The trees are a decadence. They line the gravel driveway on either side, staggered to look like they march on forever. Oaks, cherries, willows, and palms. They don’t belong here, the palms. They were probably grown down in the Carolinas, or even farther south. I have no idea how they survive the Maine winters. Perhaps they don’t. Perhaps these are million-dollar annuals whooshing by.
I consider the expense of transporting mature trees, one by one, and all the labor involved. Flatbeds rumbling up the interstate with “wide load” signs on the back. Or barges tugged up the coast and unloaded with giant cranes. All for trees that will succumb to the next ten-year storm or the next super freeze. Just to decorate the impossibly long driveway of a filthy rich man. Just to stand there as a giant screw-you to reality, a bold claim that seems to say: Your world has gone to ruin, but not mine. I can afford to make any world I choose.
It’s excesses like these that brought me here to destroy a man.
It’s the palm trees; it’s the shells in my purse; it’s all the things that don’t belong here, including me.
The tires of my beat-up electric car crunch down the miles-long gravel road. I flinch with every pebble that kicks up against the underbody. I hate driving out of the city. The offer to be flown out on Wilde’s helicopter seems less insane now, almost worth swallowing my pride for, almost worth the ridiculousness of it all. Other reporters have probably said, “Yes. Hell yes.” And why wouldn’t they? How many came out here hoping to get screwed rather than to do the screwing?
A rock hits beneath my seat, and my knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. Ahead, twin rows of crape myrtles dot the road. They’re losing their flowers. Purple petals ring the trunks, fallen mementos of a past bloom like photos from college years. But unlike people, trees flower again in the spring; they age in great looping circles. We ride a roller coaster once around, shuddering up clacking tracks and then screaming our fool heads off all the way down.
You’re only thirty-two, I remind myself.
I feel every day of it, I think back.
Another guard gate looms into view down the dusty road. It’s the second gate I’ve had to go through, despite there being no way to access the road between the gates. If the first checkpoint was a testament to seclusion and privacy—with its tall, camera-studded walls marching off in either direction—this second blockade feels more like a padlock around a deeply paranoid mind. Why lock away even further what no one is allowed to see?
Ness Wilde used to live in the limelight. He seemed to bask in it for three solid decades, practically since the day he was born. But he hasn’t been seen in public in four years. This from a man who once graced the cover of practically every gossip rag and shelling magazine, who was on every other TV channel, who must’ve been interviewed a thousand times.
And then, one day, he’s gone. He refuses all interviews. Until this week, when the Times ran the first of four pieces I’ve written on him and his family. Now, suddenly, he wants to talk. And even if I don’t care to oblige him, there are powerful people who insist that I do. People like my editor at the paper. Other people with badges and guns. The kinds of people you listen to if you want to stay employed and on the right side of the law.
I slow to a stop at the second gate, and a young guard steps out. He looks the part: broad shoulders, narrow waist, chiseled jaw, military buzz cut. He motions for me to roll down the window. I press the button, and the smell of honeysuckle and coconuts and the nearby sea fills the car.
“I checked in at the other gate,” I tell the guard.
“Identification,” he says.
“Seriously?”
I mutter this under my breath, and if the guard hears, he doesn’t react. Rummaging in my bag on the passenger seat, I find my Times credentials and driver’s license. I hand them to the guard and do little to conceal my annoyance.
“And the registration,” he says, motioning with his hand.
“For the car?” I ask.
He waits. I curse him as I pop the glove box. This can’t be normal. Some kind of punishment. I try not to be paranoid, try not to think that Ness knows who sent me here.
“So how often do marauders get past the first gate and make it this far?” I ask. I hand him my vehicle registration.
The guard ignores me and studies the ID. I watch his lips mouth my name: Maya Walsh. It’s hard to tell if he’s whispering for the benefit of the wire hanging out of his ear or if he’s one of those people who can’t read without sounding out the words. He glances up at me, checks something on a small tablet, and then holsters the tablet beside his gun. The IDs and registration are returned.