Hugh Howey - The Shell Collector

“I want you,” I tell him. “Right now. I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life.”

I feel his hands stop. Something flashes across his face. “I can’t be an escape for you,” he says. “Not some temporary home.”

“I don’t want temporary,” I tell him.

With this, his hands move again. He rolls me over and lowers me to the blanket. As he kisses my neck, and then down my body, I keep my eyes open. A field of stars glitters above us, the sea lapping nearby, streaks of light as foreign bodies strike the Earth’s atmosphere, exploding and burning upon entry. Ness’s mouth is against me, and now I can’t tell if all the stars I’m seeing are real. My vision bursts with them. I have to close my eyes; our hands interlock; I arch my back and moan with pleasure.

When I can’t take it anymore, I pull him up so I can kiss him. So our chests are together. So he can enter me. And for the first time, I forget who this man is outside of any context beyond the last few days together. I let go of his past. My past. There is nothing behind us, nothing before us, just a promise of now. The world is not flooding. All the tides are slack. Waiting. Pausing. Nature catching her breath. While the two of us lose ourselves in each other.

The next morning, I wake up before Ness. I watch him sleep for a long while. I notice that the crease in his forehead is gone. Like the worry that seems to plague him during the day is giving him respite in his sleep.

When I can’t hold it anymore, I get up to pee. I grab my phone on the way to the bathroom to check the time, and marvel that I have signal. It’s just wi-fi, though. I wonder how this works with Ness’s “no laptop” rule, but I use it to check my email and my messages while I’m on the toilet. I have a depressing metric ton of both. I scan for important names, see my sister asking me how things are going, that she assumes the silence is a good thing, reminds me to let Ness know she’s single. I stifle a laugh at this. What in the world am I going to tell her?

There are tons of messages from Henry. I have a workaholic breakthrough by opening none of them. Just one day of not caring what the emergency is. A way of honoring Ness’s laptop rule. Leaving the bathroom, I worry my flushing might’ve woken Ness, but he’s still sound asleep. I decide to venture out for coffee. As I’m passing the bed, I see inside Ness’s bag, which is open. It’s the bright orange plastic case that catches my eye.

I freeze, glance back at the bed, see that he isn’t moving, then crouch down beside his bag. I pull the case out. It’s identical to the murex case Agent Cooper gave me. In fact, I fully expect to see a lace murex inside as I work the latch. Instead, some water sloshes out, and I have to tilt the case in a hurry to get it level and keep from making more of a mess. I lift the lid slowly. Inside is something that looks like a cross between an auger and a cerith. Not quite as smooth as the former or as bumpy as the latter. When it moves, I realize where it came from. And why the water inside feels so warm. And why these cases have rubber seals.

I close the lid, secure the latch, and put the case back in Ness’s bag. My mind is racing, but it’s going around in circles. These clues seem important, but they aren’t spelling out the big picture. When I stand, I turn to find Ness stretching in the bed. He looks over at me.

“Morning, gorgeous.”

I feel terrifyingly naked. I don’t know how much is my usual shyness and how much is my swimming thoughts.

“C’mere,” Ness says.

I crawl into bed and kiss his neck. “My breath is awful,” I say.

“Is that your polite way of saying that it’s my breath that’s bad?”

“No, but I assume it isn’t hunky dory either. I’m going to make coffee. You want some?”

“Yeah, because that’ll fix our problems.”

I laugh and push him back against the pillow when he tries to sit up. “Stay here,” I say. “I’ll get it. And can I borrow a robe?”

“I like that look,” he tells me.

“It’s chilly,” I say.

Ness waves toward the closet. I find a robe hanging on the back of the door.

“Oh, and do you have a landline?”

“Why?” he asks.

“I need to call my sister. She was expecting me to check in today. I didn’t know we’d be in the Bahamas.”

“Sure. Make sure you use the country code.”

“Okay. Back with your coffee in a bit.”

I grab my cell phone on my way out. While I’m sorting out the coffee and filter and putting water in the coffee maker, I pull up Agent Cooper’s phone number in my directory. I also find an alarm radio on the kitchen counter and figure out how to pair it up with my phone. I choose a beach playlist. Ness yells his approval, and I crank up the volume. I find the house phone, remove it from its cradle, and take it outside while the coffee is percolating.

There’s static atop the dial tone as I head out onto the patio. Too far, and the phone won’t work. I balance between distance for privacy but not so much that I lose reception. Agent Cooper picks up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Cooper. It’s Maya Walsh. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time. Just wanted to fill you in on something.”

“You can call me—”

“Stan. Whatever. Just listen. That case you found? It’s a research sample case. Insulated. It’s watertight to keep water in , not out. Ness is taking live mollusks from the deep sea. That’s where he’s getting his shells.”

“Hydrothermals? Maya, nothing like the lace murex lives down there.”

“I know. The laces aren’t the thing, don’t you see? Ness reacted to seeing the case , not the shells. The shells are blinding us. You. Us. Whatever. The point is, I think he’s after those shells maybe to breed them. Or something. He wants them alive. This isn’t about forging shells at all.”

“Breeding shells isn’t illegal,” Cooper says. “We give out permits for that.”

“To anyone? He said something about senators, doesn’t trust them. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I know for a fact he’s doing something illegal. He admitted that. And he’s keeping these samples hidden from me. I think he’s growing shells, and maybe it’s the scale of his operation that’s an issue. I mean, he’s got entire islands where he could be breeding these things. Maybe selling the shells as if found. Or using what he breeds to move into cast fakes, like you suggested. I don’t know.”

“Maya, I want you to come in and debrief with me. I want you out of there.”

“I can’t. Not now.”

“You’re in too deep. I’m telling you. If you were my agent, I’d be ordering you to get out of there.”

“Good thing I’m not, then. Anyway, I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait. I wanted to talk to you about the article.”

“Can’t. I’ll call you later.”

I hang up. My palms are sweaty. A mix of thoughts rush through my head. The first is that the FBI just recorded me, and that Cooper is probably already listening to our conversation again to make sure he got everything. The next is a feeling like I’m betraying Ness, which stings deep, because I’m pretty sure I’m falling for him. The last thought is of my own wound, because it’s obvious that he hasn’t been telling me the whole truth, which sucks because of the aforementioned falling-for-him bit. But it’s also a salve for my guilt. Maybe we’re betraying each other. A little.

Back in the house, I find the coffee pot full. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young are singing about eighty feet of waterline, nicely making way. Ness is sitting up in bed on a throne of pillows as I deliver his coffee.

“Your sister convinced I haven’t murdered you and dumped your body at sea?” Ness asks.