Page 101 of The House Swap

She was being ridiculous now. This wasn’t some kind of witch hunt where Martin, Jem, Sue and Ian were all involved.

Still, she did need to see if she could find a connection between Simon and Jem. That, at the very least, might give her some peace of mind.

She tried a Google search first, typing in both of their names, but although she found a website for Jem’s photography and several results for Simon’s books, nothing seemed to link the two of them.

Knowing she wouldn’t sleep tonight unless she checked, Poppy logged on to Facebook.

Straight away she could see the notifications were stacked up and that she had new messages waiting too, but she ignored those for now, searching for Jem first. She tried Jeremiah Daley and then Jem Daley, but although there were results for both, they led to different people.

Perhaps he wasn’t on Facebook. Not everyone was.

Instead, she turned to Simon.

Seeing his face fill her phone screen made her feel nauseous.

From what she could see, he hadn’t posted anything else about her, but she didn’t stay long on his profile. Instead, glancing through his friends list.

It was a waste of time, though. Without Jem having a profile, there seemed no way to connect the pair of them.

She plucked up the courage to look at her notifications. Bracing herself as she scanned over the list.

She didn’t click on any of the comments but was able to tell from the preview that they were a mix, and luckily only a few appeared to be nasty. She was also relieved to see that over the last two days, there had been no further interaction.

As she scrolled the list, one name stood out.

Greg Tooley.

She wasn’t connected to Keira’s boyfriend on social media, but she saw that he had sent her a message request. Was it to do with Keira?

Curious, she logged into Messenger.

Tension rippled through her as she clicked on his message, her eyes widening as she saw he had contacted her multiple times.

Please tell Keira to call me.

Did you get this? I need to speak with her now!

I’m not joking Poppy. This isn’t funny any more. You tell her that.

I don’t know what kind of game you two are playing. You’d better pass this message on and get her to call me or I’ll make sure you regret it!

What the hell?

Poppy’s mouth was dry, her chest tightening when she saw the messages had all been sent over the last four days.

Keira was already home. Why did Greg think she was still in Crete?

She started to type a reply, but her fingers were shaking so badly, she kept making typos. And what was she even supposed to say?

Sucking in a deep breath, realising a message wouldn’t suffice, that they needed to have a proper conversation, she hit call.

At first, she didn’t think Greg was going to answer, but then she heard his voice.

‘Poppy?’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve only just seen your messages.’

In his typical Greg way, there were no pleasantries.