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“Please, make it Eden.” Since we had so much in common, I tried a long-suffering smile with her. “Us helicopter daughters of the world have to stick together.”
That had Mary Jane glancing up with a grin. “Absolutely, and feel free to call me Mary Jane.”
“I’ve always loved the complexity of that particular name—blessed, but bitter, and all things in between.” Eden wrinkled her nose. “Mine’s just a boring garden.”
“I would hardly call Eden boring.” With an aura of unshakable calm I could only admire, Cap Fogelmann gestured toward a hall leading into the depths of the building. “Now, if you’d like to come this way—”
The front door suddenly burst open and a man strode into the lobby, his shock of frost-tipped hair cut short on the sides and gelled into coiffed perfection an all too familiar sight.
What in the world…?
“Sorry I’m late.” My father’s right-hand man and the one person I could have pointed to as a best friend walked right up to where I stood and caught me up in a bearhug. “Traffic was murder, hon, but I got here as fast as I could. Have I missed anything?”
“Kels?” For crying out loud. I was good at putting on a front as the next person, but if no one kept me in the loop, there was nothing I could do about showing the world how flummoxed I was. “What are you doing here? My father didn’t say anything about sending you.” He hadn’t said anything at all, but that was beside the point.
Kels rolled his eyes as he let me go. “It was a last-minute thing that came up that needed his attention, so he packed everything into an envelope and shoved me out the door. Kelsey Crosby, Kels to my friends,” he added, offering a hand to Cap. “Attorney for the aforementioned Truman Steadfast and the House of Enlightened Greatness, as well as childhood friend of Eden Steadfast. We were raised like siblings, so it’s understandable Tru would send me in his stead for this all-important meeting. So.” Looking from Cap to me and back again, Kels offered a toothsome smile. “Shall we begin?”
Okie dokie, then.
A handful of minutes later we walked into a conference room with mellow cream walls and one burnt umber accent wall that had a wall-mounted flatscreen TV and an electronic console that looked like it had been boosted off the space shuttle. Professional decorator accents were all over the place, in the bronze overhead pendant lighting, the lush potted plants in the corners and the twelve umber-colored leather swivel chairs around a gleaming conference table. The color of rich brown carpeting beneath our feet was echoed in the drapes pulled back to show a view of the street below, and the interior walls of glass looking out at the hall from which we’d just come also had drapes that could be pulled for absolute privacy.
Like everywhere else I’d been in this building, discreet cameras in the upper corners of the room blinked silently, reminding me that every move was being watched. Pretending to tuck my hair back behind my ear, I used the movement to glance at Kels. He’d spotted the cameras too, and wore a placid expression.
Of course.
He’d been trained by my father.
Just like me.
“If you decide to go with PSI’s security detail—and if we decide to take your case—you and your father will each be assigned a bodyguard detail. But first and foremost, our job here today is to get to know everything about you—who you are, and why you’re here.” Cap gestured to the padded leather chairs. “Have a seat. Can we get you anything before we begin?”
“Coffee with lots of cream, please.” Kels offered up a grateful smile while I shook my head and slid into a chair just one over from where Cap sat at the head of the table. Kels sat beside me, placed a soft-sided case on the table and pulled a file out of it. “While we’re waiting for that, I’d be grateful if you’d review this standard NDA that protects the interests of both Truman and his daughter, along with the Steadfast Corporation, which includes the House of Enlightened Greatness, his main charity New Hope Teen Shelters, and all business holdings pertaining to said entity.”
As Kels handed the file over and an assistant brought in his requested coffee, I turned to stare at him to see if I could actually kill someone with the force of my gaze. Nope. “This is just an initial meeting, Kels.”
“All the more reason to make certain that whatever is revealed here, stays here. I’m sure NDAs are par for the course for a private security company, since keeping secrets goes hand in hand with maintaining proper security for people who live life in the spotlight. Isn’t that right?” Kels added, looking to Cap with raised brows.
Cap tilted his head in faint acknowledgment while perusing the file’s contents. “More often than not, PSI works with people who have nondisclosure agreements at the ready—like you, Mr. Crosby. However, I have a certain soft spot for those who walk through our doors who don’t question our discretion, like your client’s daughter.” With that, he set the file aside. “I’ll have our legal department look this over and have it back to you by the end of the workday. Pending that, would you like to postpone this initial meeting?”
“Yes,” Kels said.
“No,” I said at the same time.
Kels tried to swivel my chair toward him. “Eden, I think—”
“If you were actually thinking, Kels, you’d leave my chair exactly where I want it to be.” I gave him what he wanted for just a moment and faced him. In that heartbeat of time Kels looked into my eyes and accurately read all about the murder I wanted to commit, and hastily backed away. Then I concentrated on pulling a file of my own out of my bag, and by the time I faced Cap once more I had my serene face firmly in place. “Where would you like me to begin?”
Cap lifted a shoulder. “At the beginning.”
“Of course.” I wanted desperately to grip my hands together as the tension inside me twisted my stomach into knots, but that would never do. Giving away my true feelings had been knocked out of me by the time I’d hit double digits in age. My hands remained loose and still on the chair’s armrests. “The first incident I experienced was over two months ago, in a Grover’s Food Market parking lot. A note was left on my windshield, threatening both me and my father. I’m the only one who’s touched that note, so it’s in that file in a protective plastic bag in the same condition as when I found it. Also, there’s a USB drive in there showing video of all the cars in the parking lot at the time I discovered the note. Then—”
“Who took the video?”
“I did. Then about a week later, a dead cat was left on the hood of my car, a cat that looked virtually identical to a cat I’d been photographed with when I was a child. The image of that cat can still be found all over the internet, as my father once used a New Year’s photo of us—with me holding that cat—as part of a promotional campaign to show how family-oriented HEG is. Again, I took video of all the cars and people around me the moment I found the dead animal.”
Cap went through the file and paused on the picture of the dead animal that clearly had been shot. “HEG?”
“House of Enlightened Greatness,” Kels supplied. “It’s not a church, but rather a nondenominational gathering place for people seeking enlightenment.”
