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As You Wish

Page 22

by Elle Rivers

She rolled her eyes. “Jade. Wanna see my profit? I have nothing to hide.”

“Yes, but not just for this.” I pointed at her. “I need to see if there’s room in the budget for a slide.”

“A slide?” Her brow creased. “Where?”

“Anywhere. The farm is missing something.”

“And it’s a slide?”

“You have those great hills. Couldn’t you imagine kids screaming as they hurtle down them?”

“Jade, you have an odd obsession with children screaming,” she muttered. “But it’s not a bad idea.”

“My next person is you.” I turned to Wren.

“It’s not me either!” she immediately said.

“You had the show.”

“Which helped a lot, but I’m not made of money.”

Mollie hummed. “You did consider funding the library yourself.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Hey, whose side are you on?” Wren glared at Mollie, who shrugged.

“We may as well get it all out in the open.”

“Fine. I thought about funding it for a year or two, but that’s all I could do. I do have decent money, that’s true, but most of what I got from there I put into other projects.”

It would’ve been the con of the century to go through the grant while owning it. Wren was smart, but this had been funding the town long before she knew we existed. “Yeah, I can believe that. Sorry, I just have to check all the boxes.”

“I get it,” she said. “Keep going.”

I quickly passed over Grace and looked at Piper.

“Hang on,” Grace interrupted. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”

I shook my head. “No. Sorry, girl. I know your secrets, and there’s simply no way it’s you.”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or relieved.” She crossed her arms and said nothing else.

“I’ll get ahead of your question and say I’m not the grant owner either,” Piper said. “I didn’t even know about this place until the show.”

“You’re right. The timing doesn’t work. Good. Then I can trust you all.”

“I do have one other thing,” Grace said. “The handwriting. It was shaky, like maybe they were older.”

“Oh,” I said. “That narrows it down, and it makes sense. None of us has that kind of money.”

“Exactly,” Mollie said. “But also, fuck you.”

I waved my hand. “I’m just being honest.”

I taped up another piece of paper, one that said “older” in large letters.

“Can we tape things on these walls?” Piper asked.