The Secret Weapon

come.

Chapter One

Anderson Stone. The agent who drawled out Anderson’s name kept his nose stuck firmly in the air as he threw a file onto the desk. He didn’t sit down right away, instead hovering so that Anderson had to choose between glaring at his skin-tight shirt, complete with muscled abdomen, or lifting his gaze and contributing to his obvious superiority complex.

As he was, cocooned in grief, confusion, and white-hot anger, he chose the former. It brought him a little bit of satisfaction when, defeated, the agent cleared his throat and sat down in the plastic chair across from him. He sipped his water from a plastic cup, swilled it around in his mouth, and stared at Anderson with piercing, icy eyes. Anderson did not balk or cower. He had no reason to. He had done nothing wrong—no matter if they believed otherwise.

Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

I bet. Anderson’s words were hoarse; he hadn’t spoken since he’d found out, and now all of that anguish had gathered in his throat like claggy lumps of sand. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t blink; he could only stare hollowly while the agent scrutinised every fibre he could find.

I’m sorry to pull you in here on such short notice. The agent reclined in his chair, tapping his pen on the desk. He didn’t look the least bit sorry. I’m Agent Patrick Ford. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Roxanne Wilde.

Anderson tried not to wince at the sound of her name. He didn’t need another reminder of what he had lost. We were close friends. There’s not much more to tell.

Ford eyed him doubtfully and opened the file between them. A dozen paparazzi shots splayed out across the pages, all of them of Anderson and Roxanne. Most of them, he’d seen before: selfies posted to Instagram, grainy photographs of them falling out of nightclubs at four a.m., pictures of them sharing vegan chicken wings at Coachella last year. Then there were the more recent ones, where Rox looked a little less like herself: on the set of her last music video, purple staining her under-eyes while Anderson kissed her sallow cheek, him gripping onto her thinning waist at an award show on the red carpet, playing with her inky hair while they waited for their Starbucks order.

He knew what it looked like. He knew that most men and women in Hollywood couldn’t be this close without having something romantic forced between them. He also knew that, other than a drunken New Year’s kiss a few years ago, it had never been that way for them. Rox had been his rock, their connection never wavering from what it had always been: love. In the purest sense of the word, it had been love.

And he missed her. His heart twinged at the loss, though he was still trying to convince himself that it wasn’t real. How could it be real?

You seem very close in these pictures. Accusation sharpened Ford’s words, his jaw squaring as his eyes locked on Anderson’s. Challenging him. Anderson was in no mood to be challenged.

Mr. Ford—

Special Agent, Ford corrected immediately.

Anderson pretended not to hear, instead bracing his elbows on the cold desk between them. He could be intimidating too, if he was pushed hard enough. I just lost my best friend. I’m grieving. Stop wasting my time and ask me the question you dragged me all the way here to ask me.

The corner of Ford’s lip twitched, whether in amusement or anger, Anderson didn’t know. All right, he nodded. What were you doing in Roxanne Wilde’s hotel room from the hours of seven to nine p.m. last night?

None of your damn business. Anderson gritted his teeth to keep from spitting out the words. He’d cooperate if it meant getting out of this stinking, stuffy interrogation room quicker. Nothing interesting. She asked me to come over, so I did. We hung out for a couple of hours, and then I called it a night. I had an early shoot this morning. Which had been cancelled the minute he’d turned on the news. He’d spent the hours since pacing and raking his hand through his hair while he called a million different people to confirm—until the FBI had shown up at his door to take him in for questioning.

Were there any drugs or alcohol involved?

No. I was trying to get her sober. His gaze fell to an inkstain on the white table and stayed there until his eyes stopped burning.

He had failed. He had failed her.

Doesn’t look that way from these pictures. It looks like the two of you partied plenty.

She took it too far. We stopped last year when I realised she had a problem.

Did you notice any drugs in the hotel room while you were there?

No, but she was a little… He considered his words, choked on them. God, he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want his last memory of her to be this. I think maybe she’d taken something, but she wouldn’t tell me.

She was acting unusual, then. It wasn’t a question.

Anderson nodded, his fingers curling into his palms. She kept talking in riddles. I didn’t really understand it. I calmed her down, put on a movie, and made her eat something. When I left, she’d already fallen asleep. I thought… His voice cracked, and he shook his head in self-loathing. I thought she’d be okay. She did it a lot, y’know? She was always up and down. I should have pushed harder, should have—

He was babbling. To stop himself, he sucked in a breath and blinked back his tears. It was easy enough to reassemble his usual facade, the one he wore for fans and the press and often time his own family and friends, too. He was Anderson Stone. He wouldn’t break in front of a smarmy FBI agent looking to pin his best friend’s death on him. He was smarter than that.

What do you mean, she was talking in riddles? What exactly was she saying?

I don’t know. She kept saying something about Hugo, her ex-boyfriend. That she couldn’t trust him. It had been incoherent. Anderson had asked over and over again what she’d meant and gotten no real answer. He remembered that now: the way her words trembled and slurred into hysterical laughter. The way he hadn’t been able to get a real sentence from her for almost an hour. The way her chest had heaved up and down as though she was having some sort of panic attack.

And her eyes. They’d haunted him then, and hadn’t stopped since. Grey and red rimmed, sunken and smudged with thick black eyeliner.

Hollow.

Ford’s thick brows knitted together, and he scratched the stubble around his jaw. Hugo Dean.

Anderson nodded. You know your stuff. It’s him you should be questioning. He got her into the drinking and drugs. He ruined her.

Ford sighed, straightening in his chair and sliding something else across the table. A black card sealed in a transparent ziplock bag. They’d confiscated it from him when he’d come in, along with everything else in his pockets. Want to tell me what this is?

I don’t know, he admitted. It was hers. I found it in my pocket after I left the hotel. She must have slipped it in last night.

What did she use it for?

He shook his head, at a loss. I don’t know, he repeated, rougher now. Hugo had one, too. What does this have to do with anything?

"So the word written on the front, Dawn, it means nothing to you?"

I thought maybe it was some sort of VIP club they went to. She never gave me a real answer when I asked.

Ford gathered the evidence and stood. Mr. Stone, where did you go after visiting Roxanne?

Impatience gnawed at Anderson. He glared at Ford again, slouching lower in his seat. Are you asking me for an alibi? It made no sense if it had been an overdose.

Unless it hadn’t been.

The thought made him shudder. Something was wrong. He was here as a murder suspect. Who had hurt her?

Answer the question, Ford demanded.

I went home.

Is there anybody to corroborate for you?

My apartment building has a 24-hour security watch.

Thank you. Ford inclined his head sharply and then made to leave.

Are we done?

Not yet. The agent’s boots squeaked against the shiny floor before stopping abruptly at the door. His hands curled around the door handle and he paused. He turned back to study Anderson a final time. Anderson held strong, a muscle in his jaw feathering with tension.

He waited for another accusation masked as a question, but it never came. Instead, Ford left the interrogation room without another word, leaving Anderson in a stifling, unwelcome silence.

It wasn’t him. Jade surveyed the celebrity through the one-way mirror, her hands crossed over her chest. It was a strange sight, seeing Hollywood’s favorite golden boy cooped up in their interrogation room. He didn’t belong there. He was too glossy, too perfect against the drab grey walls. He doesn’t know anything about them, does he?

It’s hard to tell with actors, Patrick replied gruffly. But it doesn’t seem that way, no.

I checked with his security team already. He was home all night, like he said.

Patrick’s features were hewn from stone. It was rare she got so much as a grin from him. She’d found that brooding masculinity attractive once. Now, she only found it frustrating.

The autopsy report came back, she continued. No water in her lungs. Someone put her in that bathtub after she died. We’re most likely looking at a homicide.

What about the drugs?

"They found an injection site on her right arm. It doesn’t match with the others. Seems like someone else drugged her. Probably one of them."

Patrick sighed in contemplation and placed the small black card on the table, still protected, still sealed. Anderson Stone had no idea what that card could get him into, but Roxanne Wilde had. She’d found out the hard way, by the looks of it. Her boyfriend, maybe. Hugo Dean.

Maybe. Looks like he got her into Dawn in the first place. Maybe she got in too deep, knew too much. Probably drove her mad.

It could have been an accident, Patrick countered, leaning against the glass. He made it sound like he was chastising her for thinking otherwise.

They don’t do accidents. You know that. Her gaze slid back to Anderson. He was hunched over himself, eyes burning a hole into the desk. A faint glimmer of sympathy knotted itself in her chest. He had lost somebody, and instead of mourning, he was here, being questioned about a murder Jade was certain he hadn’t commited. We’re never going get a chance like this again, you know.

Curiosity urged her toward the Dawn card—her golden ticket, if Patrick would allow it. The plastic bag crinkled beneath her fingers as she traced along the stiff edges. Anybody else might have mistaken it for a credit card, but it had no magnetic strip, no bankholder’s name, no pattern. Only their title, Dawn, and their emblem: a half-sun with its rays breaking in straight black lines, with a cratered half-moon beneath. Half light, half dark. Dawn and dusk. Jade had never seen the symbol in person before. Could she stop them with this? A plain black card that Anderson had been carrying unwittingly in his pocket, unaware of the weight it carried?

Her body thrummed with the need to find out.

You think it’s time? Patrick asked.

Her heart stuttered. It had been time for years. They’d just never known how. Anderson Stone might be our way in. Can we trust him? Jade aske, but she already did. She knew what grief looked like, and it dripped from his face, drowning the entire precinct. That alone gave him motive enough to cooperate, surely, or run the other way, but she had enough hope to ignore the seed of doubt.

Patrick hesitated, eyes narrowing on Anderson. The celebrity still hadn’t moved an inch from the desk. No. We can’t trust any of them, Dawn or not. But you’re right. He’s all we have. We might not get this chance again.

The thrumming in Jade’s chest turned to thundering. She was so close. They were so close.

All that she needed was the cooperation of one slightly arrogant, slightly clueless actor.

She would do anything in her power to get it.

It wasn’t Ford who walked into the interrogation room the second time around.

Definitely not Ford.

For starters, this agent was a woman, with wine-red hair tied into a neat knot and disarming green eyes that seemed to skim past his skin, his bones, his being, to a foreign body rooted deep within him. Even so, there was something soft in her features. The dimpled corners of her mouth sank into a small, reassuring smile as she sat and adjusted the pale blue collar of her shirt.

She put the black card on the desk, as though in offering.

Mr. Stone. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.

You’ll make it up to me, I’m sure. In his new, slightly warmer and much more attractive company, he let his usual charm take hold, but the teasing felt flat, empty, even to his own ears and he regretted it almost immediately. This was the person investigating his best friend’s death, and yet he still couldn’t rid himself of that veneer glossing over the surface of him always, until he didn’t know where it ended and the real him began. He wished he could claw it off.

If his quip impacted the woman, she didn’t show it. I’m Special Agent Jade Sawyer.

Well, Special Agent Jade Sawyer, I told your partner everything I know. If Ford sent you in to butter me up, you’re out of luck. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to see you try, though.

Your alibi checked out. She flashed him a thin, saccharine smile and rested her elbows on the table. Their hands were inches apart, and his own fingers twitched with the knowledge. You’re no longer a suspect.

No? Relief flooded him, but he turned that word over again and again in his head. Suspect. Rox had been murdered. Then what am I?

I assume you’ve worked out by now that Roxanne Wilde’s death was more than just an accidental overdose. Anderson fought to keep his breath steady when Jade spoke her name with so much ease, as though Rox didn’t matter. As though this was an everyday occurrence. He supposed for her it was.

Not for him. In a world of wealth, always surrounded by people, everything was constant: the good and the bad. Nothing could be taken from him, and if it was, he’d buy it again.

It hadn’t occurred to him until now just how wrong he’d been to think that way. How arrogant. It hadn’t occurred to him that somebody might have killed Rox on purpose, either. He’d assumed he was here because they were looking for her dealer, not her killer.

The shift must have shown on his face,