Scott's voicemail in the RTPD group chat pinged just as Brendon was sweeping his coffee cup into the sink. He listened once, twice — short and clipped.
> "Prelim paint analysis on the knife. It's not matching any profile in the regional offenders database. Unknown. We can say with confidence the paint's organic binder traces point to a commercial theatrical lacquer — but there's also a soil inclusion with pollen that matches Ashwood Pines. There's a hair fragment in the lacquer: male, brown. Send it to DNA, but prelim says male, brown. That's it for now. Scott out."
Brendon swore under his breath and threw his cup across the sink. It hit the counter, careened, and splashed cold coffee onto a stack of files. He didn't notice. The small victory and defeat in one sentence — unknown person yet a hair, a nail that can be pried.
Judith arrived at the station before midday, brisk as a winter wind, phone tucked against her ear. She slid the interrogation paperwork across to the receptionist and met Brendon's eyes; the look they shared was sharpened by weeks of night work and sawdust breath.
"Jessica Rosa Marigold will be here in forty minutes," she said. "Security has been prepped. Jason's ready. Tyson wants the questions tight. He wants answers without slop."
"Good," Brendon said, his voice flat. "We don't need to be slop."
They made the room clean and clinical: water pitchers, two spare chairs, no personal items, no distractions. The one-way glass hid the rest of the team—Sofie at her laptop, Scott with a tablet open to forensics logs, Robert pacing like he'd forgotten how to be still. The station hummed the way it always did when something large moved from rumor to confrontation.
Jason was the first to enter the room. The kid looked slightly squeamish in a suit too sharp for ridgecliff's beige aesthetic. He ran a hand through his fur, took a breath. "Good cop," he murmured, half to himself. "You go mean."
"Bad cop's boomerang is rusty," Brendon said, sliding into the opposite seat. He set his mug down, took off his jacket, and let the sleeves fall back to show the tiniest hint of wrist scars — small confessions in a plain room.
The door opened. Jessica walked in like she was on camera even if she wasn't. Every move was considered. Her hair was that artful fire, leather jacket unzipped enough to show gold on her throat. Behind her shadowed silhouette was a paralegal with a neat stack of papers and a lawyer in a suit that cost two months' rent for most of Ridgecliff.
She sat with a smile that did not reach her eyes. "Detectives," she said. "I'm here. Let's be efficient — I have two shows to prep."
Jason started soft. "Thank you for coming in, Ms. Marigold. We appreciate you making time for us. We're not here to make headlines — at least not today. We just need to clarify your relationship with Whitney. Our goal is to ensure anyone at risk gets help. Cooperation helps everyone."
Jessica's smile widened like someone airing a brand. "Of course. I'm cooperative. Whitney and I had issues, as you saw online. We did bits. I didn't want this."
Brendon watched her, the way she tucked a stray curl with the precise hand of someone who'd learned to control optics. "Let's go through that, then," he said. He put the photograph of the mask and a printed timeline across the table, slow and deliberate. "Whitney's videos used that mask, correct? You both were embroiled in a staged feud last month. Is that accurate?"
Jessica's eyes flicked to the image. A muscle twitched in her jaw. "We did things for engagement. People in our world stage spats. It's how the content economy breathes."
Jason leaned forward and smiled like a man who believed in better outcomes. "When you say 'stage,' you mean mutual stunts for views? Tweets, subtweets, coordinated posts? Both parties aware and consenting?"
Jessica laughed, small and brittle. "Both. Sometimes I'd prime the pot; she'd drown in it and resurface with a new meme. We knew how to turn friction into revenue."
"That's important." Jason's tone stayed soft. "Staged controversy gives you motive for views, yes, but not necessarily murder. Who benefits from the feud becoming lethal? Who profited when Whitney went silent?"
Jessica's hands steepled. "Listen — when we do a stunt, we control the narrative. We decide the outcome, officers. If Whitney went missing, I lost a collaborator and a source of traffic. I lost money. I lost calls with advertisers. It hurts me too."
Brendon palpated the air with his eyes. "You had a crew who worked with both of you. Studio access. Props. Payments tied to Eris Noir, right? Are you willing to give us the list of crew members who had access to your shoots in Ridgecliff over the last three months?"
Her lawyer cut in, smooth as aged whisky. "Detectives, my client's cooperation is voluntary. We will comply within the bounds of legal procedure. Subpoenas, warrants — those are the proper channels."
Brendon's stare turned into glare slid to the lawyer. "We will issue them. But let us be clear: we're seeing transfers from Marigold Media to Eris Noir. We're seeing phone pings. We're seeing camera logs matched against Eris Noir bookings. If you people were professional partners and you aren't connected to the upload, we hope you'll help us point to whoever is."
Jessica's posture softened fractionally. "You want names. You'll get them. But don't make me the villain in a script I didn't write. Whitney — she was complicated. So am I. We were both performers. We were both consumers of attention."
Jason offered a small empathy-led hand. "Then you get it. Whoever did this transformed performance into destruction. That's dangerous. We need to know if anyone — a manager, a tech, a contractor — has been pushing beyond the boundary."
She blinked slow. "Ansel Mira handled bookings lately. He was the one who took the Eris Noir meetings. Camera techs rotate — I can produce invoices. But if this is a leak connected to uploads, I had no hand in it. I would have noticed."
Brendon's voice dropped. "We're asking you to produce contact logs for the last two months. Call logs, messages, invoices — everything. Hidden accounts included."
She nodded, and that was the real head-turn: not a refusal, but a procedural "yes" that implied no more can-shrugging. She handed over a glossy business-card copy to her lawyer, who promised to have the documents delivered through counsel by day's end.
Jason pushed a little gentler again. "Ms. Marigold, we're offering protective details. Chief Tyson agrees we should not make targets of people who may be innocent. If you cooperate and we get no evidence tying you to the crime itself, we'll put an unmarked unit on you while the case is active."
Her expression changed: suspicion pulled into something like relief. "Protection?" she repeated. "From who? From fans? From threats?"
"From the one behind the murder," Jason said. "We can't assume fir now. The point is safety. If you're not the killer and someone wants to escalate, we don't want you to be easy to find."
The lawyer shifted, caution's reflex. "We will hear terms and then will consider it."
Brendon stood and walked to the glass, watching his team in the observation room. Sofie's thumbs were already firing across a keyboard; Scott's face showed the faint aftertaste of lab work; Judith typed furiously into her phone, mapping alleged contact lists. Brendon turned back.
"If you're as innocent as you claim," he said bluntly, "then give us everything. Don't give us theatre. Give us truth and access. Make it easy for the law to act."
She inhaled, then set a small, deliberate hand on the table. "I'll give you what I can. I want the same thing you do. Closure... answers."
Brendon's voice was softer than before. "If you're lying, you'll know because truth moves in edges – money, message timestamps, server logs. Digital fingerprints never disappear. If you're honest, you will have to live with the fact that people you worked with might be suspects."
She swallowed. "I'll do it."
They wrapped the interview mostly procedural. Jason did the follow-through and the polite exit; Brendon did the old cop part — flat, watchful, the kind of presence that made people decide to confide. They walked Jessica out under a bright sunlight. Brendon watched her fade into an SUV glossed with anonymity.