Code Name: Genesis (Jameson Force Security #1)(14)

Heat flashes in Kynan’s eyes, and there’s not an ounce of sensuality to it. It’s pure, blazing fury I’d been tormented that way. A wave of security sweeps over and wraps around me as I realize I finally have someone invested in my problem. I know, without a doubt, that hiring Kynan was the right decision no matter how much pain it dredged up.

“I’ve got a call into the lead detective on this,” he says with a hard edge to his tone. “I’m going to find out everything they have and haven’t done and then I’m going to fix your problem for you. Okay?”

“Thank you,” is the best reply I have, but I’m so immensely grateful I can almost see a light at the end of what’s been a very dark tunnel.

I take another sip before capping the water bottle. I start to unfold my legs, intent on going back to bed, but Kynan stops me cold me with his next words. “Why isn’t your mom managing you anymore?”

Kynan wasn’t overly fond of my mother’s domineering ways when we were together, but I know without a doubt he understood her zeal to make me famous and didn’t begrudge her love for me. Conversely, my mom was not Kynan’s fan at all. Apparently, she was right.

Still, I eventually realized through the continued course of our complicated mom/daughter/celebrity/manager relationship that my mom’s goals and mine weren’t at all in alignment. While I can never repay her for the opportunities she secured for me, I will never deny I became a much happier woman once I cut her loose as my manager and insisted we have only a mother/daughter relationship.

“It just became too contentious,” I answer after a bit of thought. How did I sum up all that complication, even if he was aware of some of it?

“She always wanted what was best for you,” he says neutrally.

“Not always,” I reply, unable to hide the slight tone of bitterness in my voice. But I’m also not about to lay every dirty detail before this man. He lost the right to know the personal details of my life when he cheated on me. “But it was the right decision to end that part of our relationship.”

“I can’t imagine she took that well.”

I should get up and go to my bedroom. End the conversation. End this need inside of me to have a personal connection with this man.

Instead, my mouth opens and I blab a bit. “She didn’t understand, and she was really hurt by what I did. She moved back to Cunningham Falls, and wouldn’t speak to me for a few years.”

Kynan makes a growling noise low in his throat, a clear indication he doesn’t like my mother’s actions. I didn’t like them either. It hurt me she couldn’t be happy just being my mom.

“But…” I continue, unable to hide the tremulous quaver in my words. “She started coming around. We’ve been able to repair most of the relationship over the years. It’s helped she got remarried and has someone else to focus her attention on.”

He stares for a long moment before he lifts his chin, giving a short motion toward my bedroom door. “You should try to get back to sleep. We’ve got to get up in just a few hours to head to the airport.”

“Where are we going?” I ask. He’d said we had a stop to make on the way to California.

“Fort Worth,” he replies.

“Texas?”

“The one and only.” He gestures again toward my bedroom. “Go get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”

I’m not in the least bit tired—even still a little afraid to go back to sleep, worried my nightmare will resume again. But I push off the couch and walk away from the first genuine conversation I’ve been able to have with Kynan since we’ve reunited. I hate to admit it… but it felt good talking to him.

Too damn good.





CHAPTER 7




Kynan


There’s only one federal super max prison in the United States, and it’s housed in Florence, Colorado. It holds the most violent offenders as well as those who pose a risk to national security. Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski, and Robert Hanssen are just a few of the celebrity inmates who have been housed there.

It’s the perfect place to keep a prisoner such as Bebe Grimshaw, except for the fact Bebe is a woman. As such, she was placed at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s a federal prison for females of all security levels, including those with mental and physical health needs, and it sits in the northeast corner of the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth.

Bebe has no special needs, but she is a high national security risk. For the last seven years she’s called FMC Carswell her home, she’s been in solitary confinement. That means for twenty-three hours a day, she’s in a single inmate cell. She’s allowed outside in the yard for one hour a day, and she’s not allowed access to the prison library due to the nature of her crimes. By all accounts, seven years of solitary would be enough to drive anyone mad, but the warden gave me her file and it seems to indicate she’s been a pretty stable and model prisoner.

Still, I don’t have the skills necessary to make that determination, which is why I arranged for Dr. Corinne Ellery to meet me at the prison today. She’s doing the psych evaluations I require for the people I’m bringing aboard Jameson Force Security. Currently, she’s flipping through Bebe’s file while we wait for the guards to bring her in to meet us.