Page 117 of Maid For Each Other

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Revelations

Abi

“What are you doing here?”

I grabbed Lauren’s arm and pulled her into the lobby restroom, because I was very aware of how big Carl the Doorman’s gossipy ears were. I’d benefited from countless entertaining stories since I’d started with Masterkleen of all the things he’d overheard from his desk.

“You haven’t responded to my texts,” she said, scowling. “I was worried.”

In spite of the chaos of the day, my heart got a little warm as I looked at my irritated friend. She’d been worried about me.

“Awww,” I said, pulling her into a hug. “Thank you.”

She pulled back and scowled even harder. “You don’t hug—what the hell is wrong with you?”

I shook my head. “Forget it. Nothing. Now why are you really here?”

“I was worried, but also I’ve been dying to tell you what I think I discovered about your friends.”

My friends.I had no idea at that momentwhatthey were. I was stuck between (a) desperately wanting to believe Dex because he’d just said everything I wanted him to say, and (b) knowing he might feel that way today but it was surely fleeting.

“Why couldn’t you have just texted it to me?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, lowering her voice even though we were the only ones in the bathroom, “it’shugelya secret. So secret that I didn’t even want to send it over a phone.”

“What?” I said, a little too loudly because she put her hand over my mouth.

“Shutup,” she hissed, her eyes wide. “I’m about to go all first grade on you and whisper as quietly as I can into your ear. So you’re going to need to keep your mouth shut and just listen, okay?”

“You sound bonkers,” I said, wondering why she was acting so bizarrely. “Just tell me quietly, there’s no one else here.”

“My way or the highway,” she said, and sighed. “Fuck it. Just shut the fuck up and listen.”

Lauren grabbed my head, pulled it to her face, then cupped her hands around my ear.

“There is a thing online called RestWell—you’ve probably heard of it, I don’t know. It’s this anonymous drop box where people can randomly ask for money, basically. Like they fill out their name, their request—how much they need and why—and their Venmo or PayPal info, unless it’s over a certain amount and then there’s other requirements, I think. But no one knows who runs it or how it works—and people have been trying to findout foryears—but this modern-day Robin Hood literally gives away millions of dollars every year. Like,millions. To random users on the internet.”

“You guys okay in there?” Carl yelled from outside the door.

“We’re fine, Carl,” I yelled back, knowing he was champing at the bit to flirt with Lauren because he loved brunettes. “It’s girl stuff.”

“Carl out, then,” he said, and I heard the click of his shoes walking away.

“So,” Lauren whispered. “A few months ago when my mom fell behind on her mortgage and was being eaten alive by the interest, I thought,what the hell, why not try it?I submitted it just as a last resort, and they paid off my mother’s fucking house.”

“What?” I yelled, which made her slap me in the arm. I lowered my voice to a whisper and said, “Are you serious?”

“Of course I am, you idiot, why would I make this up?” she said. “But here’s the thing. When you sent me that picture of the email on Declan’s desk, something felt familiar about it, and I couldn’t figure out what. But I finally figured it out, Ab. The six-digit number that was in brackets beside the list of names? There was a number like that on my payment memo.”

I leaned back to look at her, trying to figure out if I was getting this straight. “What?”

She nodded, pulled my ear back to her face, then whispered, “And the email addresses they were using were for a company called RWDR. Could that be an acronym for Rest Well Declan Roman?”

I blinked and stared at the paper towel dispenser.Could this actually be a thing?

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

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