Wilde said nothing.
Tears sprang from her eyes. “Why are you so mean?”
Jenn’s voice was too quiet: “What did you do, Marnie?”
“What? You believe him?”
Jenn said, “Marnie.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Then: “I did it for you! To protect you!”
Jenn’s eyes closed.
“And it was all true! Don’t you see? Peter was a monster! He confessed! That’s what you told me, right?”
Jenn sounded so exhausted as she repeated the question. “What did you do, Marnie?”
“I did the right thing!”
With more steel in the tone: “What. Did. You. Do?”
Marnie opened her mouth, probably to protest more, but when she saw her sister’s face, she realized that more denials would be futile or worse.
Her voice was suddenly very soft, like a little girl crouching in a corner. “I’m so sorry, Jenn. I’m so so sorry.”
*
Marnie came clean.
It took time, of course. There were a lot of I did this for you’s and Peter was a monster’s, but through that smoke, the story came out. As Marnie recounted the events that led her to make those accusations on that podcast, Jenn just sat in silence and continued to stare straight ahead.
“I was out in LA going on a ton of auditions. But nothing was happening for me. Not that that matters. Oh, shoot, I’m not telling this right, am I? Anyway, you know I was a finalist for Love Is a Battlefield, but there were issues finding the right story line to fit my talents. They said I had a ton of star potential, but because I was your sister, it would be weird to launch a separate subplot for me, but if they could tie our story lines together, that could be gold.”
“Who is they?” Hester asked.
“I was mostly talking to Jake.”
Hester looked at Jenn. Jenn closed her eyes and said, “Junior producer.”
Marnie recounted what she’d told Wilde about being called in, listening to a woman’s tearful story （a woman, she now confessed, she hadn’t known before that day or seen since）， agreeing to go on the podcast to “help” the woman tell her story. Somewhere around then, Jenn stood up and said, “I have to reach him.”
“Who?” Marnie asked.
“Who do you think?” Jenn snapped.
“But Peter admitted it!”
Jenn dialed Peter’s phone number. The phone had been disconnected. Her texts bounced back. Wilde watched Jenn’s agitation grow. She dialed another number, and when someone picked up, Jenn said, “Vicky? Where is he? I need to talk to him.” She closed her eyes and listened, no doubt hearing Vicky tell her that she too didn’t know where her brother was.
Marnie’s cheeks were coated in tears. “Jenn, he confessed! You told me that! You said he admitted it!”
“No,” Jenn said.
“Hold up,” Hester said to her. “You told me the same thing—that Peter came clean to you, that he confessed right here on this couch.”
“But don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“What I saw on Peter’s face…it wasn’t guilt. It was betrayal. My betrayal. I broke our trust when I didn’t believe him. It’s all my fault.”
“But those awful pics!” Marnie shouted. “Those were him! They weren’t photoshopped!”
“I have to talk to him.” Jenn started plucking at her trembling lower lip. “We need to get this out there.”
“Get what out there?” Marnie started sobbing. “You can’t tell anyone!”
“We have to, Marnie.”
“Are you insane?”
“I’ll also need to post on Instagram right away.”
“What? No!”
“We need to make sure Peter sees the message and comes home.”
“Comes home?” Marnie repeated. “He’s probably dead.”
Jenn’s body went stiff. “We don’t know that.”
“Please, Jenn, just take a breath, okay? You can’t just blame me for all this! I spoke to that woman, the one Peter roofied—”
“Oh, come on, Marnie,” Jenn snapped, “you’re not that stupid. She was a plant. Probably another junior producer playacting.”
Marnie put her hands together in prayer position. “Please, Jenn, I’m begging you. You can’t—”
“Marnie?”
Marnie stopped talking, as though the word had slapped her across the face.
“I love you. You’re my sister. But you’ve done enough harm, don’t you think? Your best chance—your only chance now—is to do some good.”