“Weird, right?” I prompted. “Do you think it has anything to do with Annie?”
“Unlikely,” he said at last. “But you make sure you keep that gun near you, and don’t hesitate to use it.” I goggled at him. “I’m serious, Trouble.”
“Uh, isn’t this Alessandro, like, a buddy of yours? If you’re a Castellani, too?”
He fiddled with the wrapper of his burrito, ripping more of it off. “Things aren’t always so black and white in my world. So you do what I’m telling you. Shoot first, worry later.”
I was definitely not going to shoot anyone, but I kept that to myself. “How’d he get the scar?” I asked instead.
But Jack changed the subject. “Where do we need to go to speak to this Rochford woman?”
“The Chateau,” I told him, and then added its full name as his face went blank. “Chateau de la Lune, over in central Hollywood. You must know it.”
Chateau de la Lune was notorious, and for that reason it was one of Roxy’s favored locations. I assumed it was also because she liked hanging out in a place where the “mundanes,” as she had once called them in my hearing, were also able to visit. Although celebrities were not allowed to be approached by fans in the grounds of the Chateau—managerial orders—and filming or photography were verboten, it gave Roxy a kick to see people seeingher, and then turning excitedly to whisper to their friends about her.
I was so busy explaining all this to Jack that I failed to notice the way he had gone still and sharp-eyed until a few minutes into my spiel.
“I can’t go to Chateau de la Lune,” he broke in, partway through my griping about the state of the rooms there.
“Huh? Of course you can. They’retalkingabout making it members-only, sure, but that hasn’t come in yet.”
“No,” he said. “I can’t go in there. You’ll have to get Rochford to come here.”
I actually laughed. “Roxy is not going to come here, JJ. She doesn’t goanywherewithout a potential audience. And she’s sure as shit not gonna turn up at some guy’s place that she doesn’t know, out in the sticks, even if I’m the one offering the invite. Maybeespeciallyif it’s coming from me.”
His jaw clenched and he checked his watch. “If we do this, we need to be in and out of the Chateau as fast as we can,” he said. “You’re sure she’ll be there?”
“I’m sure. She’s got other places she likes to be for dinner, and then her nightlife is pretty wild. But she likes the Chateau in the afternoons.”
Jack said nothing more. He’d picked up a Corn Grill special himself, and he continued eating it as I went through a few pictures I’d picked out from my sister’s social media accounts for being weird, or maybe worth following up. There weren’t many of them. The problem with all these public socials were that they were just like everyone else’s: carefully curated and designed with image in mind. They weren’t a reflection of her real life at all.
“It’s a bust,” I said at last, after weakly trying to explain what I found suspicious about a picture of Annie in someone’s backyard that wasn’t familiar to me. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Had to be done, even if there wasn’t anything there. And her private accounts?”
I bit my lip. It was time to come clean. He needed me to get to Roxy, anyway; he couldn’t kick me out of the investigationyet.
“Okay, so don’t get mad,” I began, which is the worst way to begin any conversation where youknowyou’re about to make the other person mad.
But Jack hid being mad better than anyone I’d ever met. “You’re lucky you’re so cute, Trouble,” he sighed, after I’d finished my confession. “Or I’d send you home after a spanking.”
I gave a hopeful smile. “You couldtotallyspank me, JJ. I deserve it, a hundred percent.”
He chuckled. “Maybe later. You should have a nap before we go out. You look beat.”
The idea of laying my head back down on a pillow and letting oblivion cover me for a while certainly had its appeal. “What about you? You had a busy night, too.”
It was the first mention I’d made of last night since he’d come home, but Jack began to clear away the empty lunch containers before I could get a read on his face.
“I have a few more things to take care of for work, and I’m catching up with a contact about Annie, too. He doesn’t like strangers,” he added, before I could say I’d go with him. “I’ll be back around three.”
I watched his hands as he worked, busily stacking the cardboard containers and squishing them as small as he could before trashing them. They were clean hands, as far as I could see; no blood caked under the nails or caught in the creases. But I couldn’t shake the image for a second, my brain stuttering, glitching, so that I had to blink a few times.
“What’s wrong?” Jack was leaning across to take my empty soda bottle, frowning at me.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” I blurted out.
He froze in place, fingers wrapped around the bottle. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
