The Match

Chapter Twenty-Three

Wilde grabbed another burner from one of his lockboxes and called Laila.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“If you hadn’t managed to call me—”

“I’d be fine,” Wilde said. “They just wanted to scare me.”

“Please don’t do that, Wilde.”

“Do what?”

“I heard them tackle you and then, poof, the phone went dead. Don’t insult me with platitudes.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you for calling Hester.”

“Of course.”

Wilde said, “I know you wanted to have a talk tonight...”

“Are you serious? Not after what happened. I’m still shaking.”

“If it’s all the same, I think I’ll just go to the capsule and get some sleep.”

“No, Wilde.”

“No?”

“We won’t talk,” Laila said. “We won’t fuck either. But I need you here. I need to hold you tonight or I won’t be able to sleep, okay?”

Wilde nodded, even though he knew no one was watching. He just needed that second. “I’m on my way, Laila.”

Early the next morning, Wilde stood on Amsterdam Avenue between 72nd and 73rd Street, watching Marnie Cassidy, Jenn’s sister, the one who’d leveled the most serious allegations against Peter Bennett on the Reality Ralph podcast, sitting in the window booth at the Utopia Diner across the street. She was having breakfast with what Wilde assumed was a friend. Marnie was animated and smiley and gestured maniacally.

Rola said, “Marnie looks annoying as hell.”

Wilde nodded.

“She looks like she thinks she’s just so much fun and crazy and yells ‘woo woo’ on the dance floor.”

Wilde nodded again.

“She looks like a buddy’s irritating girlfriend who insists on joining the boys at the sports bar and she dresses in full football gear and puts on eye black and spends the entire game cheering too loudly until you want to punch her in the face.”

Wilde turned and looked at Rola. Rola shrugged. “That kind pisses me off.”

“I guess.”

“Look at her,” Rola said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Wilde, I want to find those Hartford cops and make them pay.”

“Let it go,” he said.

Marnie and her friend stood up and walked to the register to pay their bill.

“You sure you want to handle this on your own?” Rola asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll meet in Central Park afterward?”

“Yes.”

Rola kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

She headed down the block as Marnie stepped out onto the street. Marnie gave her breakfast companion a big hug and kiss and started on her way toward, Wilde knew from Rola’s intel, the ABC studios on Columbus between 66th and 67th. Wilde had planned his route. He wanted to catch Marnie before the studios were in sight. He headed around the block, hurrying his step. When Marnie turned onto 67th Street, Wilde was heading toward her in the opposite direction.

He stopped short.

“Excuse me,” Wilde said, throwing on his biggest smile and flaring his eyes, “but aren’t you Marnie Cassidy?”

Marnie Cassidy could not have looked more pleased if he had handed her a giant check. “Why yes, I am!”

“Oh man, I’m so sorry to bother you. People must pester you on the street all the time.”

“Oh,” Marnie said, waving it away, “that’s okay.”

“It’s just that I’m a huge fan.”

“Really?”

When it came to stroking a celebrity ego, there was no such thing as too much or too heavy a pet. “My sister and I watch you all the time on...” The name of the show slipped Wilde’s mind, so he just kept going. “Anyway, we both think you’re hilarious.”

“That’s so kind of you!”

“Would I be able to trouble you for an autograph and maybe a selfie? Jane — that’s my sister — Jane will freak when she sees it.”

Jane. So okay, Wilde wasn’t great at coming up with names under pressure.

Marnie beamed. “Of course! How would you like it made out?”

“Oh, let’s do it, ‘To Jane, my biggest fan,’ something like that. She’s going to positively freak out!” Wilde fumbled as though searching for a writing instrument. “Oh, shoot. I don’t think I have a pen.”

“No worries!” Marnie said. Every sentence with Marnie seemed to end in an exclamation mark. “I have one!”

Now that Marnie had come to a full stop and started rummaging through her purse, Wilde shifted his body so that he faced her head-on and subtly blocked her path forward. He wouldn’t stop her if she wanted to get by. It was all about body language.

“Can I ask you one other thing?” Wilde asked.

“Of course!”

“Why did you lie about Peter Bennett?”

Boom. Just like that.

The smile stayed locked on Marnie’s lips, but it fled her eyes and dimmed that inner beam. He didn’t wait, didn’t give her time to recover from the blow or take an eight count. He pressed on.

“I work for CRAW Securities. We know everything, Marnie. You have a choice. You can talk to me now and keep yourself out of it — or we can destroy you in every way possible. The choice is yours.”

Marnie kept blinking. This was the calculated risk Wilde had decided to take. If he approached her in any reasonable manner, Marnie Cassidy would stick to the story she had told on the Reality Ralph podcast. The only way that talking to Marnie could be useful was if he threw her off her game and she changed her story in some way. Then Wilde might have something to work with. There was no downside to this direct approach. If he interviewed her in a straightforward manner, he would gain nothing. If she stormed off now, he also would gain nothing — same boat.

But if she reacted now in some way that hinted at deception, then he had a chance at learning something.

Marnie tried to stand up a little straighter. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Wilde said with no hint of give in his tone. “Let me put this plainly. We are talking alone. No one is listening. It’s just you and me. This is my promise. If you tell me the truth now, it goes no further. No one will ever know you said a word to me. It’s a secret just between us. You continue on your way to hair and makeup at the studio, and you remain a star. And I wasn’t kidding before. I have seen you, Marnie. You’ve got talent. You’ve got that intangible it. People love you. Your star is rising. I’d put money on that. And if you help me now, your star will continue to soar like we never met, except, well, you’ll have me as an ally for life. You want that, Marnie. You want me on your side.”

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Wilde pushed on, shifting from carrot back to stick. “But if you walk away from me now, I’ll make sure you get canceled so harshly you’ll wish you were Peter Bennett. I won’t be your friend, Marnie. I’ll make it my mission to ruin you.”

A tear ran down Marnie’s cheek. “Why are you being so mean?”

“I’m not being mean. I’m being honest.”

“Why do you think I’m lying?”

Wilde held up a flash drive. There was nothing on it. It was just a prop, part of this charade. “I know, Marnie.”

And then Marnie said it: “If you know, why do you need me?”

There it was. The admission. A person telling the truth has no need to say this or worry. She hadn’t been totally honest on that podcast. Wilde was sure of it now.

“Because I need confirmation. Just for myself. Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. I don’t do any of this lightly. I know you didn’t tell the truth on the podcast. I have the proof. It’s enough to ruin you.”

“Stop saying that!”

Marnie had a point. Wilde was winging this now and not doing a great job of it. It also dawned on him that those Hartford cops had done something similar to him in terms of trying to bluff. He felt bad about that, using their techniques, but not bad enough to stop.

“And I did the right thing,” Marnie said. “If you know everything, you know that.”

The right thing? Oh boy. He had to tread lightly here.

“No, Marnie, I don’t know that. I don’t know that at all. From where I stand, you are guilty and I’m going to take you down for it.” Wilde cut off her denials with a raised hand. “Now if there is another side that I’m not seeing, if there is something I’m missing, you need to come clean fast, Marnie. Because right now, without further explanation, I don’t see how you can claim you did ‘the right thing.’”

Marnie’s green eyes darted everywhere as she considered her options. This, Wilde knew, was where he had to play it delicately. Push her too hard and she might just run. Stop peppering her with threats and she may gain enough composure to realize that his whole line of questioning was a load of bullshit.

“Never mind,” Wilde said.

“What?”

Wilde shrugged. “I don’t like any of this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m releasing the info to the Reality Ralph podcast.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’re not worth saving, Marnie. You deserve to be canceled.”

The tears started flowing again. “Why are you being so mean?”

Again with that. “You know why.”

“I was only trying to help!”

“Help who?”

Marnie sobbed some more.

“Look, I gave you a chance to save yourself, Marnie. I shouldn’t have. But because my sister and I are genuine fans” — shovel, shovel — “I did. My boss, he said you weren’t worth it. I’m thinking he was right.”

Wilde took the risk now of turning away from her. She cried harder.

A woman’s voice said, “Honey, are you okay? Is that man harming you?”

Shit, Wilde thought.

Wilde spun back around. The woman was small, wizened, wheeling a shopping cart and staring daggers at Wilde.

“Hon, do you want to come with me? We can go someplace safe.”

Wilde decided to push his luck a bit. “No worries. We were finished talking anyway.”

“What?” Marnie turned to the wizened woman and offered her a big yet sad smile. “No, no, I’m fine. Really. This man is a dear friend.”

The wizened woman wasn’t buying it. “Dear friend, huh?”

“Yes. His sister Jane and I were college roommates. He just... I’m crying because he just gave me bad news about Jane’s cancer. It’s stage four.”

An Oscar-worthy performance, just like that. The wizened woman looked at Wilde, then back to Marnie. A second later, this being New York City, the wizened woman shrugged and moved on.

“Enough,” Wilde said when they were alone again. “Tell me.”

“You’ll keep your promise?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t get out?”

“Promise.”

“I won’t get canceled?”

Wilde had no idea what the fallout would be. “Promise.”

Marnie took a deep breath and blinked back more tears. “He did it to someone else, not me. Peter, I mean.”

“He did what to someone—?”

“Stop it,” she snapped. “You know what I’m talking about. Peter harassed this girl. He sent her nudes and when the opportunity came, he roofied her and...” Her voice just faded away.

“What girl?”

“This is what I was told.”

“Told by whom?”

“By the girl herself, for one. She didn’t want to come forward. That was part of the arrangement we made. If she came forward herself with those accusations, her life would be changed forever. Millions of people would hear it — and she couldn’t handle that kind of attention. She isn’t a celebrity. They needed someone to tell her story for her.”

Wilde saw it now. “You.”

“Her story was so awful. Awful. What Peter — my own brother-in-law — did to her. I cried so hard. He had to be punished. We could all see that right away. This girl, she thought about going to the police, but she didn’t want that either. So we came up with an idea.”

“You’d go on the podcast,” Wilde said, “and say it happened to you.”

My God, Wilde thought. It was just awful enough to make sense.

“I wanted to help this girl — and I wanted my sister to know what kind of man she’d married.”

“So who is she? This ‘girl’ Peter attacked?”

“I can’t say. I promised.”

“Marnie—”

“No, you can make all the threats you want to, but I’m not doxxing a victim.”

Wilde decided not to press on that for now. “But why go on the podcast at all?”

“I just told you. To help the girl. To help Jenn.”

“But you could have just told Jenn, couldn’t you? You didn’t have to go public like that.”

“What, you think I wanted to do it this way?”

And here the answer was obvious, Wilde thought: Yes. Yes, she wanted to do it just that way. Had to. She wanted the attention and notoriety, and damn if it hadn’t worked. Hester had been right. Marnie wanted fame, no matter who paid the price, and she got it.

“I didn’t have a choice anyway,” Marnie said. “I was under contract.”

“To?”

“To the show. That’s how reality TV works. You sign a contract. The producers give you an instruction and you follow it to enhance the story line.”

“But you weren’t a contestant on the show.”

“Not yet. But I’d applied and made it far enough to sign. If I wanted to make the cut next season, it was important I showed them my best.”

Wilde couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and yet it all added up. “A producer told you to lie in exchange for a slot on the show?”

“Hey, I got that slot on my own,” Marnie said, her tone thick with indignation. “With my talent. And it wasn’t a lie. It happened, just as I said it did.”

“But not to you.”

“What difference does that make? It happened. I talked to this girl myself. She had proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

“Photographs. Lots of them.”

“Those could have been photoshopped.”

“No.” Marnie sighed, shook her head. “Look, Jenn and I used to be close. We’d get drunk and talk, you know, about Peter. This is embarrassing, but I knew what it looked like. This wasn’t Peter’s head photoshopped on another body.”

“Used to be close,” Wilde said.

“What?”

“You said ‘Jenn and I used to be close.’”

“We still are. I mean, we are again now. Peter... he wasn’t good for our relationship.”

“Why not?”

Marnie shrugged. “I don’t know. He just wasn’t.”

“Did you like him?”

“What? No.” Her phone buzzed. She read it. “Damn, you made me late for makeup and hair. I have to go.”

“One last thing.”

Marnie sighed. “Okay, but remember your promise?”

“Did you ever tell Jenn the truth?”

“I told you. This is the truth—”

Wilde tried not to raise his voice. “Did you ever tell Jenn that what you said about Peter happened to another woman, not you?”

Marnie said nothing but her face lost color.

Wilde couldn’t believe it. “So your sister still thinks—”

“You can’t tell her,” Marnie said in a harsh hush. “I did it for Jenn. To protect her from that monster. And Peter confessed. Don’t you get that? It was all true. Now leave me the hell alone.”

Marnie wiped her eyes, spun, and hurried away.