“You look skeptical,” Vicky said.
He had no interest in getting into this, so Wilde said, “Not at all.”
“It has helped a lot in my life.”
“I’m sure.”
“Your being here. It’s not an accident.”
“I know.”
“But I have to say I’m surprised. Are you saying that my brother signed up for a DNA site?”
“Yes.”
Vicky shook her head, the feathers on her earrings bouncing against her cheeks. “That’s not like him. And he gave out his name?”
“No. He just used his initials.”
“He didn’t tell you his name?”
“That’s right.”
“So how did you find out who he was?”
Wilde didn’t want to get into that, so he replied, “I understand your brother is missing.”
“Peter is not missing,” Vicky said. “Peter is dead.”
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.”