In the meantime, I turn back to Matt and text: Do you really expect me to believe that D. B. Carter lives in almost a 2 1/2 million dollar house in an old West town?

Believe whatever you want.

Do you happen to have a phone number where I could reach him?

I wait for him to write me back, but all I get is crickets.

21

Emma

Matt Lipinski, a.k.a. D. B. Carter, does not get in touch with me again.

I decide that's his name, but I'm only 50% certain.

He must be fucking with me, right? I mean why would he lurk on these Facebook groups and then reveal his name to me, a reporter, of all people?

No, this must be a joke.

I think about it for a long time, putting my computer away and stopping the search.

I have an address, but no idea what I should do with it. Brooke comes home later that evening and I tell her what happened.

She shakes her head and then says, “There's no way that it could be him. The only thing that's going to happen here is that we waste a day driving three hours all the way to Joshua Tree to disturb some random family who lives there. Do you really want to do that?”

I hate to admit it, but yes.

I know that the likelihood of that address belonging to D. B. Carter is quite slim, but I don't care.

Matt might be making fun of me or playing a game, but I also don't care.

“Why don't you go with me? We can make it a little road trip.”

“I'd love to, but I have a photography session set up for tomorrow.”

“If I do this, then I can only go tomorrow. I'll need to use Sunday to write up some sort of report.”

Brooke orders some Thai food on her phone and then turns to me.

“This is why you're doing this? You want to show your boss the lengths that you will go to uncover this mystery. You know that she's not going to appreciate it, right? Nothing you do will be enough.”

I shrug. She's right. I know that and she knows that.

“No, this isn’t about that,” I say.

My phone goes off and I look at the screen.

It's Liam, the guy that I met at the party.

He has messaged me on Instagram. I click on his profile. It doesn't seem to be very active. A few pictures here and there, most of landscapes with a few selfies.

Most of them are pictures of him running.

Hey, how are you doing? He writes in a direct message.

I know that he contacted Brooke earlier and I wonder if he's writing me to get in touch with her. But why? She wrote him back and it was he who didn't respond.

“What's up?” Brooke walks over and glances down at my phone.

I quickly close the app before she's able to see, but the moment feels suspicious.

I know that she likes Liam a lot, but I think I might, too. Of course, my situation is a little complicated given the fact that I am only un-engaged for a day, but it doesn't change the fact that I’m intrigued.

What is it that people say about rebounds? You have to go through them in order to find the one that you really want.

I didn't really believe any of that before, but now it hits a little bit too close to home.

Suddenly, I get this overwhelming feeling of needing to be wanted. Like most couples, Alex and I had fallen into a groove with our intimacy. It had its ebbs and flows.

It was never completely gone, but it wasn't like it was when we first met.

Then, walking into his office and seeing them together? Something changed within me.

Suddenly, I had this overwhelming need to prove that someone wants me.

Maybe that's all that’s happening with Liam.

Maybe we didn't really have a connection.

Maybe I was just intrigued by the attention that he paid me.

That evening, I make the decision that early the following morning, I'm going to drive out to the desert. I try to contact Matt a few more times, but all my messages go unanswered.

I scour other forums and posts, but no one else has a clue or volunteers any information.

“This is the only thing I have to do,” I tell Brooke that night when we split a bottle of wine. “If I go out there and it's just a ruse and an Internet joke, then so be it. At least I'll spend some time in the car thinking about everything that has happened. If I don't go out there, then I'll always wonder what if? What if by some slim chance Matt is actually D. B. Carter? What if by some chance he is actually interested in giving me an interview and this is some sort of test?”

22

Liam

Alex and I meet up for lunch since we didn't get much of a chance to talk last night. I haven't seen him in a while and am frankly surprised that he called me up and invited me out.

I meet him downtown, not far from where he works.

“I thought that you were going to take off today,” I say when the server seats us at a table with a white tablecloth and takes our drink order.

He shrugs and looks down at the menu.

There's a nervousness to him, that I don't remember from growing up. He was always the alpha guy, confident, self-assured.

“Well, Emma and I had planned to spend the weekend in Laguna Beach, but she hasn’t been returning my calls so I decided to head back to work.”

“Why not just stay home?”

“What's the point? The only thing that makes sense in my life is my work.”

I give him a slight nod.

“So, what is it that you do?” I ask. “I mean, I know that you're in finance, but what does that entail exactly?”

Alex raises one of his eyebrows and gives me a look as if to say, I thought that you would never ask. Then he launches into a long discussion about his father's hedge fund and his role as one of its top directors.

“I know that over email you mentioned that you possibly wanted to invest some money with us,” Alex says. “Is that still the case?”

I give him a nod. I'm keenly aware of the fact that he hasn't asked me what I do for a living yet and I wonder how long it's going to take him.

“How much are you thinking?” Alex asks.

“I'm not really sure,” I say, moving my hands out of the way to allow the server to place two glasses of scotch on the rocks in front of us.

After we order, Alex raises his glass and makes a toast.

“It's nice to have you back in my life. It has been way too long.”

“Hey, thanks for inviting me,” I say, hitting my drink with his.

The thick expensive glasses make a loud reverberating echo. I bring it to my lips and revel in the oak colored liquid running down the back of my throat.

“So, I don't think I ever asked, but what kind of work are you in?”

I think about my answer carefully. I don't want to lie, but I don't want to come out with the whole truth either.

Hardly anyone knows and I'd like to keep it that way.

“I've been doing a lot of day trading. I've gotten quite good at it so my nest egg kind of grew. I like it because it frees me up to do a lot of other stuff in my life like woodworking, camping, hiking, reading, that sort of thing.”

“Oh my God, man. It's like you're retired,” Alex says.