The Match (Wilde, #2)(30)

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?”