White paused for a beat, her gaze dropping as though she could already see the flicker of Mark’s awkward discomfort playing out behind her eyes.
“Mark is the decent sort.
If he found himself ill at ease he would simply turn aside and withdraw with quiet courtesy.
But with Steven… that alone was more than enough.”
“He had been refused by too many young men before him.
From those successive rejections the appetite for murder was born.”
Mariana’s voice sank lower.
“Why Andrea, then?
You said only a moment ago that they were close friends.”
White turned back, her tone remaining as level as still water.
“Because he envied her happiness.”
White tilted her head.
Her voice was as even as a perfectly still surface of water.
“Let me put it this way, so it’s easier to understand.
A girl only needs to be a little pretty, a little sweet, and straight guys will automatically line up to spoil her and snap her up.
What about yaoi?
They fall for straight guys too.
Yet the moment they open their mouths and say, ‘I like you too,’ they get that unfriendly look from the very person they care about.
That’s why yaoi guys see girls in love and immediately start boiling with jealousy.
Why do other people get to be loved… while all they get is hate?”
She gave a slight shrug, as though stating the obvious.
“I didn’t come up with this myself.
I’m not saying all yaoi guys think this way, but there are plenty of yaoi guys on social media who openly show their jealousy toward girls.”
White drew a long breath, as if seeking to ease the pressure that had gathered in her chest.
“You have grasped my meaning exactly yet one further step is still missing.
He can harness social media itself, driving the public narrative straight toward Andrea, so that she is already branded the guilty party before any reasoned defence can be mounted.”
Knight inclined his head, taking up the thread.
“Hearing you analyse his envy of Andrea’s happiness, it seems highly probable that Steven intends to transform her from an innocent into the sacrificial scapegoat of his design.”
He exhaled, speaking slowly, as though arranging each link of the chain of reasoning.
“Forensics will run the hair through the DNA database.
Sooner or later they’ll get a hit on Andrea.
Say it takes them three months to ID her.
That’s more than enough time for every piece of her alibi to fall apart.
Once the proof she was somewhere else is gone, there’s nothing left to show she didn’t do it.”
White drew a long breath, as if seeking to ease the pressure that had gathered in her chest.
“You have grasped my meaning exactly yet one further step is still missing.
He can harness social media itself, driving the public narrative straight toward Andrea, so that she is already branded the guilty party before any reasoned defence can be mounted.”