“Now what?” she asked, shifting in her seat. The loose sweater she wore slipped off her shoulder. I made a conscious effort to keep my eyes off the soft, newly-exposed skin.
“Now, I think it’s past time we look into suspect number one,” I said.
Her forehead crinkled. “We already ruled out Clinton.”
“I meant your ex.”
“Why is he suspect number one?” she asked.
“Because it’s always the boyfriend,” I said, parroting the tagline of many of my group members. We had even thought about using that as the name of our blog, but had worried it might be too insensitive.
Hazel groaned and flopped back into the couch. She wore baggy sweatpants while I was still in jeans. I had overanalyzed what to wear over here, like the dork that I was. While this was miles away from any sort of romantic endeavor, it was still a long time since I’d spent the night at a woman’s house. I hadn’t wanted to look like a slob. But seeing how comfortable Hazel was made me realize how ridiculously overdressed I was.
“I can’t reach out to him,” Hazel said. “He has me blocked on everything.”
“Which is sketchy,” I continued, pulling my own laptop from my backpack and placing it on my lap. “He was following you the day you posted your lottery story. Speaking of which—” I opened up a document that contained a short list of names. “Do you recognize any of these other usernames? I used the login info that you gave me and put this together. They are all people who followed you that day but have since unfollowed you. I figured there could be something fishy about that.”
Hazel’s eyes scanned the names. “I mean, those two arejust randoms from high school.” She gasped when she noticed the third name. “Kiara unfollowed me? That bitch!”
“Does that mean something to you?” My voice went up an octave. Maybe we were on to something.
Hazel still glared at the list. “Just that she’s fake and she sucks. I can’t believe she’d do that. She always used to have the decency to at least pretend to be civil.”
“Who is she?” I demanded, pulling up her profile, which thankfully wasn’t private. She had ash-blonde hair and a pouty pose in nearly every picture.
“We went to high school together. She’s close with my childhood best friend, Zoe.” Hazel leaned over me and pointed to a picture. I could smell the citrus shampoo she must use. “There, that one is Zoe.”
“But you two aren’t friends?” I guessed.
Hazel snorted. “No. She’s always been mean to me. Zoe and I went to middle school together, but Kiara showed up in high school. She’s a classic mean girl, but Zoe could never see it. Either that, or she just only directed that energy at me.” Hazel let out a defeated sigh. “She just moved to this side of the state, and Zoe keeps asking if the two of us are going to hang out. I didn’t want to, but I invited Kiara over for a trashy movie night a few weeks ago. She said she was coming and everything, then just didn’t show up. She hates me.”
“So she knows where you live.”
Hazel met my eyes and shook her head. “You think Kiara could have stolen Vermont? No way. She might be mean, but she isn’t sadistic.”
“We can’t rule anyone out. She’s in the area, doesn’t like you, and for whatever reason, unfollowed you right after you posted about winning the lottery.” I held up a finger each time I made a point. Hazel reached over and put her hand around my fingers, forcing them closed.
“I get what you’re saying, but I’m telling you. There’s no way. That girl does not think about me enough to do something like this. I barely register as a person to her.” Shefrowned. “I hate to say it, but I guess we probably should start with Paul.”
My blood heated at the name. “Paul? Is that the ex?”
“The one and only,” she said with a drawn-out sigh.
“Didn’t end on great terms?” I asked, doing my best to keep the curiosity out of my voice. It was strictly for the investigation. I had no personal interest in her romantic history.
“Not really.” She grimaced and sipped her water before setting it back down. “He didnotwant to break up. But we fought, like, all the time. I’m still annoyed with myself that it took me so long to end it.”
“And you think he could do this?”
She looked at the wall for a moment before nodding. “I mean, maybe? We only broke up six months ago. I actually moved out here with him a couple of years ago, from metro Detroit. We went to high school together but didn’t start dating until we were twenty-two.”
I pulled up his profile on my phone. Once again, it wasn’t private. Did anyone care about security in this day and age?
“I can see what you saw in him.” I flashed her my phone, which had one of his hundreds of shirtless gym pictures pulled up.
“Oh, God.” She giggled and covered her face. “Don’t judge me. In my defense, we did have fun together.”
I scrolled down and pulled up another picture of him, a friend who had a very similar meathead demeanor, and Hazel—all smiling at the camera. I looked at the date. Three months ago.
