit to her the day before that the Ness interview was a little out there, which she called a colossal understatement. I brace now for what she’ll make of this.

“It’s kind of an assignment. I’m in Maine again.”

“Shut up,” my sister hisses. I can hear movement on the other side, like she’s trying to get some place where she can scream. “I thought you weren’t going back.”

“I changed my mind.”

“What’s gotten into you? I thought you loathed this guy.”

I flash back to a couple years’ worth of phone conversations while I was hip-deep in research for my piece. I may have cursed the Wilde family name a time or two.

“I’m not up here to
date
him,” I say. “It’s for the piece I’ve been working on about him.”

“Good, because you know how you hate men with better shell collections than yours.”

“I do not.”

My sister laughs. “You totally do. But I’m single. Put in a word, okay? Is he still gorgeous?”

“Sarah, stop.”

“He is, isn’t he? Oh, God, are you falling for him? Tell me you aren’t falling for him.”

“No—of course not. He’s got issues, Sarah.”

“So why are you up there?”

“Because … it’s complicated. Let’s just say the FBI is involved.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Seriously.”

“Your life is bizarro. I’m undergoing death by PowerPoint over here and you’re … I don’t even understand what you’re doing.”

I laugh. “I just called to tell you I love you and not to worry if I don’t get in touch for a few days. Talk to you next week if not sooner.”

“So jealous,” Sarah says. “Love you, you lucky ass.”

She hangs up, and I have one more person to call before I reach the estate. I find Agent Cooper’s number in my call log and dial it. I met with him yesterday and handed over the wire. What I didn’t tell him was that I’d already decided to take Ness up on his offer. As far as I’m concerned, my story and his investigation are two separate things. He promised me the scoop if they turn up anything, and I promised to sit on what I already know.

“Hello?” he says.

“Agent Cooper. It’s Maya Walsh.”

“Stan,” he reminds me. As if I could ever call him that.

“Just wanted to let you know that … I took Ness up on his offer. If I learn anything that might help you, I’ll fill you in.”

“Where are you now?” he asks.

“I’m in Maine. About half an hour away.”

“You should have told me. This is a bad idea, Maya.”

“Maybe. But it’ll be good for my piece. And he promised to show me where the shells came from, so if I learn anything, I’ll pass it along.”

“I appreciate that. But please be careful.” I hear him take a deep breath. “I wish you’d told me. I would’ve talked you out of it.”