SSMM Ch34

Ava Googles Cristy.

Like Karina, Cristy’s professional career is all out in the open. She’d been doing pretty well and considered promising until her performance fell off. She wasn’t a big enough deal, apparently, for any articles to be written about why.

Scrolling back through her socials reveals that they have matured significantly over the years. Thirst traps and big political statements were common when she was younger. Now she’s more careful about what she says, and while she always looks cute, Ava senses no particularly aggressive attention-seeking. Professionally, she’s staying involved with tennis without doing much playing herself. She coaches and mentors, with a few forays into entertainment-related things. She frequently acts as a judge, ref, or commentator on small tournaments.

She makes a lot of posts about drinking and ****, but generally in a supportive, wholesome way. When one of her mutuals is talking about having a hard time, Cristy is there, urging them to go to a meeting.

It’s clear that she’s no fan of Viv’s, but it’s not as though she’s on there ranting about her. Someone posted a weekend festival of Viv’s films, and Cristy posted **** FIRST.

Ava knows that Cristy had a thing with Viv, and it wasn’t pretty. She’s almost certain that Cristy was the one looking through Viv’s photo album, although her commentary on sobriety online and that open bottle that Ava found with the book seems interesting.

Of course, having to spend the night in Viv’s house was good enough cause for a relapse in Ava’s opinion. And… Cristy had joined Karina and Ava in drinking when they were fooling around earlier. Tricky stuff; Ava isn’t sure what to think without asking.

It’s hard to pin things down, but Cristy was at about the age to be Viv’s type when her career ended. Ava pictures a timeline in which Cristy gets her heart broken, starts drinking, and her tennis game suffers.

Did Viv destroy Cristy’s career?

Chitose says something in Japanese. She doesn’t sound happy.

“She wants to know what you’re going to do,” Belinda relays to Ingrid. “Are you going to arrest someone?”

“No. I won’t do anything. But to know will make us safer,” Ingrid says calmly.

Ava can’t argue with that. Chitose glares at the blonde, tapping her foot. Anyone who tries to arrest her is probably going to get her ass kicked.

“Was Aubrey going to leave Vivien?” Ingrid asks Kia directly.

Kia grimaces and shakes her head.

“Did you want her to?”

Kia looks emotional. Understandable, but the **** must be making it worse. She sniffles and nods.

Ingrid gazes at her a moment longer, then turns to Jane.

“What kind of employer is Vivien Corbin?” she asks.

Jane’s eyes flash. She chews her lip for a moment. Viv just stares at the floor.

“She’s all right,” Jane says finally. “The pay is good. The house is comfortable. She’s awful, she’s out of touch, she doesn’t always treat people like people. But that’s any rich celebrity. She’ll… come on strong, but she does take no for an answer. She’ll try again, but she never did anything really bad. Yes, she wanted me, but I’m human. I kind of wanted her, too. She’s an entitled rich person. Not a villain.”

Ingrid looks satisfied with that and turns to Annette.

“How would you benefit from Vivien Corbin’s ****?” she asks.

“Is this a test?”

“Yes.”

Annette snorts. She looks coldly at the body on the floor. “FUTA is profitable. Viv choose where to invest based on her dumbass whims and how much young pussy she thinks it’ll get her.” Viv shrinks slightly. “But her estate, with her dead, will throw all kinds of money at us because they’ll get returns. My life gets easier if she dies. And I don’t have to come here and deal with this bullshit. I hate her. God, I fucking hate her. But I didn’t try to kill her, kid.”

“Belinda,” Ingrid says.

“What?”

“What do you think I will ask you?”

Ingrid is ruthless.

“Go fuck yourself. I’ll answer questions, but I’m not playing games.”

Ava might be imagining it, but Ingrid’s eyes light up at that for a moment.

“Hailey.”

“My turn, huh?” The blonde tosses her hair. “What?”

“Are you not an unusual choice to be here?”

“I was a last-minute sub.” Hailey shrugs modestly. “I’m hot. I guess that’s all you need with this broad.” Hailey stands out; not everyone is broken up or in tears over Aubrey, but only Hailey seems almost pleased by it.

“You have motive,” Ingrid says.

Hailey raises an eyebrow. “Oh. I see. Sure, Sis.”

“Even Ebba has motive,” Ingrid adds.

Ebba’s nostrils flare. Ingrid is being abrasive on purpose. She doesn’t want people to be calm. She wants the killer to make a mistake.

“She wouldn’t take a bath in the dark,” Viv says. “But she would go to the bathroom in the dark if I was in bed. To keep from waking me up. But I wasn’t in bed. She would’ve had the light on. How could someone mistake her for me with the light on? It would’ve been on if she was getting ready to go meet Kia.”

Annette rubs her chin, troubled.

Jane and Ava exchange a look. “The lights were off, but… we weren’t really paying attention once Viv showed up,” Ava says.

Jane nods in agreement.

Suspicious looks fly around the room like it’s full of panicking bats. In the midst of it, Ingrid is all steely cool. Ava senses that Ingrid’s investigation is all but completed. There’s time to Google one more suspect.