Finding the turnoff isn’t easy. I remember about how far down the driveway I was, but I have to creep along with my window down and peer between the trees for the gate. I also look for tire treads veering to the side, or grass flattened on the shoulder. I’m feeling more and more certain that I’ve passed the spot, that I need to turn back and look for it again, when I see the gap between the trees and the black gate in the woods. I pull into the gap, hoping it’ll open automatically. Then I remember the keypad. I get out to study it.
There’s a small LCD screen. I punch in four numbers. The cursor is still blinking. I add two more numbers, and a red light flashes twice. A six-digit code. One of the only relevant numbers I know to try is Ness’s birthday. I try it twice, once with the day before the month and once the other way around. I get red lights both times. The guards are probably on their way. I listen for their jeeps. The hidden road seems to run through the woods to the south. Forgetting the car, and not knowing how far the drive goes or where it leads, I decide to go ahead on foot.
This is where shoes would’ve been a good idea. I stick to the sparse grass where I can, and I stay out of the deep tire treads full of rainwater. The trees only go a few hundred yards, and soon I can see the open field beyond: tall grass, a road cutting through it, the shoulders maintained. To my left, due east, the field runs a long distance before it becomes scrub brush and dunes that must slide down to the sea. Ahead of me, I can see where the road itself leads: to the lighthouse, with its white and black stripes. Maybe a mile away, out on a jut of coast. I start walking.
The hike gives me time to reflect, time to compose what I’ll say to Ness, what I’ll write in my piece, what I might be able to say to Henry to keep the rest of the story from running. I dream of storming into a board meeting and telling them what shortsighted and stupid idiots they are, that this is so much bigger than the tawdry gossip I’ve been compiling, that the last week might have had far greater implications than the last two years of my work.
The sun beats down. The ground is still soggy from the heavy rain the day before. My feet are covered in mud; it cakes up between my toes.
What will I tell my sister? When all this is over, and I have nothing but a destroyed family behind me and two days of perfect shelling and two days of perfect bliss, what will I say happened?
Henry’s news of book offers and film deals haunts me. I can see one way this turns out: with my wealth and notoriety increased, with the publication deals that have always eluded me, with the big-screen dramatizations my long-form colleagues at magazines often get, all at the expense of ruining what might in fact be a decent man.
The parallels to that future and Ness and his family are eerie. I think of how it must feel with all his wealth coming on the back of a broken and flooded world. Maybe he hates himself like I used to hate him, like everyone I know hates him. I may have the same life ahead of me, especially if our affair leaks out. There will be lights flashing, people asking me to sign my book for them, and the pain in my gut like I’ve been punched. Because of what made it all possible. Who I had to hurt. What I had to destroy.
I feel closer to Ness in this moment than I did in bed or on the beach. I feel so close to understanding him perfectly, to knowing his demons. That’s who you interview to get at a man: not his family, his friends, his coworkers, his competitors. You interview his skeletons and his demons. I feel like I’ve finally met them. I think of how he got his name, how we all need monsters to blame, but how those monsters are our own construction. I did that. I helped torture him. Because it made me feel better.
I damn myself as I reach the lighthouse. I think of all I will say to him. How I will pour my heart out. This is how it always works in the movies, right? Two people fall in love, there’s a massive misunderstanding, but it all works out in the end. I tell myself this: that it’ll all work out in the end. It has to. It can’t end with everyone broken. Who does that?
Beside the lighthouse are a number of vehicles: Ness’s red sports car, two sedans, a panel van, and a pickup truck, all splattered with mud from the drive out. Shielding my eyes, I gaze up at the top of the lighthouse. No sign of activity there. No other building attached. Just a tall black-and-white-banded tower of stone.
Trying the door, I find it unlocked. I let myself in and call for Ness. No answer. Off the small entry hall, there’s a set of spiral stairs running up. I take them two at a time and feel winded by the time I get to the top. There’s no one there, just a spectacular view. I didn’t pass any doors along the way, didn’t see or hear a single soul. I wonder if maybe there’s a trail that leads down to the beach, if there’s another building. I work my way back down and look for any door or passage I may have missed on the way up.
Nothing.
Back in the foyer, I poke around fruitlessly. A cardboard box with some light bulbs. An empty coat rack. A small table and chair. A scattering of tools.
I leave the lighthouse and walk around the building. Bingo. On the other side, there’s a set of stairs leading down. The door at the bottom of the stairs is locked. There’s a keypad by the door; it looks newer than anything else around the lighthouse. I bang my fist against the cool steel and shout Ness’s name, wait for an answer.