The Match

Chapter Eleven

Vicky wanted to hear Wilde’s story first, so he told it.

“Whoa,” Vicky said when Wilde finished. “Just so I have this straight: A female relative of ours traveled to Europe in 1980. While there, she met a soldier on leave, who got her pregnant. Am I right so far?”

Wilde nodded.

“Somehow, that baby, you, a boy, was abandoned in the woods at an age so young, the boy doesn’t remember any time before he was fending for himself. Eventually you were rescued and raised and now, what, thirty-five or so years later, you still don’t know how you ended up in those woods.” Vicky looked over at him. “That sum it up?”

“Yes.”

Vicky looked up as though in deep thought. “You’d think if it was someone related to me, I’d have heard about it.”

“She might have kept the pregnancy secret,” Wilde said.

“Could be,” Vicky agreed. “Based on what you said, your mother would probably have been, what, eighteen at the youngest, and probably under twenty-five, when she met your biological father?”

“That’s about right,” Wilde said.

She chewed on that for a moment. “Well, my father is dead, and mom, well, she’s in and out, if you know what I mean. But I can try to get you a family tree. Some relatives on my father’s side are into genealogy. They can probably help you.”

“I would appreciate that,” Wilde said. Then he switched gears. “Why do you think your brother is dead?”

“Tell me the truth. Are you a viewer?”

“A viewer?”

“Of Love Is a Battlefield or any of that. Is that part of your interest here?”

“No,” Wilde said. “I never heard of the show before this morning.”

“But you did contact Peter via this genealogy site?”

“I didn’t know who he was. He used his initials.” Then Wilde added, “Peter wrote me first.”

“Really?” Vicky gestured toward Wilde’s phone. “May I see what he said?”

Wilde opened the messages app on the genealogy site and passed his phone to her. As Vicky read her brother’s words, her eyes began to well up. “Wow,” she said softly. “These are hard to read now.”

Wilde said nothing.

“So much hurt, so much pain.” She shook her head, still staring at the message. “Did you look at my brother’s social media at all?”

“Yes.”

“So you know what happened to him?”

“Some of it,” Wilde said. “Do you think he jumped from that cliff in his last post?”

“Yes, of course. Don’t you?”

Wilde chose not to answer. “Did Peter leave a suicide note?”

“No.”

“Did he send you a message of any kind?”

“No.”

“Did he send anyone else, maybe your mother or Jenn Cassidy, a suicide note?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“And they never found a body.”

“They rarely do with jumpers at Adiona Cliffs. That’s part of the allure. You jump off the end of the earth.”

“I raise all this,” Wilde said, “because I’m wondering why you seem so sure he’s dead.”

Vicky thought about that for a moment. “A few reasons. One, well, you won’t like this one because you simply won’t understand.”

Wilde said nothing.

“There’s a life force in the universe. I won’t go into details, especially with a skeptic who has blocked chakras. It isn’t worth it. But I know my brother is dead. I could actually feel him leave this world.”

Wilde bit back the sigh. He gave it a moment, and then let the moment land with a dull thud. “You said ‘a few reasons.’”

“Yes.”

“One is you feel Peter is dead. What are the others?”

Vicky spread her hands. “Where else would he be?”

“I don’t know,” Wilde said.

“If Peter were alive,” she continued, “well, where is he? I mean, do you know something about the situation I don’t?”

“No. But I’d like to look for him anyway, if that’s okay.”

“Why?” Then Vicky Chiba saw it. “Oh, wait, I get it.” She held high Wilde’s phone before passing it back to him. “You feel obligated. Peter sent you this distress message, and you didn’t reply.”

Vicky Chiba didn’t say it accusingly, but then again, her tone didn’t take him off the hook either.

“I blame myself too, if that helps. I mean, look at Peter’s face.” Vicky picked up a framed photograph of four people — Peter, Vicky, and what Wilde assumed were the other two siblings.

“Is that your other sister and brother?”

Vicky nodded. “The four Bennett children. I’m the oldest. That’s my sister Kelly. The two of us were thick as thieves. Then came our brother Silas. Kelly and I spoiled him rotten until, well, until Peter came along. Look at this face. Just look at it.”

Wilde did as she asked.

“You can sense it, can’t you?”

Wilde said nothing.

“Peter’s innocence, his naïveté, his fragility. The rest of us, well, we are attractive enough, I guess. But Peter? He had that intangible. These reality shows — sure, they’re all fake and scripted, but the viewer still somehow sees through all that and finds the real you. And the real Peter was pure goodness. You know the expression ‘too good for this world’?”

Wilde nodded. He debated asking why someone “too good” would have roofied his sister-in-law, but he imagined that Vicky Chiba would either deny it or shut down entirely, and neither of those results would be fruitful right now; instead, he asked, “You said you blame yourself for Peter.”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell me why?”

“Because I got him into this,” Vicky said. “I knew he’d be a star, and then I did a tarot reading that encouraged me to be active, not reactive — that’s what it said over and over, ‘Be active, not reactive,’ and I had always been so reactive, my whole life — so I filled out the application for Peter to be on the show. I didn’t think anything would come of it. Or maybe I knew. I can’t say anymore. But I didn’t really comprehend the long-term impact on Peter’s psyche.”

“In what way?” Wilde asked.

“Fame changes everyone. I know that sounds like a cliché, but no one gets out unscathed. When that fame beacon hits you, it’s warm and soothing and the most addictive drug in the world. Every celebrity denies it — they pretend to be above craving fame — but it’s so much worse for reality stars.”

“How so?”

“No reality star stays a star. There is always an expiration date. I worked for a while in Hollywood. I always heard, ‘The bigger the star, the nicer they are.’ And you know what? That’s true — the big stars are often really nice — but do you know why?”

Wilde shook his head.

“It’s because they can afford to be. Those big superstars are secure that the fame will always be in plentiful supply for them. But for reality stars? It’s the opposite. Reality stars know that beacon is at its brightest when it first hits you and that it will only dim with time.”

Wilde gestured to the family photograph in her hand. “And that’s what happened to your brother?”

“I thought Peter handled it as well as anyone could. I thought he’d built a life with Jenn, a happy one, but when it all fell apart...” Her voice faded away. Her eyes grew moist. “Do you really think Peter is alive?”

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, trying to sound resolute. “If Peter was alive, he’d have contacted me.”

Wilde waited. Vicky Chiba would get there soon enough.

“But then again, if Peter had decided to leave this world” — Vicky Chiba stopped, blinked back the tears, regained her composure — “I think he would have contacted me. To let me know. To say goodbye.”

They both stood there for a moment. Then Wilde said, “Let’s go back for a second. When did you last see Peter?”

“He was staying with me.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“When did he leave?”

“You saw Peter’s social media profiles?”

“Some of them,” Wilde said.

“He left three days before his last Instagram post.”

“The one with the cliff?”

“Yes.”

“How did that happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said he was staying with you.”

“Yes.”

“What precipitated him leaving? What did he tell you?”

Again her eyes welled up. “On the surface, Peter seemed to be getting better. There was that post about not being so quick to believe what you hear. Did you see that one?”

Wilde nodded.

“So I thought maybe Peter was turning a corner, but looking back on it, I see it was all kinds of forced. Like he was psyching himself up for a battle he knew he couldn’t win.” She headed toward a computer on a desk in the corner. “Did you read the comments under any of his posts?”

“I did,” Wilde said.

“Vile, right?”

“Yes.”

“The last few days he was here, Peter read them all. Every single one of them. I don’t know why. I told him not to. They made him spiral. So on that last day, that’s what he was doing. He read the comments. Then he went through hundreds of DMs.”

“DMs?”

“Direct Messages. Think of it like the messaging service in your DNA website. Followers on Instagram can write to you directly. Most remain unread. I tried to keep up during the height of Peter’s popularity — that was important to him, to be kind to his fans — but there were so many it was impossible. Anyway, he got a particularly awful one. And that, I don’t know, that seemed like the last straw.”

“When did he get this message?”

“A day or two before he left. Some toxic creep had been trolling him, but this particular message — it was the first time I saw a flash of anger from him. For the most part, Peter was just confused and baffled by all this, not angry. It was like the world punched him in the face, and he was just trying to get his bearings and figure out why. But with this message, he wanted to go after the guy.”

“The guy who sent the toxic message?”

“Yes.”

“What did the message say?”

“I don’t know. Peter wouldn’t let me see it. A few days later, he packed up and left.”

“Did he tell you he was leaving or where he was going?”

Vicky shook her head. “I came home from work and he was gone.”

“I assume you reached out to him?”

“Yes. But he didn’t reply. I called Jenn. She said they hadn’t spoken in weeks. I called some other friends. Nothing. After three days passed, I went to the police.”

“What did the police say?”

“What could they say?” Vicky replied with a shrug. “Peter was a grown man. They took my statement and sent me on my way.”

“Can you show me the message?” Wilde asked. “The one you said upset him.”

“Why?” Vicky shook her head. “There’s so much hate out there. After a while, it’s hard to stomach.”

“I’d like to see it, if that’s okay.”

Vicky hesitated, but not for very long. She brought up Instagram on her app and moved to her brother’s profile. There was that cliff again and that caption:

I just want peace.

She shifted the cursor so that the post before it came up. Wilde again read the words in the photograph:

“So this one creep with the profile name DogLufegnev commented a lot,” Vicky said. “Always saying something awful like ‘You’ll pay’ or ‘I know the truth about you,’ ‘I have proof,’ ‘You should die,’ that kind of stuff. But here is what he wrote under this post.”

She scrolled down to a comment made by DogLufegnev. DogLufegnev’s profile picture was a big red button saying GUILTY. His comment read:

Vicky said, “Maybe DogLufegnev is a dog lover or something.”

“No,” Wilde said.

“No?”

“DogLufegnev,” Wilde said, “is Vengeful God backward.”

She shook her head. “Lunatic. A goddamn lunatic.”

“Can we see his message to your brother?”

Vicky hesitated. “May I be honest?”

Wilde waited.

“I don’t like it. Showing you the message, I mean.”

“Why?”

“There is a certain flow in the universe, and this feels like the wrong kind of cosmic disruption.”

Wilde bit back another sigh. “I don’t want to disrupt the cosmos either, but what’s more disruptive than unanswered questions? Don’t these doubts disturb the life force or something?”

Vicky thought about that.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important,” Wilde added.

She nodded and started typing. A few seconds later, Vicky frowned, paused, muttered something under her breath, and then typed some more. “That’s weird.”

“What?”

“I can’t get into Peter’s Instagram account.” She met Wilde’s eye. “It says ‘incorrect password.’”

Wilde took a step toward her. “When was the last time you signed in?”

“I don’t remember. We just keep it logged on usually, I don’t know. I’m not great with the technical stuff.”

“Did Peter handle his own social media?”

“He did by then, yes. For a while, when he and Jenn were clearing six figures a month, they hired a professional firm that took care of the advertising and endorsements.”

“Six figures a month?”

“Easily. The year Peter won the show? I’d say it was probably closer to seven figures.”

Wilde was having trouble comprehending this. “Per month?”

“Sure.” Vicky tried again and shook her head. “Maybe he changed the password. Maybe he didn’t want us to see these messages.” She blinked and turned away. “I know you mean well, Wilde, but maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

Vicky was shutting down. Wilde had an idea.

“Okay, let’s forget that for now,” he said. “Do you have access to his email?”

“Yes.”

“Have you checked it?”

“Not recently. Why would I?”

“There could be something in there. If we see, for example, he’s sent an email in the past few weeks—”

“He rarely emailed. He was more a text guy.”

“But it’s worth a check, don’t you think? Maybe he reached out to someone. Maybe someone reached out to him.”

Vicky reopened the browser and clicked the Gmail account icon. Her own email address popped up, so she clicked over it and typed in one beginning with PBennett447, and then she typed in his password. Her eyes scanned down the inbox.

“Anything stand out?” Wilde asked.

She shook her head. “The new stuff is all mailing lists or business related. Nothing’s been opened since Peter vanished.”

Wilde noticed that she said “vanished” this time, rather than “dead.”

“Check the ‘sent’ tab,” Wilde said, though that wasn’t the real reason he’d had her sign in to her brother’s email. This was just a diversion now — Wilde had already gotten what he wanted from Vicky Chiba. “See if he sent anything.”

She clicked per his request. “Nothing new or relevant.”

“Do we know if he spoke or communicated with anyone after he left?”

“I checked his phone. He didn’t use it.”

“How about your siblings?”

She shook her head. “Kelly lives down in Florida with her husband and three kids. She said she hasn’t spoken to Peter in months. And Silas, well, they were the two babies, but Silas was always jealous of Peter. You know how it is. Peter was better looking, more popular, the better athlete. Anyway, I think the last time Peter and Silas talked was when we all appeared on the show.”

“You were all on Love Is a Battlefield?”

Vicky nodded. “There’s an episode toward the end called ‘Homefront.’ The finalists introduce Jenn to their families, so it was just Peter and Big Bobbo.”

“Big Bobbo?”

“That was the other finalist. Bob Jenkins. He called himself Big Bobbo. Anyway, the producers want your entire family there and they want drama. We were supposed to be skeptical and interrogate Jenn, you know, make a commotion. The producers wanted all three siblings there. Silas didn’t like it.”

“But he still went?”

“Yes. The money was good, and they gave us a free stay at this cool resort in Utah, so he figured, Why not? But once he was there, Silas just sulked. I don’t think he said two words. He became a pretty popular meme.”

“A meme?”

“I think that’s what they call it. People would post pictures of Silas and call him Silent Silas or Sulking Silas, and then they’d add some comment about being grumpy, like ‘Me before coffee.’ Silas was upset about it. He wanted to sue the show.”

“Where is Silas now?”

“I’m not sure. He drives a truck so he’s on the road most of the year. I can give you his mobile number?”

“That would be great.”

“I don’t think Silas will be much help though.”

“How about Jenn?”

“What about her?”

“Was Peter still in touch with her?”

Vicky shook her head. “Not toward the end, no.”

“Do you and Jenn talk much?”

“We used to. I mean, before all this, we were all very close. She was devastated by the betrayal.”

“So you believe Peter did it?”

Vicky hesitated. “He said he didn’t.”

Wilde waited.

“Does it matter anymore?”

“I’m not judging,” Wilde said. “I just...”

“You just what?” Vicky said, and there was a little edge in her tone now. “This doesn’t concern you. I told you I’d work on the family tree for you. That’s why you’re here, right? To find out why you were abandoned in the woods?”

It suddenly dawned on Wilde that for the second time in his conscious life — the first time was just a few months ago with his father — Wilde was conversing with a blood relative. He expected that it would mean nothing to him. He had spent his life convinced that the answers would provide no meaningful closure or change in his life, especially after his encounter with a father who clearly wanted nothing to do with him, and yet now, as he faced someone who shared his blood, there was an undeniable pull.

“Vicky?”

“What?”

“You talk about chakra and feelings and all that.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not. But something about this whole thing isn’t adding up.”

“I still don’t see how that concerns you.”

“Maybe it doesn’t. But I’m going to dig into this, with your blessing or not. At best, you’ll get some answers. At worst, I’ve wasted some of your time.”

“You’re not wasting my time,” Vicky Chiba said. Then she added, “You’re our cousin. And you have my blessing.”