Page 13 of Everything You Hate
“I’ve followed your career,” he says, settling across from me. Spine straight, ankles crossed, hands on his knees. A man who has rehearsed this. “The move from print to broadcast was impressive. You have a gift for making complicated things accessible.”
“Thank you.” The water is filtered, probably imported, definitely not from any tap on this island. “I’m excited about the project. Treasure hunts don’t come along every day.”
“Not one with this history.” He leans in slightly, and the window light catches the gray at his temples. “Port Haven was founded on a betrayal, Ms. Crawford. The Merricks have carried it for a century.”
And there’s the opening pitch.
He lays it out like a prosecutor. Evangeline Merrick, engaged to a wealthy mainlander named Charles Winthrop Fairchild. The night before the wedding she runs, with Thomas Haven, and with something valuable—her dowry, or Fairchild’s gold, depending on which version you’re told. She drowns that same night under circumstances nobody has ever satisfactorily explained. Her body is never recovered. The Merricks have always believed Thomas killed her and kept what they carried. Within a few years the Havens had money they’d never had before. They bought the north shore. They built an empire. And when the town chose a name, it chose theirs.
“The evidence is circumstantial but compelling,” he says. “Land records. Family journals. The timing of certain Haven acquisitions.”
“Journals,” I repeat. “Plural?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“Various family papers. My grandmother kept meticulous records.”
“I’d love to see them.”
“You will.” He smiles. “In due course. Some of it is fragile. Some of it needs context before it makes sense to an outsider.”
“What I find most compelling about your involvement,” he continues, “is your platform. Eight million followers. That reach is unprecedented for a story like this. It deserves that kind of audience.”
Platform. Not journalism.
“The documentary’s the spine of it,” I say. “Social’s just distribution. Historical research, interviews with both families, maybe underwater survey work if the weather cooperates. That’s where the real story is.”
“Of course. Of course.” He waves a hand. “The investigative work is essential. But the initial exposure—that’s where your following creates impact. Tourism numbers. Public interest. The conversation around the legend.” He pauses. “That’s what changes the narrative.”
Changes the narrative.Not uncovers the truth.
I could correct him again.
I don’t.
Because I have a decade of real reporting behind me, and a two-minute video of the worst moment of my life that eighteen million people have watched for entertainment. I have eight million people who follow me for hotel recommendations and want to know where I got my sunglasses, and a man with money who wants to make a documentary.
If this works—if it’sgood, if it’s real, if it’s the kind of thing that gets taken seriously—it’s a door. Maybe the only one left.
Nobody has offered me real work in eighteen months.
So I keep my mouth shut, and I smile, and I hate myself a little, and I ask the next question.
“The treasure. Do you believe it’s still on the island?”
His face tightens.
“I believe the evidence suggests it never left.” He rises and moves to the window, hands clasped behind his back. “The north shore. That’s where the records say Thomas and Evangeline were headed the night she died. Haven land. They bought it after, and they’ve refused access for three generations. Ask yourself what a family keeps locked up for a hundred years.”
“Have you asked them directly?”
“I have asked them for access to that shoreline eleven times in twenty years.” His reflection in the glass isn’t smiling. “The Havens are not a family that gives things back, Ms. Crawford. Ask anyone in this town who’s crossed them. Ask what happened to my?—”
He stops.
“—to my family’s standing here,” he finishes. “Over the years.”
“Your what?” I say.
