"No," she agrees. "They're not. For instance, I wasn't in rehab for alcohol."
I look up, meeting her eyes across the island. She holds my gaze steadily, challenging me to ask the obvious question. So I do.
"What was it, then?"
"Xanax," she says simply. "Prescription. My mother's preferred method of control since I was fourteen. Said it would help with anxiety before shoots. Before interviews."
"Shekept giving it to me," Jade continues. "Told me I was too 'high-strung,' too 'difficult.' That no one would want to work with a girl who had opinions. Or boundaries. By the time I was sixteen, I couldn't go a day without it."
The casual way she describes it makes it all the more disturbing. I continue stirring the milk, giving her space to continue or not. Her choice.
"When I got emancipated at sixteen, I checked myself into rehab. Not because I was out of control, but because I wanted to be free of her influence completely. Including the chemical kind."
"You were legally emancipated?" I ask, though I try to keep my surprise minimal. It mustn't be common knowledge, since it didn't appear in our background research.
She nods. "Filed the paperwork myself, with Gloria's help. Went before a judge and everything. Made the case that I was financially independent and that staying under my mother's guardianship was detrimental to my wellbeing. The judge agreed."
I pour the warm milk into two mugs and slide hers across the counter. She cradles it like it's a lifeline. "That takes courage," I say, meaning it. "At sixteen, most kids are just trying to survive high school."
"I wasn't most kids." She wraps her hands around the mug, inhaling the cinnamon-scented steam. "By sixteen, I'd been working for four years, supporting my mother, my manager, and half a dozen hangers-on."
"Is that why you keep your mother at a distance?" I ask.
Jade takes a sip of her drink. "My mother saw me as an investment, not a daughter. When I told her..." She hesitates. "When I needed her protection, she chose money over me. So now I give her money, and in return, she stays away."
"Until yesterday," I observe.
"Until yesterday," she agrees. "Which means either she's telling the truth about receiving that note, or..."
"You don't think she's telling the truth?"
Jade sighs. "I don't know what to think anymore. The timing is suspicious. First the attack in New York, then the note Gloria received, now this. It feels... coordinated."
"We're looking into all possibilities," I assure her.
We sip in silence. It's the closest we've been without conflict. It's... nice. Quiet. Real.
"This is good," she admits. "Your mother's recipe?"
"One of the few things she passed down that was actually useful." I allow myself a small smile. "My family's not big on healthy legacies."
"Mine either," she says dryly. "What about your father? What did he pass down?"
"My father was in the military. Four tours in Vietnam, then twenty years pushing papers at the Pentagon. He passed down discipline, duty, and an inability to expressemotions properly." I take a sip. "He had very specific ideas about what made a man."
"Such as?"
"No weakness. No emotions. Those were strictly for civilians and women. Discipline and silence were his love languages."
She nods. "Sounds like we both had parents who saw emotions as something to be controlled or exploited. Your father taught you to suppress them, my mother wanted me to perform them for the camera. Neither one actually cared how we really felt."
There's something refreshing about her bluntness, her unwillingness to sugarcoat. It's the most genuine she's been since we arrived.
She eyes me over the rim of her mug. "So this miracle drink cures heartbreak too, huh? Hard to believe someone like you would need that particular remedy."
"Someone like me?"
Her cheeks flush. "You know. Attractive, commanding, successful. I'd imagine you're usually the heartbreaker, not the heartbroken."
