The stories he’d written about their family when the baby died had been, in a word, alluring. Surprising, really, because Wilde wasn’t even a real reporter, not a journalist in the sense Ethan had grown up with. No, Wilde was worse than the worst hacks at the Fleet Street rags, a news blogger, as he called himself, as if he could lend importance to his own opinion by adding the word news in front of the ubiquitously common term blogger. He curried favor with his subjects by playing into the base hatred of the online mob, and set his flying monkeys on people who disagreed with him. That’s how the fracas started with Sutton in the first place. Ethan had a sneaking suspicion the whole reviewer incident had been instigated by Wilde, though he couldn’t prove a damn thing.

Ethan doubted Wilde made money in the endeavor. His site was littered with sponsor rolls and crowded with logos from strange companies Ethan had never heard of. Wilde was a fraud.

But.

But.

There were things about Colin Wilde he couldn’t, wouldn’t, ever admit. Because the things Wilde knew about them, about him, were...worrisome. He didn’t want to talk to the reporter, but he was afraid not to. At least he should try to rein him in. Wilde had done so much damage already; with this chewy steak of a story, he could reignite all the fallow flames.

The ringing stopped. Ethan was filled with dread and relief.

So he hadn’t told Officer Graham everything. So what? What was he supposed to say, that he wanted to blame Wilde for Sutton’s disappearance? That all the things that went wrong in their lives he wanted to park at Wilde’s door and light on fire?

His Scotch was gone. He went to the kitchen for a drink of water. Maybe a cup of tea. They had one old-fashioned rotary-dial wall phone in the kitchen. It was a relic of Sutton’s first home, something she’d clung to. Ethan found it reminded him of his childhood, as well. He stared at it, holding his tiny mobile, thinking about how truly fucked-up his life had gotten in the intervening years. The mobile began to trill again. Wilde.

Ethan swallowed, pressed the Talk button, launched the tirade.

“I told you never to call me again. Fuck you, fuck off, leave us alone, and don’t you dare write anything about my wife, or I’ll sue you for defamation.”

There was no slamming down a phone anymore, but he’d dropped it to his waist where he could see without his reading glasses and was hitting the End button when he heard Wilde shout, “Wait. Don’t hang up. I know where your wife is.”

Ethan hesitated. And damn it, he knew better. Hang up. Hang up and be done with him.