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“Raising a child is busy work.” She shrugged.
I tried not to let anything show on my face. I was happy for Grace, and she’d let me have honorary auntie status with her son, Sammy. I’d helped her as much as I could, but it reminded me of my own goals that were sitting in a closet, collecting dust.
I knew that I needed to find love before ever thinking of kids, but something felt like it was missing. Many things did, actually.
“All right, fair. Do you still have it?”
Grace sighed. “No idea. After the renovations, my house was a mess. Hopefully Dean or his mom didn’t throw it away.”
“We’ll come back to that later then,” I said. “Back to the Facebook group. Do we think they’re in there?”
“It would make sense,” Mollie said.
“But it’s not . . . airtight.” Piper said it delicately. I knew all of them wanted to be supportive, but it would be next to impossible to find a person who didn’t want to be found.
I desperately needed the distraction.
“It’s a list of suspects,” I said. “It’s better than nothing.” I pulled out my phone and opened the group.
I went down the list of names, all of whom I’d interacted with dozens of times. Everyone was active in the group.
“There are a few random profiles,” I mused. “I need to see if Kerry wants to delete those before we have more issues.”
“Sorry,” Piper said.
Not too long ago, her former best friend joined the group and spilled her boyfriend Theo’s secrets to everyone. Since then, we’d upped the security on the group, but we clearly had more to do.
“It’s okay. None of these seem to be active. They’re probably people who stumbled in.” I pulled them up, frowning as I saw the names. Ethel Raynor was no one I’d heard of. There was a blank account named G Singh, and a few others too. “Do you all think they’d be suspects?”
“If they’re inactive?” Wren asked.
“Lurking can mean they know what’s going on,” Grace reminded. “It’s worth a shot.”
I hummed. “No idea who they are, but I’m friend requesting them.”
“Wait,” Wren said right before I pressed the button. “What if they know you’re onto them?”
“I am onto them.”
“But what if it scares them off? The last thing we want to do is hurt people who rely on the grant.”
My finger hovered. “But what if it’s one of these random profiles?”
“We should be subtle,” she urged.
“I’m terrible at that.”
“What if we start with who we know, and if we’re out of suspects, we go deeper?” Piper offered. “Since Grace thinks the handwriting is familiar, it could be someone in town.”
I was tempted to do it anyway, but Wren had gotten a lot done using the grant, and I didn’t want to take that from her.
“Okay, so people we know. Let’s start there.” I went back to my list. I’d known these people my entire life. Could they be the ones hiding this from us?
“So, we treat the Facebook group like a list.” I looked up at Mollie. “Is it you?”
She laughed. “Me? Absolutely not. The farm is doing well, but there’s no way I have that kind of money.”
“Are you sure?”