Code Name: Genesis Page 10

  It’s moot, though. Kynan follows Darren out of the room without regard to me.

  “I’m so very sorry, Joslyn.” My mom’s voice washes over me, and it’s quavering with emotion.

  I take in a breath and let it out slowly. Turning to face her, I lay it all out on the line, because whatever she has to say about this will determine the course of our future as a mother and daughter. “I am not going to ask ‘why’ because there’s no mystery there. What I want to know is at what point in our relationship did I start meaning so little to you as a person and only had value to you as a means to fame and fortune?”

  My mom jerks as if I’d struck her, and she shakes her head. “No, never. I never thought that. I did what I thought was best for you to push you forward to happiness. To me, the fame and fortune was your happiness. I’m not wrong about that, Joslyn. You wanted that, too, and I thought by removing the distraction I thought Kynan to be that you would appreciate it later.”

  She’s not wrong about some of that. I did want the fame and fortune, but I wanted Kynan as well. “I could have had both with him.”

  “I didn’t know that,” she replies sadly. “In fact, I doubted it. I was nineteen once. I know how at that age, you can get consumed by another person. You hardly knew Kynan and—”

  “I loved him,” I interrupt her angrily. “He loved me. It was real.”

  “Maybe,” she replies as she twists her hands. “But the chances of that being so weren’t very plausible to me. I was going with the probability what you two had was too new to really matter. I had even convinced myself since Kynan didn’t put up a big fight about it—that he just let you leave—that I’d done the right thing.”

  Damn it, I hate that her reasoning makes sense to me. Kynan just accepted it when I called it over. He obviously tried to push it when I broke it off, but he never followed up with me. Didn’t keep trying. He’d given up very easily, just the way I had when I saw the photo of him hugging who I now know to be Rachel.

  We both gave up, so did we even have anything real at all?

  Still, it’s not the point of my anger. “Mom… you didn’t go about it the right way. The right way would have been to tell me your concerns. It would have been to ask for my input and make me part of the decision-making process. Instead, you lied to me. You manipulated two people. I guess what I don’t understand is how you thought it was okay? Where in all of this did you actually lose your moral compass and are you still without it? Because if so, how can we ever have a real relationship?”

  The expression on my mom’s face morphs from one of angst and guilt to one of incredible pain. Her gaze lowers to the floor, and her voice trembles. “I’m not sure I deserve to have one with you. What I did was terrible.”

  She sounds broken and as if she’s given up. It’s then I realize while I might be terribly angry, I don’t want to lose her either. I want her to fight to have something with me.

  I stride across the room, then take my mom’s hands in mine. Her head snaps up in surprise.

  “Come here,” I say as I lead her over to a burgundy overstuffed leather couch. I sit on the edge because sitting fully on the cushion would cause me to sink in, which means my legs wouldn’t reach the floor. Mom follows and also mimics my pose, turning her knees into mine. I don’t let go of her hands.

  “I want to make this right with you, Joslyn.” Her eyes are locked onto mine, her expression earnest. “Just tell me how, and I’ll do it.”

  A sound of dismay bubbles up in my throat, and I give a mirthless laugh as I shake my head. “I have no clue what to have you do.”

  “Let me apologize again,” she says, giving my hands a hard squeeze. “And I know I can tell you one thing… I’m not the same woman I was then. And the woman I was then—the one who set Kynan up to take a fall—wasn’t the same woman you knew as your mom growing up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is when your father died, you were all I had left. You weren’t a child of my blood, but you were the child of my heart. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, and I promised your dad on his death bed I’d always look out for you. He wanted you to be a star. I wanted that, too, for him to look down from heaven and see you get all the success you deserved.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, and I rub them away. “But by controlling my career, you forgot there were other things that could make me happy.”

  She nods, the sad frown on her face a testament she realizes how badly she fucked up. “I didn’t consider anything outside of your career. I became so focused on it, and Joslyn… I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit I liked the limelight, too. It was so easy to get swept up in it all as your manager. It gave me purpose and acknowledgment, two things I was sorely lacking after your father died. If there’s one thing I’m most ashamed of, it’s that some of my behavior was for my personal happiness, too. And that’s why I would totally understand if you didn’t forgive me. It’s really inexcusable what I did.”

  We both stare at each other through watery eyes. I can’t detect a single note of duplicity in her voice. She didn’t try to excuse her actions but owned up to full responsibility. Sure… I doubt if I hadn’t shown up on her doorstep, she would have brought this up herself, but really… who would? It’s so easy to just steep in guilt and let it lie under the blanket of denial than to own up to your mistakes. It’s human nature.

  Leaning in, I move my hands to her shoulders and give her the truest words I ever said. “I forgive you.”

  “Really?” she asks on a half-sob, her hands going to my wrists. “Because I’d understand it if you didn’t, but it would mean the world if you did.”

  “Really,” I answer. “I understand why you did it, and you’ve accepted responsibility. I really believe you’re remorseful. How could I ever disrespect such genuineness?”

  “I love you, Joslyn,” she practically moans, then falls into me where we hug long and hard.

  “I love you, too.”

  We stay that way for a moment, but then she gives a little jolt. Pulling back, she regards me with her head tilted to the side. “But what brought you and Kynan back together?”

  She puts enough emphasis on the word “together,” I can see she’s totally misread the nature of our current relationship.

  I also know, as my mother, she’s not going to like the reason why we reconnected.

  “I needed some protection services,” I begin, but she knows too much about my career. She managed it for many years.

  “Plenty of good companies are in Los Angeles for you to hire,” she says. “Why Kynan?”

  “I needed the best,” I reply softly. “And I needed someone I could trust.”

  “How could you trust him when you thought he’d cheated on you?”

  It’s a fair question, and one I actually asked myself when I made the decision to reach out to him. It was part gut instinct but also part of it was our history. We’d spent a lot of time talking about his career in the Royal Marines and why he came to work for Jerico Jameson. It was his passion to protect others, and I knew how much it meant to him.

  “My life was—is—in serious danger,” I start, ignoring her gasp of shock and the way her hand covers her mouth. “I knew Kynan very well, Mom. I know you think our connection was tenuous, but you forget how much time we spent together while he was assigned to be my guard. More time than most people spend together. We talked a lot. I knew he was the man for the job.”

  “What is going on, Jos?” she whispers fearfully.

  “I’ve got a stalker, and he managed to break into my house earlier this week. He attacked me—”

  “Darren,” my mom yells as she bolts up from the couch. And then she yells louder, almost to the point of a screech. “Darren… get in here.”

  I hear the study door open so hard it slams against the doorstop, and Darren comes stampeding into the living room with fear and fury on his face. It’s totally fueled by the panic in my mom’s cries, but I still jump
up from the couch, wanting to put myself on equal footing.

  Kynan is right behind Darren. Without having the benefit of knowing my mom and I worked out our issues regarding her deceit, he stands poised to take Darren down if need be until he can figure out what’s going on.

  My mom points a shaky finger. “She’s in danger. Someone attacked her.”

  Shoulders sagging in relief that something isn’t physically wrong with my mom, Darren nods. “Kynan was just starting to fill me in. But are you and your girl good?”

  Mom nods and steps into me, an arm going around my waist. I thought it might be a little too much given how fresh off the anger I’ve just come, but I guess talking about my stalker has made me feel vulnerable, so it actually feels good.

  “I think we’re good,” my mom says hesitantly.

  I confirm it, so we can move on. “Yeah… we’re good.”

  Not great, but I think we’re in a better place than we were before I showed up on her doorstep. We had never gotten back quite right after I released her as my manager. There was a void there, but I feel like that’s all been bridged now with our very painful but honest talk.

  “I’d like to know what the hell is going on with my daughter, though,” my mom says with her eyes lasered onto Kynan.

  “Here’s the deal,” Kynan says calmly, and we all swivel his way.

  He then proceeds to tell my mom and stepfather all about my stalker and what he’s done so far, which causes my mom to cry. Darren moves to her, then pulls her down onto the couch where she can sink into his embrace. I move over to one of the overstuffed chairs, also in burgundy leather, as Kynan proceeds to tell them about our game plan to draw this man out.

  “I don’t like this,” my mom proclaims. “You can’t use Joslyn as bait.”

  “I won’t let anything happen to her,” Kynan replies. The deep rumble of commitment in his voice is reassuring to me. I can tell by the look on my mom’s face that it does nothing to ease her.

  “Mom,” I say, and her gaze drifts to me. “If we don’t do this, then it’s just a wait-and-see game to him. It could be weeks. Months. I can’t go on that long looking around every corner waiting for him to spring out at me.”

  My mom seems to consider this, and she gives her attention to Darren. He nods back as if this makes good sense.

  “I need this done now,” I tell my mom, glancing over at Kynan who is leaning up against one of the walls. “I want this done so I can get my life back. Besides, I can’t keep Kynan around forever.”

  Kynan flinches slightly, but I pay it no mind. I’m sure he’d rather get back to his life as well.

  “Well, we can talk about this some more over dinner—”

  I cut my mom off by standing up. “We really can’t stay, Mom. We didn’t even pack an overnight bag and we took a private jet, which is on standby for us to return tonight. On top of that, we’re scheduled to do our relationship ‘reveal’ on the Cara Peterson show the day after tomorrow. We really have a lot to do to get ready for that.”

  “Joslyn, please,” my mom pleads. She’s fearful for me, and she’s trying to hold tight now to alleviate those worries.

  “We really can’t,” I state sorrowfully, really wishing I could stay for one of her home-cooked meals. Like the kind she used to make when I was younger—before she started worrying about whether it all went to my hips.

  My mom sighs long and heavy. It hits the mark, and I feel guilty.

  That interaction is what makes me think we’ll be okay.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kynan

  “You’re up early,” I comment to Rachel as I walk into Joslyn’s kitchen. She’s sitting at the center island, cup of coffee in front of her. Bebe is to her left, tapping away on her computer as they both study the screen.

  “Went for a run,” Rachel replies. “But come over here and take a look… Bebe’s just uploaded the video I got from that flower shop yesterday.”

  While Joslyn and I had flown to Cunningham Falls so she could hash it out with her mom, Rachel had gone to the shop where we believe the stalker purchased the sunflowers. They indeed had security video, but the owner wasn’t in and was the only one who could authorize the information to be released to Rachel. She had to wait around until late afternoon, and then the owner proved to be quite the bugger. He couldn’t be convinced to turn the footage over out of the goodness of his heart to help catch a sick fuck who tried to murder someone. He did, however, respond to the color green. Eventually, Rachel negotiated a payment of two thousand dollars in return for a flash drive with the security footage.

  I grab a cup, pour some coffee, and walk around the island to come up behind Bebe and Rachel.

  “Here we go,” Bebe says, then the footage of the inside of the flower shop starts to roll. The camera is set up in a corner, behind the register and facing outward to the interior of the shop through to the glass entrance door. The imagery is grayscale, and the quality just a tad better than overly grainy.

  “Go to 11:47 on the video,” Rachel tells Bebe, who then uses the scroll bar to advance the footage forward.

  “There,” Rachel exclaims, and Bebe slows the footage to regular speed.

  At first, all I see is a female customer perusing a shelf of knickknacks. The flower shop is what I’d expect. A big cooler of premade arrangements on one wall. Shelves with overpriced trinkets.

  “There he is,” Rachel murmurs as the glass door opens. A blond man of medium height and build walks in. Everything about him is nondescript except for the fact he’s wearing his sunglasses inside. He doesn’t bother to remove them or push them onto his head. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt despite the warmth of the day, and that tells me he might have an identifying mark he’s trying to conceal. Maybe a birth mark or tattoo.

  He strides up to the counter to talk to the shop employee there. They have an incredibly brief conversation before she steps out of camera range, presumably to a back room. We watch in silence as the time stamp ticks away. About fifteen minutes later, the woman comes back with the exact style of flower arrangement—sunflowers—that was found at the edge of Joslyn’s property.

  “That’s him for sure,” Rachel says.

  “Indeed,” I mutter, then nod to the screen. “Play it again.”

  Bebe rewinds it, and the three of us watch again. I notice a few things. The man is smart enough to keep his face angled away from the camera. The oversized aviators he’s wearing hide a nice chunk of his face, but his refusal to face the camera head-on tells me he’s aware of the camera’s position and knows the power of the more advanced facial recognition software out there. What he doesn’t know is I don’t have the exact product yet, but I’m getting an advanced version that’s being created right now by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Until then, I’ll have to send this video off for scanning, but I doubt we’d get anything useful because the guy is being overly cautious.

  While he waits for the arrangement to be made, he pulls out a phone and surfs on it, turning fully away from the camera. He pays for the arrangement in cash and then leaves.

  “Once again,” I tell Bebe, but in truth, I’ll probably watch this video a good dozen times before I’m satisfied I’ve gleaned all the necessary information from it.

  It starts once more, and Rachel moves from her stool to the coffee pot for a refill. I lean inward to get a better look.

  “Is that him?” Joslyn’s voice hits me from behind, and it sounds a little gruff as if she’d just woken up. Sure enough, when I twist, she’s there in a silk robe that hits just above her knees with her hair a wild mess. She looks utterly fuckable.

  Stepping back slightly, I motion her forward to have a closer look. She does, wrapping her arms protectively around her stomach as she watches the video. When it gets to the part where the employee leaves to make the arrangement and he turns away from the camera even more to surf on his phone, I ask Joslyn, “Do you recognize him?”

  Her eyes don’t leave the screen, but she
gives a slight shake of her head. Her voice is soft and tentative. “He was wearing a ski mask.”

  I already knew that. Besides, it wasn’t really what I was seeking. I was wondering if there was an overall recognition she felt upon seeing him, especially if she’d seen him somewhere else and hadn’t known who it was. But I don’t push her on it.

  “I never understood that,” she murmurs, her eyes still riveted on Bebe’s computer screen.

  “What’s that?” Bebe asks.

  “Why he’d wear a mask to kill me.” My skin turns cold from her words. “I mean… not like I could identify him, right?”

  “He was worried about you having security cameras in your house,” I answer, resisting the urge to put a protective arm around her. I want to pull her into my side so she knows I will handle every single vulnerability she’s feeling right now and make it all go away.

  She nods, a slight acknowledgment she hears me as she continues watching the video. We’re all silent, Rachel staying on the other side of the counter as she sips her coffee. The video ends, and I don’t ask Bebe to replay it as I don’t want Joslyn to look at him anymore.

  “Onions,” she says as her eyes stay glued to the laptop.

  “Onions?” I ask.

  She turns to me, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “His breath smelled like onions. And burnt coffee. And I think in ordinary circumstances, it would have made me sick, but I was so scared I didn’t even have time to be sick.”

  Bloody hell, but that slays me. Knowing she thought her life was going to end. I’d been in that scenario before, and it’s a fear that’s almost indescribable.

  “I was raped,” Bebe says quietly, and my lungs practically deflate at the sudden proclamation. I don’t recall anything in her file about that, so I have to assume it went unreported.

  All heads turn to her way, except Joslyn steps in closer and puts a light hand on Bebe’s shoulder in sympathy. Jos’s face is pained, but Bebe’s eyes are clear and her voice is strong as she gives a reassuring smile. “My attacker’s eyes were bloodshot. I don’t know if maybe he was lacking in sleep or maybe he was on drugs, but for the longest time, I would have nightmares about those bloodshot eyes. Except in my dreams, they weren’t naturally red. More like supernaturally red. My point in telling you that is I can promise—over a period of time—those memories will lessen significantly as you process and deal. I can’t say you’ll ever let it go, but it will get easier.”