The Match (Wilde, #2)(28)

Staying away from the details for now, here’s what Wilde was able to glean: Peter Bennett was a contestant on a reality program called Love Is a Battlefield. Good-looking, charming, kind, polite, modest, Bennett quickly became the season’s most popular male contestant. The ratings for the season finale—when Jenn Cassidy picks Peter Bennett over bad-boy Bob “Big Bobbo” Jenkins at the Final Battle—were the network’s highest in the past decade.

That was three years ago.

Unlike most couples who hook up on shows like this, Peter and Jenn—yes, PB&J—defied the odds by staying together. Their wedding—not to mention their engagement party, bachelor party, bachelorette party, couple’s shower, bridesmaids’ luncheon, groomsmen’s cigar night, welcome party, Stag and Doe (whatever that was), rehearsal dinner, morning-after-wedding brunch, honeymoon—were major televised and social-media events. Their entire life, it seemed, was for public consumption and commercialized, and the happy couple didn’t appear to mind that in the least.

Life was grand. All that was missing, it seemed, was a baby PB&J. The boards started speculating on when Jenn would get pregnant. There were surveys and even betting lines on whether she would have a boy or girl first. But when no pregnancy came in the next year, Peter and Jenn jointly announced, in a far more somber tone than anything Wilde had seen on their social media before, that the happy couple were having fertility issues and would deal with them the way they dealt with everything in their lives: with love and unity.

And publicity.

Peter and Jenn then began to document the medical procedures they had to endure—the shots, the treatments, the surgeries, the egg harvesting, even the sperm collection—but the first three rounds of IVF failed. Jenn did not get pregnant.

And then everything went kaboom.

It happened on the Reality Ralph video podcast in about as cruel a way as possible. Ralph had invited Jenn on his show purportedly to talk about her struggles with infertility so as to give others with the same problem some hope and support.

Ralph: And how is Peter holding up under this stress?

Jenn: He’s amazing. I’m the luckiest woman in the world.

Ralph: Are you, Jenn?

Jenn: Of course.

Ralph: Are you really?

Jenn: (nervous laughter) What are you trying to say?

Ralph: I’m saying that maybe Peter Bennett isn’t who we all thought he was. I’m saying maybe you could take a look at these…



Ralph showed a shocked Jenn text messages, screenshots, dick shots—all, Ralph claimed, sent by Peter Bennett. Jenn grabbed the water bottle with a shaking hand.

Ralph: I’m sorry to show you these— Jenn: You know how easy it is to fake this stuff?

Ralph: We hired forensic people to go over these. I’m sorry to tell you this, but they came from Peter’s phone, Peter’s computer. The, uh, more intimate photos—are you going to tell us that’s not your husband?



Dead air.

Ralph: It gets worse, folks. We have one of the women here with us.



Jenn removed her microphone and angrily rose from her chair.

Jenn: I’m not going to sit here and— Ralph: Guest, please go ahead.

Guest/Marnie: Jenn?



Jenn froze.

Guest/Marnie: Jenn? (Sobs) I’m so sorry…



Jenn couldn’t speak. Marnie, it turned out, was Jenn Cassidy’s younger sister. Using some of those text messages and screenshots, Marnie told a story of Peter’s steadily pursuing her until, one horrible night, Marnie had gotten drunk in Peter’s presence, really drunk. Or perhaps—she couldn’t say for sure—Marnie had been roofied.

Guest/Marnie: When I woke up…(sobs)…I was naked and sore.



The reaction was both swift and obvious. The hashtag #cancelpeterbennett trended in the top ten on Twitter for almost a week. A potpourri of past Love Is a Battlefield contestants took to the various airwaves, podcasts, streamers, and social media platforms to let the indefatigable fans know that they always suspected something was “off” about Peter Bennett. Some anonymous leaks “confirmed” that Peter Bennett had conned the show’s producer into thinking he was a nice guy; others claimed the producers had “created” a nice-guy Peter Bennett because they knew he was a sociopath who could play any part.

For his part, Peter Bennett proclaimed his innocence, but those proclamations got zero traction with the growing horde. For her part, Jenn Cassidy declined to speak at all, choosing instead to go into seclusion, though “sources close to her” revealed that Jenn was “devastated” and “seeking a divorce.” Jenn issued a statement asking for “privacy during this private and painful time,” but when you live your joys out loud, you don’t get to go private for the tragedies.

Wilde felt his phone vibrate. It was Rola.

“Bad news,” she said.

“What?”

“I think Peter Bennett is dead.”





Chapter

Ten



Have you had time to Google your cousin?” Rola asked.

“Yes.”

“So you got the whole sordid PB&J story?”

“Enough of it,” he said.

“Sheesh, am I right?”

“You are.”