Trigger Warning:
Mentions of child death
Summary:
This smart, layered mystery kicks off with a quirky premise: a group of women, all named Sarah Jones, come together to form a support group. To keep things straight, they refer to each other by age—Sarah 17, Sarah 28, Sarah 30, and so on. What begins as a feel-good project (yarn-bombing a tree, no less!) quickly spirals into something much darker when one of the Sarahs—Sarah Jones, the Chair of the Federal Reserve—is found dead under mysterious circumstances.
Our main protagonist is Sarah Jones (30), a fiercely independent and athletic personal trainer who has just moved from Oregon to Minnesota after breaking off her engagement to her high school sweetheart. She’s searching for a fresh start and a new sense of purpose. When she takes on a new client at her gym, George—a charming but emotionally guarded FBI agent—things begin to shift in more ways than one.
Unbeknownst to Sarah, George hasn’t chosen her by accident. He’s been assigned to a fraud case involving someone named Gabriella, who’s been using the alias Sarah Jones to con people out of money. Gabriella (posing as Sarah Jones 28) has infiltrated the support group under false pretenses. Her motivations, though criminal, come with a heavy emotional backstory—she’s trying to pay off dangerous debts incurred by her brother, who’s been threatened by people involved in the drug trade. Gabriella’s guilt stems from her brother taking the fall for a rough childhood, and she feels responsible for fixing things the only way she knows how.
Gabriella’s scam involves targeting people who recently lost loved ones. She searches obituaries for names tied to unclaimed inheritances and then befriends the heirs—coincidentally named Sarah Jones—to gain access and steal funds. Things come to a head when she takes a job as the nanny for the Fed Chair Sarah Jones’ two daughters, Ruby and Lula.
Fed Chair Sarah has her own secret: during the isolation of the COVID pandemic, she smothered her ailing mother to death. Gabriella uncovers this and uses it to blackmail her. Their final confrontation turns violent, and Gabriella pushes Sarah off a bridge, staging it as an accident.
As Sarah 30 starts piecing things together—with the help of spunky teen Sarah 17 and George—the truth unravels. 17 discovers photos of a missing necklace belonging to the Fed Chair in a suspicious envelope Gabriella had asked Sarah 30 to retrieve. When 30 and George leave town for a weekend at his family’s remote cabin, Gabriella threatens 17 to stay silent.
The pieces fall into place when 17 and Sarah 69 (a wise and supportive elder in the group) reach out to Sister Dolores—the head of 17’s school, and a former detective. Sister Dolores, haunted by an unsolved case from her past—the disappearance of a young boy named Henry—reconnects with Agent Jane Vance, George’s boss, who’s now in charge of the Fed Chair’s murder investigation.
In a tense final scene, the group tracks down Gabriella to the very bridge where Fed Chair Sarah died. Agent Vance confronts her, and Gabriella is finally arrested.
But that’s not the only case that gets closure.
George has long been haunted by the disappearance of his childhood friend Henry, who vanished as a second grader after biking away from his house. George joined the FBI because of that case—and it’s been unresolved for decades. During the stormy weekend at the cabin, George’s father Paul shares a secret: Henry’s father Andrew has been carrying guilt all these years. One night, driven by unresolved grief over his wife’s death in childbirth and resentment toward Henry’s gentle nature, Andrew snapped and killed his son. He buried the body on George’s family’s land. On that stormy night, Andrew finally leads George to where Henry was buried, bringing closure to a wound that shaped his entire life.
After the dust settles, Sarah 30 confronts George for lying to her about his real reasons for seeking her out—but ultimately forgives him. They rebuild their connection, and in a satisfying full-circle moment, the two of them run a marathon together, stronger for what they’ve been through.
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