The Match

Chapter Thirty-One

Hester had been called back into court. There were rumors of a decision in the Richard Levine murder trial. Wilde headed back to New Jersey. As he passed the Sheridan Avenue exit on Route 17, his mobile rang. The caller ID told him it was Matthew.

“Holy shit,” Matthew said.

“What?”

“You didn’t hear about Jenn Cassidy’s post? Sutton is freaking out. Did Marnie just make up all that stuff about Peter Bennett?”

Wilde sighed. “What does Jenn’s post say?”

“Just something about the Peter stuff not being true and asking everyone to bring him home. Dude, the whole world is looking for Peter now. Did you have something to do with this?”

“Tangentially, I guess.”

“I knew it! Sutton is going crazy. The Battler boards are blowing up. Your name hasn’t gotten out yet.”

“Good. Where are you?”

“Hanging at the house.”

Wilde had an idea. “Do you mind if I come over and use the computer?”

“Sure. We got my laptop or the Mac in the family room—”

“Both if you can.”

“No worries. Sutton isn’t coming over until later.”

“What about your mom?”

“Why don’t you ask her, Wilde?” When Wilde didn’t reply, Matthew sighed and said, “I’m not sure when she’ll be home. Why? You avoiding her?”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Can I ask you to do me a favor in the meantime?”

“What?”

“Search for DNA database websites.”

“You mean like 23andMe?”

“Exactly. Find as many of the top ones as you can.”

Fifteen minutes later, Matthew met Wilde at the door and led him to the Mac in the family room. He’d set up his own laptop on the other side of the table. Wilde sat in front of the Mac, Matthew in front of the laptop.

“Okay,” Matthew said, “what are we doing?”

“You got the list of the DNA databases?”

“Yep.”

“We need to try to sign in to all of them.”

Wilde gave him Peter’s email address and the LoveJenn447 password he’d picked up from his first visit to Vicky Chiba’s.

Matthew tried the first. “Can’t get in. It says incorrect password.” He tried another. “Same. Are you sure about the password?”

“No.” Wilde remembered how he’d gotten into the Instagram account via Peter Bennett’s email address. “Here, let’s try this. Hit the forgot password link so we can reset it.”

While Matthew did that, Wilde signed in to Peter Bennett’s email. He checked through it and saw nothing new. He moved from the tab labeled “Primary” to the one called “Promotions.” As soon as he did, a new message popped up from MeetYourFamily with instructions on how to get a new password if you’d forgotten your current one. Wilde followed the directions. Matthew kept working. Another email popped up in Peter’s inbox from yet another DNA database site with instructions on how to get a new password. Wilde again clicked the link.

When they tried to log in with the new passwords, an even bigger issue arose. The DNA site BloodTies23 sent them to a page that read:

“Damn,” Wilde said.

“What?”

“Peter deleted all his accounts.”

“So click backup.”

“It says the deletion is permanent.”

Matthew shook his head. “There must be a way to get them back.”

“It says there’s not.”

They found ten major websites that did DNA testing for the purposes of genetic genealogy, including 23andMe, DNAYourStory, MyHeritage, BloodTies23, Family Tree DNA, MeetYourFamily, and Ancestry. According to what Wilde and Matthew could put together, Peter Bennett had signed up for all of them — and deleted his account at all of them. Seven of the ten made it clear that the deletions were permanent. Two others offered a way to “request” that your material, which had been “erased but kept in an archive,” whatever that meant, be put back “live online.” In order to do this, Wilde had to fill out forms and reply to emails with codes and, of course, pay a “processing fee.”

Sutton arrived while they worked. She pulled up a chair and sat right next to Wilde.

“The Battler fan boards are blowing up,” Sutton said to Wilde. “Spill the tea.”

Wilde arched an eyebrow. “Spill the what?”

“Give us the dirt,” Matthew said, typing away. “Did Marnie lie? Did she try to seduce Peter and he rejected her?”

“Is that what the statement says?”

“What statement?” Sutton replied. “The only thing is Jenn’s Instagram post where she says it wasn’t true and she just wants Peter found. Battlers are going crazy trying to figure out what really happened, but so far, no word from the show or Marnie.”

Wilde got the authorization for the first site, BloodTies23. He signed back in as Peter Bennett and clicked the link to relatives. No one closer than two percent. No help.

Sutton said, “Do you want to hear the strangest theory that’s gaining ground?”

Wilde continued to type. “Sure.”

“A growing number of Battlers on the fan boards,” Sutton continued, “think that Peter is behind all this.”

Wilde stopped and looked up. “How’s that?”

“It goes something like this.” Sutton tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Wilde glanced over at Matthew, who was smiling like a doofus or, to say the same thing in a different way, a normal college freshman with his first serious girlfriend. “Peter Bennett’s star had seriously dimmed. He had a good run. Great even. But after a while, nice guys get so boring — not that you should learn anything from that, Matthew—”

Matthew blushed.

“—and when that happens,” she continued, “the fans tune out. So the theory is, Peter saw the writing on the wall. He got tired of playing the dull good guy, so he set this all up to make himself the villain.”

Wilde frowned. “Not a very good plan. Isn’t he hated now?”

“Yeah, some people are replying with that, but maybe, I don’t know, Peter didn’t count on how bad the backlash would be. He took it too far, some say. It’s one thing to be a funny villain like Big Bobbo. Even a cheater might have been, I don’t know, interesting drama, though Jenn is pretty beloved. But a rapist who roofied his own sister-in-law?”

“Way too much,” Matthew added.

“Exactly.”

“So where is Peter now, according to this theory?” Wilde asked.

“In hiding someplace. There was so much heat on him that he faked his own death. Now that enough time has passed, Peter is making it look like he was wronged. That’ll build huge anticipation for his return. Then when he does come back — probably in some cool way — Peter Bennett will be the biggest star reality TV has ever seen.”

It was easy for Wilde to dismiss this theory as outlandish, but then again, look at what Marnie had done to become famous. Yet there were several problems with the theory that those who spent their time ruminating on fan boards couldn’t take into account because they wouldn’t know about them — like the murders of McAndrews and Frole or Peter’s genetic connection to Wilde or Peter’s murky adoption as a baby or...

Still. Could there be something to all this? Could Peter Bennett be behind it all in some way? Did that add up at all?

Wilde was missing something.

His phone rang. It was Oren Carmichael. There was a little quake in his voice.

“Do you know anyone named Martin Spirow?”

“No,” Wilde said.

“Lives in Delaware. Thirty-one years old. Married to a woman named Katie.”

“Still no. Why are you asking?”

“He’s our third victim. Shot with the same gun that killed Henry McAndrews and Katherine Frole.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

Wilde said nothing.

“Wilde?”

“Is he in law enforcement?”

“Unemployed. Never been a cop or fed or even a mall security guard.”

“So what’s the connection to the others?”

“None as far as the feds can tell, but they just got the ballistics back. Some are starting to speculate that this may be a serial killer unrelated to all this.”

Wilde said nothing.

“Yeah,” Oren continued, “I’m not buying that either.”

“Tell me about the Spirow murder.”

“Shot three times in his home near his front door. Probably early in the morning. His wife found him when she came home for lunch from work. It’s a fairly quiet street, but they’re checking nearby CCTV and Ring doorbells right now.”

“Shot three times.”

“Yes.”

“Just like the other victims,” Wilde said.

“Right. That’s the kind of thing that makes the feds look at a possible serial killer.”

Again, Wilde tried to put it together. The reality-TV world. Peter’s mysterious adoption. Wilde’s abandonment. Three murders whose only link was a weapon.

He still couldn’t see the overlap.

His phone buzzed again. Unusual for Wilde to be getting more than one call at a time, but this was not a usual day. “Got another call coming in,” Wilde said.

“I’ll update you if I hear anything else,” Oren said before disconnecting.

When Wilde answered the new call, Vicky Chiba was sobbing. “Oh my God.”

“Vicky—”

“Marnie lied? She made it all up?”

“Apparently. How did you hear?”

“My phone won’t stop ringing. Silas heard about it on the radio.”

“It made the radio?”

“An entertainment segment or something.” Vicky sobbed again. “Why? Why would Marnie do that?”

Wilde didn’t reply.

“Does she know what she’s done? She killed an innocent man. Murdered him in cold blood. Same as if she stabbed him in the heart with a knife. She should go to jail, Wilde.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m home.”

“I’ll come by soon and we can talk.”

“Silas will be here in a few hours.”

“He’s in town?”

“He’s making a delivery in Newark. Then he’ll sleep here before starting another job in the morning. Wilde?”

“Yes.”

“I have to tell Silas now, don’t I? About Peter being adopted.”

Wilde remembered that Silas had been a toddler when the family had moved to the middle of Pennsylvania and the mysterious baby arrived. “That’s up to you.”

“There have been too many secrets for too long. He needs to know.”

“Okay.”

“Silas thinks of you as his cousin.”

“But I’m not.”

“We can tell him that too, if you want.”

Wilde did not like her use of the term “we.”

“Would you please be here when I tell Silas the truth?”

Wilde said nothing.

“I think it would help. Having a third person here.”

Wilde still said nothing.

“I’d also... It would mean a lot to me — to us, I imagine, Silas and me — if you could tell us what really happened to Peter. The truth of all this. We shouldn’t have to just hear rumors on fan sites.”

That much was true. He owed her that.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

“And thank you, Wilde.” Vicky started crying again. “Not just for agreeing to come tonight, but for believing in Peter. It may be too late, but at least now the world might learn what kind of a man he really was.”

When Wilde hung up, both Matthew and Sutton were staring wide-eyed at the laptop.

Matthew said, “Holy shit.”

Sutton added, “Whoa.”

“What?” Wilde asked.

“We found a Peter Bennett relative. A close one.”