“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:
Check your DMs.
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.”