“You took down a United States senator,” Ness says. “Hell, I wish I could do that to a few of them.” He shakes his head. “You were more powerful in third grade than I am now.”
“And I don’t even know how many other people I helped ruin like that. For me, it was just a game. It felt like the kind of video game my sister liked to play on her computer. Maybe that’s why I don’t have the stomach for them.”
“You know, what you did is right up there with destroying the world’s oceans and wrecking a billion miles of shoreline,” Ness says.
I know he’s joking, but neither of us laugh.
“I don’t know why, but it feels good to tell someone without building up to it for years and years, without dreading the conversation. I haven’t told many people. Not sure why it feels safe to tell you. Maybe because you’ve shared things with me that I have to keep to myself. Like mutually assured destruction.”
Ness runs his hand down my arm. “I like you, Maya Walsh. I like that you challenge me, make me think. I like that you’re complex. I even like that you don’t like me.”
“You’re one of those guys who falls in love easily, aren’t you?” I ask. I don’t mean it to sound harsh, but as an honest question.
“Maybe,” he says. “Is that a bad thing?”
“It depends. Do you fall out of love just as quickly?”
Ness considers this. Looks sad for a moment. “I don’t think so. I love my work. I have a lot of passions in life. The people who’ve left me recently, they haven’t wanted to share me with those things.”
“As long as it’s not someone else, I can share. I get lost in my work as well. Michael used to have to stand in front of me and shout my name to pull me from whatever article I was working on. It drove him nuts. He couldn’t understand my ability to disappear like that.”
“No one disappears like I do,” Ness warns me.
“Challenge accepted,” I say, offering my hand.
Ness takes my hand, but he uses it to pull me into him, nearly spilling my champagne. “Close your eyes,” he commands. And I do. Ness kisses me and tells me I’m beautiful, and then he says, “Close them tighter.”
I squint until not a sliver of light comes in.
“I win,” Ness says.
34
When we land, I can tell that we’re not back in Maine. The flight didn’t feel long enough, and the temperature and the humidity are too high. I feel both before we get to the front of the plane. I glance back at Ness, who is smiling guiltily.
“Detour,” he says.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“The nearest thing I have to a home.”
Outside, the midday sun has heat waves shimmering up from the tarmac. It’s stuffy, but the faintest of breezes wafts through, bringing relief. I look around for an airport. There are no other planes. A single hangar and a small cluster of structures the size of outhouses, a few silver tanks streaked with rust that I assume hold fuel. Or used to. The pilot hands Ness our two bags, which he throws on the back of a nearby golf cart. There’s another cart nearby. Two islanders help the flight crew with their bags.
“Get in,” Ness says. “You drive.”
I jump behind the wheel of the golf cart. When I hit the accelerator, the silent whine of a strong electric motor rockets us forward. Ness clutches the oh-shit handle and laughs. “I took the governors out,” he tells me.
“Of course you did,” I say.
“Take a right past those bushes.”
We cruise along white sandstone-paved roads, seeing nothing and no one. The golf cart’s windshield is down, and the breeze feels nice. Now and then, we pass twin ruts of sand that jut off into the scrub brush, trails only golf carts and feet have been down. Ness is gripping the cart with one hand, has the other on my thigh, and is watching the world zip by. He doesn’t tell me to turn, and I don’t ask.
Ahead, I see the road bend to the left. Scanning the low island that direction, I spot a structure beyond a stand of palm trees. The palms here remind me of the ones along Ness’s driveway in Maine. He said this place feels like home to him. I wonder if that’s why he has the trees transplanted, if the cost is justified by the longing he feels.
Supporting this theory is the fact that this house looks a lot like the one in Maine. Wood siding, the same bright Caribbean colors, open doors with flowing white linens. Small and cozy. The central part of his Maine estate without all the wings and additions.
“Pull around the back,” Ness says.
I swing around the end of the house, and the view on the other side causes my foot to slip off the accelerator. I find the brake pedal and bring us to a jarring stop. Ahead of us, a tiered patio steps down toward a pristine white powder beach. I barely see the cabanas and the pool and the amenities. It’s the water beyond the titanium sand that draws me in. Not blue, not even the bright green of a clear lagoon, something more like sea foam. A green so bright it has a tint of yellow. The color of clarity. Of shallow water over white sand.
“If you don’t start breathing, I’m going to have to kiss you again,” Ness says.
I tear my eyes away and lean over to kiss him. “Where is this?” I ask.
“The Bahamas. Tara Cay. And yeah, the water here is unbeatable. I’ve been to more beaches than I can count, and when I saw this one, I never wanted to leave.”
“Why do you leave? Why would you ever leave?”
“Work,” he says. And I’m reminded that he leaves a lot of beautiful things behind for his work. “Let’s put your stuff away and see if anything’s washed up.”
“There are shells here?”
“Not on this beach. Too shallow. But we’ll take the boat out and hit the ocean side. I haven’t been here in a few weeks, and there’s been a good storm since then, so we might get lucky.”
“I feel lucky just to see this. Is this one of the islands your dad bought for you?”
“No. Those are down in the Caribbean. I gave them back to the countries that owned them, and they put them in a preserve. And yes, the tax benefits were enormous. Make sure you put that in your article.”
I’d forgotten about my article. I’d forgotten that I’m a reporter. I’d forgotten about the fact that the FBI is looking closely into Ness and those shells. Right then, I’m not sure I could find my apartment if I were dropped a block away from it.
The rest of the day is just that sort of discombobulated blur. I try not to dwell on all the nagging doubts and fears, choosing instead to just enjoy where I am. Ness lets me pilot his center console around the back of the island. It’s a big thirty-foot Contender, nicer than the one at his other house, but sun-beaten and salt-worn. Well used. Amid the rocks on the Atlantic side of the island, we find fighting conchs, sozon’s cones, and a horse conch. My life feels complete when I turn up a scotch bonnet in a tidal pool, the shell in very good or excellent condition, and Ness has to assure me ten times that it wasn’t planted there. That it is a real find. I don’t even dare put it in the shelling bag I borrowed from the house. For the rest of our expedition, I carry it with me in my palm. I know even then that it will be the one shell I walk away from this experience treasuring. I have this, even if everything else is taken from me.
Back at the house, we take turns showering. With towels wrapped around us, there’s a feeling of familiar intimacy but danger as well. We haven’t yet been completely naked in front of each other. He must expect it as much as I do, the inevitability, but not knowing when it might come is like holding a grenade with the pin pulled. We both dance around it as we get dressed while the other isn’t looking.