depressing," Ava said.
"Sorry." I paused, moving bits of salty bacon around on my plate. "But I still think that Fabio was hiding something for Costello."
"Like a fake alibi?"
I nodded. "Could be. Or maybe stretching one. They both seemed a little hazy on time. Costello could have killed Gia backstage over whatever she'd been threatening him with then met up with Fabio much later. Like, right before we found her."
Ava nodded. "Of course, it's also possible Daisy saw Fabio right after the show ended, like Costello said, and then she slipped backstage and killed Gia out of some sort of twisted revenge on Costello."
"Or Hughie Smart really did care about being fired, and he followed her backstage and killed her."
I sighed. "Let's face it, the only people with real alibis for the entire time are the two of us."
Ava grinned, sipping her lemonade again. "Thank goodness for small favors."
I corralled another piece of crepe onto my fork and nibbled, letting the light pancake melt in my mouth as I stared out at the crowd, growing now as the weekenders grabbed bites of food to sop up all the alcohol they planned to sip that afternoon. "You know, something Hughie said this morning has been bothering me," I told her, mentally replaying our conversation with him.
"What's that?" she asked, sucking up the last of her drink through a paper straw.
"About how much money Gia was making." I set my fork down. "He said her rate was only a thousand dollars a show."
Ava shrugged. "Nice pay for walking across a stage and back."
I nodded. "True," I agreed. "But you saw how many hours of prep went into that two-minute walk. Hair, makeup, accessories. Not to mention the fittings beforehand."
"What's your point?" Ava asked, setting her plastic cup back down on the wooden bench bedside her.
"Well, just that if you break it down, she wasn't getting a huge hourly rate. And I have to assume she wasn't walking in a show every day."
"Probably more like a few a month, if she was lucky," Ava guessed. "At least in the busy season."
"Which means she was possibly making a living at modeling, but considering the cost of living in San Francisco, she wasn't making a whole lot more than that." I paused. "So if she wasn't making the big bucks, how did she finance her big lifestyle?"
Ava cocked her head to the side. "That is a good point. Yachts, sports cars, designer clothes…those all cost a pretty penny."
"Grant said her credit card statements had tons of charges on them."
Ava shrugged. "Maybe she had a side business?"
I nodded. "Like what?"
"I don't know," Ava admitted. "I have a hard time picturing her driving an Uber part time."
I grinned. "Yeah, she didn't strike me as the side hustle type."
"Maybe she had a sugar daddy? Or some family supporting her?"
"Grant said she didn't have any close family. No boyfriend that he knew of either."
"Well, maybe she did some modeling on the side. Jobs she didn't book through Hughie?"
I raised an eyebrow her direction. "That, actually, sounds like a likely possibility." I thought about it a beat. "And a reason for tension between her and her agent," I added.
"Maybe Hughie found out about it, they argued, and Gia decided she didn't need him anymore," Ava said, picking up the theory. "Maybe that's the phone call Costello overheard. Only instead of letting Gia go, Hughie drove to the fashion show and killed her."
"Over the few hundred dollars he'd lose?" I asked, still skeptical about that part.
Ava shrugged. "Maybe it was more out of anger. Bruised ego? Didn't he say he 'made' Gia? Maybe he was angry that she'd been capitalizing on his hard work behind his back?"
I nodded. "I guess that's possible. He did seem like the kind of guy with a short fuse," I mused.
"And maybe he took the emerald," Ava went on, "as some sort of compensation after the fact for the money he'd lost out on? Who knows—he might have even thought it belonged to Gia if he hadn't caught the end of the fashion show."
"Of course, this is all contingent on if Gia actually was taking jobs on the side."
"Right." Ava licked the last of her jam off her fork, eyes going to a point above me as she thought about that. "You think Jada might know?"
I wiped my mouth with a napkin. "If Gia was taking side gigs?"
Ava nodded. "They seemed to be friends."
I grabbed my empty paper plate and plastic lemonade cup. "It's certainly worth asking."
*