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Attracted, maybe.
But not charmed.
How could I be charmed when every instinct I had screamed that an enemy had just entered the room?
“Well.” Clearly flustered that I hadn’t gotten up in a huff, Kels looked like he didn’t know whether to retake his seat or drag me out of my chair. “Eden, let’s go. We don’t approve of being treated like common criminals.”
To my shock, the man seated across from me burst out laughing, all the while never looking away from me.
“Damn, that’s hilarious,” he announced to no one in particular, while his eyes bored into mine.
Blink, you fucker. Blink, for God’s sake…
Life was strange. One minute my family’s being harassed by a stalker, the next I’m in a staring contest with the world’s most dangerous man. Any second now I expected a meteor to come barreling in and wipe us all off the map. It wouldn’t even surprise me.
“I beg your pardon?” Kels sputtered, sounding like he was about to blow a gasket.
The blue-eyed monster seated across from me ignored him. “Who are you?”
Without warning, my throat locked up.
“This is my client, Eden Steadfast, the daughter of Truman Steadfast, quite possibly the greatest motivational speaker who ever lived,” Kels all but shouted. Clearly he didn’t appreciate being ignored, if his volume stuck on high was any indication. “And I will ask you again, what’s hilarious?”
“You’re hilarious, telling this woman what to think. Or feel. Or do. Or say.” Slowly the man named Luke shook his head. “Nah, that’s never going to fly with this lady.”
“Interesting.” Braiding his fingers together, Cap leaned back in his chair. “Luke Keyes, Eden Steadfast and her family’s attorney, Kelsey Crosby. Why do you say that would never fly with this lady, Luke?”
“I’m not getting a lot off of her yet, but this much I do know—she doesn’t scare easily, if at all.”
How amazing it was, that they were so comfortable talking about me like I wasn’t even there. If I could get my damn throat open, I’d tell them both to go to hell.
“I mean, think about it, Cap,” the blue-eyed devil went on. “Someone gets harassed, they don’t usually respond by filming all the nearby cars and people around them so they can get their hands on them later if they need to. Nor do they think to put the harassing note in a baggie, at least not right away. Normal people freak the hell out, then get scared, then call the police. That’s just the natural order of things.”
“That may be the natural order of things for normal people, as you say, but the police have never been overly helpful in situations like this.” At last Kels retook his seat, and I had to admire the tone he’d chosen to hit—vaguely condescending to cover up the defensiveness he had to be feeling. The way he kept glancing at Luke Keyes told me he was about as thrilled with having PSI’s expert profiler there as I was. “This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve dealt with overzealous fans in the past, and contacting the authorities isn’t worth the publicity. All it usually does is create an outbreak of copycat stalkers, and before you know it a small flame suddenly becomes a raging forest fire.”
“That’s why I came to Private Security International, rather than the police.” At last my throat loosened enough for me to speak, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for sounding calm, if stressed. Considering the situation stress was a given, so I leaned into it and hoped I’d score some sympathy points. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to shake off this stalker by myself—you know, trying to show a brave front to make them think I wasn’t scared. Refusing to give a bully what they want, which is usually fear or distress, seemed like the fastest way to get rid of them.”
“I take it that didn’t work?” Cap asked, not sounding surprised.
I shook my head, wondering if I should throw in a dainty, woe-is-me sniffle. Probably not. “No, but I didn’t feel that the situation was escalating. As I said, I really haven’t been bothered since the slashed tires incident almost a month ago, and I thought I was coping pretty well. But then I caught my father’s latest podcast two nights ago. That’s when I realized I wasn’t the only one having problems.” With that, I took my phone out of my bag, hit the right app, and set the phone down with the volume up.
“…and sad to say, sometimes you can measure the success you’ve garnered for yourself by the amount of strife the outside world throws at you.” My father’s voice, folksy with echoes of his Kentucky boyhood, filled the room. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, y’all. For weeks now, I’ve been plagued by all manner of slings and arrows—harassing calls in the middle of the night, packages addressed to me filled with unspeakable foulness, even a brick thrown through the window of our New Hope Teen Shelter in downtown Chicago just last night. Where’s it all coming from? I’ll tell you where. Small-minded people whose jealousy and resentment have stunted their inner growth, and honestly, I pity them. Their pettiness keeps them chained to an existence that has no meaning. They have yet to realize all the energy they’re expending on me should be used on fixing what’s wrong withthem. How I wish I could sit down with them, share with them a space that’s peaceful and welcoming. Then I’d look them in the eye, tell them they’re forgiven, they’re loved, and they’ll always be safe with me as they work on confronting their innermost truths. Then I’d invite them to dig down into their heart to work on those truths, and I wouldn’t leave their side until they unravel what’s holding them back from their greatness. We all have that greatness inside of us, you know. I have it, and I’m not ashamed to tell y’all about it. I knowyouhave it, because you’re smart enough to be listening to me now. Don’t be ashamed to admit you’re brilliant. In fact, say it with me. You. Are. Brilliant. You know it. Let’s focus now on that breathtaking greatness of yours, and manifest it into the kind of success you damn well know you deser—”
I reached over and hit pause, then forced my gaze back to the blue-eyed monster across from me. “A minute later I texted my father, wanting details. The harassment he’s been experiencing has been going on for weeks. That’s when I decided to call PSI, and here we are.”
“So you don’t live with your father?” Luke asked.
“What an odd question.” I tilted my head, trying to see him from another perspective. Nope. Still terrifying. “By any chance were you raised by a domineering, older male chauvinist? Or perhaps you belong to some orthodox religious order where all the females of the family have to stay at home until they marry?”
His smile was sharp enough to cut. “We ask the questions, Ms. Steadfast, not the other way around.”
I changed my face, aiming for bewildered. “Okay. Sorry. Far be it from me to question the male authority who thinks that I should still live with my father at the age of twenty-eight.”
“The man I just heard on that pod is all about control—controlling people by pushing their buttons without them ever even realizing he’s playing them. He works to get them hooked on all those feel-good dopamine hits by telling them how great they are. A man like that doesn’t like to lose control of the people in his sphere, especially those who are closest to him. Like a daughter, for instance.”
Holy crap, he got all that from just a few measly sentences off a podcast? “If Truman Steadfast were such a control freak, he would have been the one to contact PSI for help, not me.”
He shook his head, and still he didn’t frigging blink. “Nope. Generally speaking, control freaks never admit they need help, so it’s no wonder that you—not your father—were the one to send up a flare. Then again, you sent that flare up because you believedheneeded help. Not you.”
