SSMM Ch30

It’s safe to guess that Viv has been cheating on her partners since literally before Ava and Jane were born. They can trust her to know what she’s doing. Surely.

So, they say nothing and let the general contentment of the situation take them over.

Sleep comes easily, and there’s no sense of time when Ava is awakened by the stirring of her partners.

She rubs at her eyes and sits up in rumpled, fragrant sheets. Groggily, they try to make sense of what they’re hearing. Voices and movement are audible even over the noise of the storm. Before anyone can form thoughts or words, a sharp banging on the door makes them all flinch.

“Jane!”

Ava peers blearily; she doesn’t know all these people well enough to identify them by their voices. Who is that?

“Uh, yeah?” Jane replies automatically, vigorously rubbing at her face.

Kia bursts in, mouth open to speak, only to freeze.

She stares at the three naked women in the bed. She’s already distressed, but now her look turns murderous. She doesn’t even say anything; she just tears into the room and leaps on the bed, lunging at Viv.

Viv has plenty of gravitas on the screen and even in real life, but that does not extend to a catfight. And this can’t even be called a fight. The fitness instructor punches Viv squarely in the face and holds her down, trying to **** her.

“Holy shit!” Jane tries to grab her, only to catch an elbow in the face. She topples off the bed with a pained, confused: “What the fuck?”

Ava more sensibly seizes Kia from behind, trapping her arms. She anticipates the headbutt and avoids it, but she’s not ready for how strong this woman is, or how motivated. Kia launches herself backward, drawing an “Oof!” from Viv as she and Ava crash to the floor, where the wrestling match turns savage. Ava outweighs this woman, who has like four percent body fat, and at her best, might have a chance. Naked and having just woken up, she doesn’t. Luckily, Jane’s there.

She puts Kia in a chokehold and forces her to the carpet before she can smash Ava’s face with her fist. Jane tries to hold her down, and Ava piles on. Together, they keep her struggling floor smooshed to the floor.

“Oh my god! Don’t **** her!” Ava says.

“Why the hell not?” Jane demands, keeping her arm tight around Kia’s neck.

“I don’t know! Kia! What the fuck?”

“You bitch,” Kia snarls. She can’t move, but she can glare at Viv, who is shell-shocked on the bed with a bloody nose.

“Kia, what the hell is wrong with you?” Jane demands. “You fucked up my face!”

Kia makes a passionate noise of rage, still thrashing. She stops, and the look she’s giving Viv is terrifying.

“It’s Aubrey. She’s dead,” Kia says through gritted teeth.

Ava and Jane exchange a look.

A minute later, they’re emerging from Jane’s room, everyone in robes. More people are in the hallway; whoever wasn’t already awake is now. Viv jogs off, and Jane goes after her. Unsure what to do, Ava doesn’t get to choose. A sleepy Annette grabs her by the arm.

“What’s going on?”

“Kia says Aubrey’s dead.”

Similar conversations are happening everywhere. Ava doesn’t know what to do, so she goes along with Annette, who heads for Viv’s apartment.

It’s crowded with everyone there. Annette’s face is oddly neutral, and her little nightie is oddly sexy. There’s nothing odd about a conventionally attractive blonde looking good in that sort of thing, it’s just that Annette’s affect didn’t give Ava the impression that she was looking for love. It doesn’t matter.

Belinda is sticking close to Chitose, who seems puzzled. Belinda wears a robe while Chitose is in her underwear. Belinda smells like soap while Chitose smells like sweat.

Karina is still dripping, holding her towel shut.

Hailey seems frightened in her FUTA-branded booty shorts and hoodie.

Ingrid’s face has taken on a strange, steely quality that doesn’t suit her cherubic features. She wears flannel pajamas. Beside her, Ebba wears a long tee and her hair is wrapped in a towel.

Cristy stands in her robe looking shaken, her fingers tightly gripping her sleeves.

Kia, Viv, and Jane… and Aubrey—must be in Viv’s cavernous bathroom.

Annette can’t stand here awkwardly with these people; she pushes forward and heads in. Ava follows. She’s curious and doesn’t know what to do. Standing around doesn’t seem great.

“Oh jeez,” she says under her breath as she enters the bathroom.

Aubrey lies on her back beside Viv’s huge, freestanding tub. The water is tinged with pink, but it’s faint. The room smells powerfully of perfume and soap; it’s from the bubbles and oils in the bathwater. Lightning flashes outside the window behind the tub, the light catching on the contours of Aubrey’s wet, naked corpse.

Aubrey’s eyes stare sightlessly, and there’s some kind of wound on her head.

“She was floating,” Kia’s saying, gazing helplessly at the body. There’s a mottled mark on Aubrey’s pale chest: that’s where Kia must’ve tried to do CPR. There’s a lot of water on the floor, a definite slipping hazard. “And you’re fucking teenagers while your wife drowns,” Kia growls at Viv, who just stands there.

“Oh, Jesus. Fuck.” Annette puts her face in her hand.

“Hey,” Jane says to Ingrid, who has slipped into the room without anyone noticing.

Ingrid doesn’t answer. She crouches beside the body, and her eye twitches.

Ava sees her look at the water on the floor, the window, and the bathtub. Ingrid sniffs the air, then gets to her feet.

“I am sorry for your loss,” she says in her stilted, accented English, to Viv.

“Maybe give us some space,” Jane tells her, reaching out.

Ingrid deftly parries her and goes to the sink, then looks sharply to her right.

“Look,” Jane says, a little annoyed. She grabs Ingrid’s shoulder.

Ingrid is calm. “We need to know who did this.”

“Who did this? It was an accident,” Jane says.

Ingrid gazes at her for a moment, then takes a tissue from the box by the sink. She bends and emerges from behind the tub with something.

“What the fuck is that?” Jane asks, and that gets the attention of everyone else. They gather around to see the hypodermic needle lying in the tissue.

“Was she diabetic?” Annette asks.

“No,” Viv replies at once, eyes wide. “That’s not ours.”

“It is full,” Ingrid notes. Whatever is in this needle has not been injected into anyone. “No one can come or go in this weather. If this was not an accident, then we are not safe.” Ingrid sounds calm.

Right… she’s been through something like this before. No wonder she’s taking charge.

But someone here? A killer?

Ava looks at the door and pictures everyone standing out there. Is one of them a killer?

[ Detective Ingrid will solve the case of the circumstances surrounding Aubrey’s ****. She will uncover clues while Ava will make observations and draw conclusions of her own, which may or may not be accurate. The first reader to correctly DM me the identity of the killer with motive wins the grand prize, which will be whatever story they want as long as it’s suitable to be used as daily chapters. Note: writing a tight whodunnit on the fly with actual meaningful choices is tough; the identity of the killer and the sequence of events is in place, but the availability of relevant clues is all over the place. The killer was decided before the first word was written, so if that killer is someone like Hailey that we’ve basically not interacted with at all, that’s going to make things a lot tougher. Keep that in mind in the next couple of votes. This mystery might be laughably easy for you to solve, or it might be really hard or even impossible due to sloppiness on my part or our choices guiding us away from relevant clues. We’ll find out. I know that a lot of readers put serious effort into this, which I’m not sure that my writing deserves, but I want the record to show that I appreciate it and I’ll try to reward it with prizes or something. As for voting, Ingrid is running the investigation. She will do her own thing. Meanwhile, Ava has her phone. It falls to you, the readers, to chaotically decide who Ava should be Googling to gain insight about connections/motive. That information, combined with Ingrid’s observations and your own throughout the story should grant you enough clues to have a reasonable chance of calling it correctly before Ingrid concludes her investigation. But again, I know that my work is sloppy, so if you’re not successful don’t take it personally. There won’t be time to Google everyone before Ingrid solves the case. All we need is a simple majority. I know there aren’t very many voters and teamwork is a lot to ask, so if everyone votes differently I’ll choose randomly and that's fine. I know. Calvinball rules. Classic Viking. So, to recap, it’s not a matter of solving the case—it’s a matter of solving it before Ingrid does to get the prize. Vote for whoever you want to know more about. When you’re ready, make your guess via DM before Ingrid calls out and apprehends the killer. And this is convoluted enough that of course I’m open to questions and ready to clarify whatever I can. Thanks in advance for tolerating the antics. ]