And although I was there at the VMAs to do my job as a photojournalist, I locked in on Ryan not because she was a record-breaking music-industry legend, but because she was the woman who broke my brother’s heart.
And he disappeared that night too.
From:
Sent:September 22, 2018, 11:37 p.m.
To:
Subject:Quick update
Hey, Ellie. I hope this doesn’t come as a major shock but I need to take some time away. I’m officially quitting the band and going to try to figure out what to do next with my life, so I might be out of commission for a little while.
If you don’t hear from me, I’m fine, okay? I promise. Don’t worry. If I had a crystal ball maybe I could tell you where I’m going and what the next few years of my life will look like.
I’m sorry I can’t say more—it’s hard for even me to see that far.
Love ya.
—W
From:
Sent:September 23, 2018, 1:09 a.m.
To:
Re:Quick update
Wilder, WTF??? the next fewYears?? answer your phone!!! now!!!!
Part III
Twenty-Three
Skip
No, we didn’t realize Wilder was gone—like,gonegone—for a long time. I’m sorry, Elyse. He submitted his formal resignation just before the VMAs, so we thanked him for all he’d done and closed out his paperwork.
I remember asking where he was headed. I thought he must have gotten a pretty goddamn good opportunity if he was leaving the pay that we were giving him, and he told me he’d gotten a gig with Les Jardins—they won Eurovision that year. I didn’t know he’d been auditioning or anything, but why would I have? I congratulated him and wished him the best.
It wasn’t until I received your call a few weeks later that I contacted Les Jardins’ manager and asked about Wilder. She confirmed she’d never even spoken with him.
It was strange. Strange as all hell. But we got the same answer as you: Given his email stating his intent to leave, he was not considered a missing person. So I know, I know, I’m empathetic to what you went through ... but it was a difficult case to pursue after that.
And Ryan had provided her own fallout to deal with.
Mari
Everything was a mess. There were people who said they saw her at the after-party, people who said she was at a different after-party, people who had no clue. No one had a straight answer. I personally am confident that she never showed up at Victor!a’s.
I texted her at some point in the middle of the night asking where she was—no answer. It was late, we all crashed at Victor!a’s, but when I woke up the next morning with a wicked hangover, I had this weird feeling in my gut. I went back to the hotel—she’d booked separate suites for us, which was odd, since we normally would have stayed together—but they told me her room was already being turned over for cleaning.
I called Ryan again and again with no answer. By that evening, I had called Skip and Jas and Kylie and anyone else I could think of. But everyone, swept up in the celebrations of the night before, had lost track of Ryan.
I’m sure you’ve gone over this a million times. There was no surveillance footage of her leaving the building—at least, nothing that was released during the investigation. Her house in Malibu has been left exactly as is, locked up and left untouched except for the cleaners who are still scheduled on a weekly basis. Her jet is still in the hangar, grounded. Her phone number is a dead end—no responses, no messages. Left with no direction, my team didn’t do anything in particular with her social accounts, but we’ve monitored the floods of heartfelt messages andRyan, come back!s that still roll in on the daily, if you would believe that.
The police closed the missing persons case as soon as they opened it. The NYPD had been in touch with Ryan, they said, and confirmed she was okay. In fact, they said she had stopped by the Midtown Manhattan station the morning after the VMAs, but that didn’t make any sense at all. They refused to give us more information.
