“Go away then.”
“I could go away,” Wilde said. “I could go away and call the press and tell them to camp outside this door. Or you can take your chances with me.”
A few seconds later, the door was opened by a big man in a terry cloth robe. His chest was waxed.
Wilde said, “Hello, Big Bobbo.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Wilde. Can I come in? I’d like to talk to your companion.”
“What companion? I’m alone.”
“No, you’re not.”
Big Bobbo narrowed his eyes. “Are you calling Big Bobbo a liar?”
“Did you really just refer to yourself in the third person?”
Big Bobbo scowled. Then he reached out to poke Wilde in the chest. Wilde grabbed the finger and swept the leg. Big Bobbo went down. Wilde stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Standing in the far corner, wearing a matching terry-cloth Mandarin Oriental bathrobe, was Jenn Cassidy.
“Get out,” Jenn shouted, tightening her robe. “Leave us alone.”
“I don’t think so,” Wilde said.
Big Bobbo jumped back up off the floor in an almost comical fashion. “What the hell, bro? That was a cheap shot.”
“What do you want?” Jenn asked.
“Yeah,” Big Bobbo repeated. “What do you want? Wait, who is this guy?”
“He’s a relative of Peter’s.”
Big Bobbo gave Wilde a sympathetic look. “Ah, bro, for real? Sorry, man. I liked the dude.”
“It’s none of your business who I spend my time with,” Jenn said.
“That’s true,” Wilde said.
“I’m allowed a life.”
“Also true.”
“So get out,” she said.
Big Bobbo stuck out his chest. “Hey, bro, you heard the lady.”
Wilde ignored Bobbo and kept his gaze on Jenn. “I don’t care who you date or about reality TV or your likes or your followers or any of that. But I need to know the truth.”
“What truth?” Jenn asked. “Peter and I are over. I’m with Bob now.”
“Yeah,” Bob said. “We’re in love.”
“Wait,” Jenn said, “how did you find me?”
Wilde wasn’t about to tell her that when they were in her apartment earlier that day, he dropped one of Rola’s tracking devices into her purse. It was that simple. Wilde had suspected this; something about Jenn’s whole demeanor, about the whole story with her sister and the podcast and the photographs, had not felt right to him.
“Look, bro,” Big Bobbo said, “I don’t want any trouble, okay? Jenn and I, we’re in love. We’ve been in love for a long time—”
“Bob.”
“No, hon, let me just get this out, okay?” He turned to Wilde. “You care about Petey Boy. Cool, I get that. But he went too far.”
“Went too far how?”
Jenn said, “Bob.”
“You heard the podcast,” Big Bobbo continued. “You saw the photos.”
Wilde couldn’t believe it. He shook his head and looked at Jenn. “Big Bobbo doesn’t know?”
“Doesn’t know what?” Bobbo said. “Oh, about Marnie lying? I heard about that today, and it sucks. Totally get that. But Petey Boy still did a lot wrong—those pics of him getting all nasty with other chicks and whatnot.”
“Bob,” Wilde said, still reeling from the fact that he didn’t get it, “she made it all up.”
“I know. Marnie—”
“Not Marnie,” Wilde said. He turned and faced Jenn.
Big Bobbo looked confused. “What?”
“He’s lying,” Jenn said.
There was no reason to interrogate Jenn or ask pointed questions or try to trap her. There was no reason to let her continue to lie or watch her shed tears or whatever tactic she was going to use. Wilde just plowed full steam ahead. “Your popularity was plummeting. Yours and Peter’s. You two had a great run. You were a lovable couple, and that was fun for a while, but really, you two had milked that for all you could. Bobbo, how long has she been stepping out on Peter with you?”
Big Bobbo glanced at Jenn.
“From the beginning?” Wilde asked. “Let’s not pretend you only started up recently. But that doesn’t matter.” He turned back to her. “You and Peter tried to keep the viewers’ attention. A baby might have helped, but you guys had trouble conceiving. Your social media engagements went way down. You got demoted down from the big penthouse to the smaller apartment—and you’d be kicked out of that soon. So at some point, you realized that staying with Peter would mean the death of your career.”