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Little shit. “I’d say that for now, nothing that woman says can be believed. On the other hand, I believed everything she said here today.”
Cap slow-blinked. “You know that doesn’t make sense, right?”
“The fact is, she’s in trouble and she needs our help.” I shrugged, not bothering to acknowledge just how fucked up my logic was. It wasn’t even logic. It was a gut feeling to trust her, to help her out and be that safe harbor she needed, so I went with it. “At the end of the day, what is it that we do here, if not help people who are in trouble, especially this kind of trouble?”
“It should be easy enough to track her stalker down,” Kythe said after a moment. “This guy went all-in on the cyber-bullying angle. That means he’s left tracks all over the place.”
“I don’t like the fact that he left a note on her car,” Nix said after a moment, surprising me. Of all the team members, Theo Nixon was the most cautious. But his protective instincts were the best in the business. “And all those personal pics of her going about her daily life? That’s way too close for comfort.”
“I’m in,” Steele shrugged, then slid me a bland look. “Perfect teeth?”
Don’t rise to the bait. Don’t rise to the bait… “Fuck you.”
Oh well.
“It’s decided, then,” Cap said, closing his notebook with an air of finality. “Eden Steadfast is now a client of Private Security International, and our newest protectee.”
Chapter Four
House of Enlightened Greatness
Eden
I had to make an appointment to see my father.
HEG’s admin building wasn’t what anyone would expect in an office building. For starters, it was a converted barn that had once been the largest building on the sprawling, forty-acre North Shore property. The previous owners had been horse fanciers, and their horses had lived better than I had the first ten years of my life. It now held the offices that made HEG run, and the broadcasting studio—something that had begun in a rented rowhouse’s basement that smelled like moldy cheese—now took up almost half the building. When we had moved from that shabby rowhouse to the pristine, wooded countryside of the North Shore with the barn, the bridle path that wound its way through the woods like a brown ribbon, and the house on the lake, I’d thought we’d moved to heaven on earth.
It was amazing, really, what hell a person would put themselves through in order to hold on to their idea of heaven.
“Ms. Steadfast?” The young woman manning the reception desk outside my father’s office put a finger to the Bluetooth in her ear. “Tru Steadfast will see you now. Do you need me to show you the way?”
I pushed to my feet. “Unless it’s changed drastically over the past three years, I believe I know where I’m going.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said, looking wide-eyed. “I haven’t been here that long.”
“Aha.” I hadn’t been expecting an answer, so I went ahead and gave her my full attention. Barely out of high school, strawberry blonde hair, a smattering of freckles, big, dark puppy eyes so very eager to please everyone around her.
Her age alone was a dead giveaway.
“Let me guess. Former at-risk teen taken in by my father’s charity, New Hope?” It was the charity that kept the whole business afloat in a depthless sea of nonprofit cash, and every once in a while it did some good.
Those puppy eyes widened even more. Any second now she’d turn into an anime character. “Wow, that’s right! How did you know?”
“The New Hope shelters are usually where my father finds the people who ultimately staff HEG. He helps them in their greatest hour of need, and in return he trusts them to help him keep HEG alive. We have people who’ve worked here from the time it first opened its doors eighteen years ago.” I didn’t mention that my father’s receptionists were always young, pretty, not overly brilliant and in desperate need to be loved by a father-figure. Any kind of love would do.
My father understood that all too well.
The young woman—her nameplate read Becca Rohrbach—clasped her hands together under her chin and beamed at me. “You don’t know how much your father has helped me get my life together. He’s like… he’s like a miracle that keeps giving you everything you need, without ever asking for anything in return.”
“You must be very new here.” It came out before I could stop it, but it couldn’t be helped. The fact was, there were no miracles under the roof of HEG. People paid a price for whatever they got out of it, one way or another.
Confusion dimmed her smile. “I’m sorry?”
“Never mind. I’d better not keep the great man waiting.”
“Okay.” Becca offered a little wave. “It was nice to meet you, Eden.”
“Likewise. And Becca,” I added before I could stop myself. “Never forget thatyouare the power behind your life, okay? Not anyone else.”
