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Local Billionaire Makes Two Large Local Donations
Devon Wilder, the San Francisco man who inherited an estate worth a billion dollars after serving a two-year stretch in prison for robbery, has made two donations that will make a difference to the local city scene.
A San Francisco network of women’s shelters, called Sheltered Hearts, received a donation of $3 million yesterday from Wilder. “We are overwhelmed,” said Patricia Greene, the president of Sheltered Hearts, a non-profit that receives no government funding. “With this kind of money, we can make real improvements to our shelters and our system, which in turn will make a real improvement to many women’s and children’s lives.”
It was revealed in a news item three days ago that Wilder, who was born in LA, is the son of Gina Wilder, who was murdered ten years ago at the age of thirty-nine. Her boyfriend at the time, who was convicted of the murder, is currently on Death Row for the crime.
When asked about the donation, Mr. Wilder made a brief statement. “Ten years ago, when my mother was killed, I wasn’t in a position to help her,” he said. “Today I’m in a different position. It only makes sense to me to pay it forward and maybe help another woman and her kids. I just wish someone had been able to help my mother before it was too late.”
In a second development, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—which is also a non-profit—revealed yesterday that Mr. Wilder had given them $3 million as well as the beginning of an ongoing funding commitment. “We are very grateful,” Paul McGhee, the president of SFMOMA, said in a statement. “This kind of commitment to the arts means that we can continue to bring the best works in the world to San Francisco.”
When asked about the second donation, Mr. Wilder’s statement was even more brief. “I have a friend who likes to go there,” he said about the gallery. “That’s all I have to say.”
Twenty-Eight
Olivia
I phoned him. Of course I phoned him.
He picked up right away.
“Devon,” I said. “What the hell did you do?”
“What?” he said, innocent.
“I’m reading the news,” I said. I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen in her LA house, her laptop in front of me on the counter as I made a cup of tea. “You did this, didn’t you? The boat in the harbor.”
He was quiet for a second. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” he said.
“I know,” I said, the words coming hard through my choked-up throat. “I should have believed you.”
“You had no reason,” he said. “I knew that.”
“I had every reason. And I did trust you.” I took a breath. “I do. I just let my panic get the best of me.”
He was quiet for another moment. “It’s done,” he said. “Where are you?”
“At my mother’s. In LA.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. My wrist is healing. So are the bruises.” I dunked my tea bag in my cup. “My mother is happy to see me. It turns out she worries about the fact that I have no love life.”
“Hmm,” he said, a low sound I felt vibrate straight through my belly, and lower. “You gonna enlighten her?”
I dropped the tea bag, distracted. “I told her about you,” I said. I had, while Mom and I had eaten takeout Chinese in our pj’s, like we were two teenagers. I hadn’t told her any of the dirty stuff, of course. But I had the impression that Mom had filled in some of the blanks. “She, um, she knows.”
“And what does she say?”
I remembered exactly what Mom had said when I’d finished talking. She’d sipped her wine and looked at me from under her lashes. Even at age fifty, with no makeup on and her hair going naturally gray—she’d stopped dyeing it—my mother was really beautiful. She was just genetically blessed, in a way Gwen and I should probably thank her for. A man like that isn’t easy, honey, she’d said, but he’s worth a million of any other kind.
I wasn’t about to repeat that to Devon Wilder. “I think she’d like you,” I said instead. “She already likes your picture.”
“Oh, fuck,” Devon said. “My mug shot?” That particular shot had run in the original story about Devon inheriting his grandfather’s money.
“No. The one that ran in the donation story.” I was staring at it right now, on th
e laptop in front of me. The reporter had caught a snapshot of Devon leaving the offices of Sheltered Hearts and walking toward his car. In a suit. A suit. Dark blue, with a gray shirt and even a sexy dark silk tie. His dark hair was neatly brushed back from his temples, his beard trim, his green eyes glancing briefly at the camera. From his left sleeve peeked a silver watch over the dark ink on the back of his hand. His big body was in motion, leaning in toward the driver’s door of his Chevy. It was pure, one hundred percent suit porn, and I’d been staring at it for a day. That was mine. I had that.
