Hugh Howey - The Shell Collector

“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.”

“Seriously? You talked me into coming the last time.” The truth is, I knew he would’ve objected. Probably why I didn’t say anything. “Look, I’ll check in when I get back into town—”

“Oh, Maya?”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking about the marks last night. Inside the shells. One way they could do that is to move a non-extinct species in after they cast the shell. We’re thinking here that it would be cheaper than unique molds.”

“Yeah, I thought of the same thing.”

“Okay. Good sign that we aren’t crazy. So be safe.”

“I will. Thanks for everything.”

We hang up, and I stay lost in thought until I reach Ness’s estate. I allow myself to daydream about the shelling ahead, the access I may have to raw beaches, the fact that Ness told me to bring a wetsuit and my snorkel gear.

What I try not to do is allow myself to think of Ness as a regular guy, as a man my age. Being taken on a tour of—whatever he has planned for this week—excites the sheller in me far more than the journalist. I remind myself that this person has an ugly history, that he’s the face of one of the companies I blame for the encroaching sea. I also remind myself of the exquisite fake shells and whatever it is they portend. And as I reach the edge of his estate, I let his misplaced palm trees remind me that all with Mr. Wilde is not as it seems. That his outer shell is not to be trusted.

The guard at the first gate smiles at me in recognition. He tips his hat and “ma’ams” me as I hand him my ID. After jotting something on his tablet, he leans out of his booth, peers down the driveway toward the estate, and whispers something into his radio. He nods at some inaudible reply. “Just one second,” he tells me.

This is different. I wonder if maybe someone is coming out to meet me.

I tap my fingers on the steering wheel and wait.

I lower the visor and check myself in the mirror.

I pull out my phone to see if there’s anything urgent in my inbox.

“Okay,” the guard eventually says. He hands me my driver’s license and press pass, and the tall iron gate swings open in greased silence.