Free The Shell Collector by Hugh Howey

everywhere. It’s as thoughtless as the driveway. Senseless waste.
    “Look,” he insists.
    And so I do. And sure enough, the patterns are different. The shells are distinct. So, not from a single mold.
    I pull the loupe away. Despite what I’m seeing, another thought occurs to me. Ness is a collector. And no collector in his right mind, whatever their collection is like, could destroy three lace murexes without batting an eye. Without flinching. Much less seem to recover their spirits while doing so. His confession came by destroying the shells. All I can think of now is getting to the inn and calling Agent Cooper to let him know what happened here.
    “You believe me, don’t you?” Ness asks. Almost with desperation.
    “Sure,” I say. I check the time on my phone. “I think I should go.”

11
    My car is beeping at me as I coast into the inn. I leave it with the valet, grab my overnight bag out of the trunk, and remind the young man a second time to make sure he plugs the car in. The registration desk is empty. There’s laughter from the bar, but the rest of the facility is winding down for the night. A man emerges from the back. I hand over my business card, ask for any available upgrade, and get a room key to a suite. I figure Henry owes me for yanking my story.
    I find the suite and spend a few minutes unpacking. I catch a flash of myself in the mirror and decide that I look like a wreck. The first person I call is Agent Cooper. I try his cell and brace for the grumble of the half-asleep. Instead, he picks up on the first ring. Sounds chipper as he says “Hello.”
    “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