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“Wait!” Ava exclaimed. “What if this was about Mike Crenshaw? What if he put her up to all this because he was still mad about Rico’s party?” Ava suggested excitedly.
I nodded my head. “Yeah, that makes way more sense. He has the motive, so he uses her to get back at us.”
“I knew it! I knew he was using her. Poor Casey,” Ava murmured.
I shot a quick look at Addison. She looked pensive, as if some of this information wasn’t making sense to her.
“What? You’re thinking something,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t know…I just don’t see her doing this kind of thing for Mike. I don’t think she even likes him that much. He would call her, but she’d blow him off all the time.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense, otherwise, what’s Casey’s motive?”
Addison’s brows pinched, as if she was trying to work out a particularly challenging puzzle but half the pieces were missing.
“I guess you’re right,” she finally, if tentatively, agreed.
“Is Mike here?”
“Yeah, he’s in the study with some of the basketball players.”
The study? Jesus Christ, this place.
I turned to Ava. “I’m going to take Nikolai and Carter, and we’re going to have a little chat with fucking Crenshaw. Why don’t you go find Hannah and we’ll come get you when he starts admitting to his bullshit?” I wasn’t particularly eager for Ava to see me beating the shit out of Crenshaw—again. My fist was itching to make contact with his face, so I was praying for provocation.
Ava looked like she was going to resist, but ended up relenting.
“Okay, once you’ve punched Mike a few times, you come get me,” she said, shooting me a knowing smile.
This girl got me.
****
Chapter 41
Ava
When I got to the kitchen, I sent Nikolai to the study to meet up with Jack, wherever the hell that was, and grabbed a much-needed beer.
“Ava, you are murdering me. What happened?” Hannah screeched as I took three large gulps of beer. Normally, I didn’t care much for the taste of it, but right now I felt like I could drink gallons. What a night.
I took mercy on her. “It wasn’t Addison.”
Ava’s eyes popped open. “Really? I can’t believe it—all the evidence fit!”
“Well, I guess we’re all going to have to hand in our junior detective badges because we were all wrong. Casey took the picture of me, but we think it’s because Mike Crenshaw told her to. That’s where I sent Nikolai, to go help Jack deal with Mike.”
“So, you guys think it was Mike and Casey?”
“Well, not really Casey. We think Mike used his relationship with her to get her to help him.”
Hannah’s darks brows drew together. “Aren’t you kind of letting Casey off easy? I mean, even if she did it for her boyfriend, she did do it, right? She’s not a toddler.”
I pondered that for a moment. “I suppose your right,” I admitted. “She just seems so sweet, so eager to please, I guess I was giving her a pass.”
“I get it, Ava, but taking your picture in the locker room? That was shitty, no matter why she did it.”
I nodded my head, taking another drink of my beer. “I think some of my resistance to blaming her is because she’s always so friendly.”
