All Due Respect

by Vicki Hinze

  Matthew walked over, stood directly in front of Seth, blocking his view and forcing him to look into Matthew’s eyes. “Seth, it’s not Julia or Jeff,” Matthew said firmly. “It’s not Julia or Jeff.”

  Seth heard him, but he was afraid to believe him. Wanting something—needing anything—so badly terrified him.

  “Seth.” Matthew clasped his shoulder, forced him to focus his eyes. “It’s Camden. Hyde must have killed him. No thirty-eight does that kind of damage.”

  Camden? It was Camden. “Where’s—” His throat thick, he cleared it, and then tried again. “Where’s Julia and Jeff?”

  “We haven’t found them yet,” Matthew said softly. “Julia is here, somewhere. She has to be. She didn’t leave with Hyde.”

  “Maybe she did. Maybe they both did.” Just speaking the thought had Seth feeling as if an elephant had stepped on his chest. “Maybe the reason the heat sensor didn’t register them was because—”

  “No,” Matthew insisted. “Their bodies would still be warm. They weren’t in the car. Julia’s here . . . somewhere.”

  Barely able to breathe, he did his damnedest to bury his emotions. “What about Jeff?”

  “No idea.” Regret flooded Matthew’s eyes. “We’re on Grace PD, but it appears the last sighting was Camden leaving home with Jeff. The bastard pulled some smooth moves, and Grace PD lost him. They’re deducing Camden brought Jeff to Hyde.”

  Seth walked up to the body. Camden lay back against the cabin wall, looking as if he had stopped to rest and maybe to do a little stargazing, except for the red staining his shirt and the gaping wound in the center of his chest.

  Camden. It really was him. It wasn’t Julia or Jeff. And if the bastard wasn’t already dead, Seth would’ve had to kill him. He brought Jeff to Hyde?

  Breathing easier, now that he had seen for himself. Seth began searching, plowing through the cabin, then through the surrounding grounds, circling out from the cabin, that reported second shot haunting him. On the trail to the lake, loose dirt clung to his shoes. It felt softer, and he slowed down and hit the ground with his flashlight to see why. Tracks. Distinct shoe prints. One person. Dense, heavy. Karl carrying Julia?

  Seth followed the path doggedly, skirted a skinned palmetto. Some small animal ran in the undergrowth, scurrying through the darkness and staying out of sight. Seth moved on, following the tracks by the light of the moon and the flashlight.

  He saw the shovel first. Its bowl was clumped with dirt. Rushing over, he looked at the ground around it. No leaves. Freshly turned earth. Jesus, God, the maniac had buried her!

  Lifting his Glock, Seth fired twice into the night sky and then began digging. Frantically, he shoveled at the dirt, and soon others joined him.

  Finally, they unearthed the box. Staring at its lid, Seth felt his heart thunder a deafening tattoo.

  “Open it up.”

  He heard Colonel Kane, saw Paddy bend forward.

  “No.” Seth stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

  God, but he was terrified at what he would see. She had been buried at least two hours. They’d been searching for what seemed ten times that long. There was no way she could have survived.

  Julia, dead? Dead? The weight of losing her, of living in a world she was no longer in, crushed down on him. Seth blinked hard. Then blinked again, gripped, and lifted the lid.

  Julia sprang out of the box, gasping, clutching at Seth, ripping at the oxygen mask. The canister attached to it dangled and then fell back into the box with a clank.

  “Seth!” She clutched at him, wadding huge fistfuls of his camo gear in her hands. “Seth!”

  “It’s okay, honey.” Seth wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to him. His eyes burned, his nose and throat tingled. Julia was alive. Thank you, God. Thank you. “It’s okay now. Shh, you’re okay now.”

  “No. No!” She backed away, tears washing down her face. Her left arm lay limp, hitched at her side. “He’s buried Jeff!”

  Every nerve ending in Seth’s body sizzled an alert simultaneously. “Where?”

  “I don’t know.” Her knees gave out. “Oh, God, I don’t know.”

  Holding Julia upright, Seth looked at Kane. “You’d better get some more men up here.”

  Kane nodded. “Already on it.”

  Julia tromped around an oak, shoved at a small branch in her path. “Seth, it’s been six hours.” The branch popped back into place behind her. “He’s not here.”

  “We don’t know that, honey.” They didn’t. Not yet. Not until every inch of ground had been examined.

  “I do.” She stopped in front of him, watched him swipe at the sweat rolling down his greasepainted face. “I know it, Seth.” Hysteria elevated her voice. “Kane and Matthew have half the people assigned to Grayton crawling all over this ground. Jeff is not here. I . . . feel it.”

  Seth couldn’t make himself openly agree with her. That would be admitting defeat. Admitting he had again failed to protect someone he loved, someone who loved him. And, if not here, then where was Jeff buried? Where?

  Julia reached up to Seth’s face, her hand trembling, her eyes red from crying and cold. “We’ve got to get Kane and Matthew to pick up Karl and force him to tell us where he buried Jeff. If we don’t, Jeff is going to die.” A sob crawled from her throat. “We can’t let him die, Seth.”

  The pleading in her voice tore at him. “Julia, I’d do anything for you, honey. Anything. But—”

  “I know you love Jeff, too. Don’t you dare tell me you don’t.”

  “Hell, yes, I love him. I don’t deny it.” God, but Seth hated to hurt her. It wasn’t right. She had been hurt so many times, more times than any one person should have to endure, but he had no choice. Damn it, he had no choice.

  “Seth, please.”

  He cupped her dirt-streaked face in his hands. His throat went thick, and every atom in his body rebelled against refusing her. “I can’t do it, Julia.”

  “He’s going to die.” A huge tear rolled down her cheek.

  “God, I hope not. We’ll do everything we can, you know that. But we can’t pick up Karl. If we do, Benedetto and Morse are going to walk away with the Home Base technology and the Rogue, scot-free. Millions will die, Julia. Millions.”

  Matthew stepped out of the shadows beside a bush. Its limbs and leaves swished against his thigh. “Seth’s right, Julia.”

  If Matthew had come to find Seth to deliver good news, he would already be relating it. So his news had to be bad. “What’s going on?”

  “Colonel Kane just got an Intel update. The news isn’t good, Seth.”

  “Jeff?” Julia asked, fear twisting her face.

  Seth glided a protective arm around her.

  “Sorry. No word on him yet.” Matthew shifted his gaze from Julia to Seth. “It’s Benedetto. His people have found out about Karl.”

  Which meant all hell was about to break loose on the Rogue. “Do they know about Jeff?”

  “Yes. Benedetto’s convinced his council Karl is a new loyalist recruit, and he was attempting to reunite him with his wife. That, the loyalists swallowed, since they don’t recognize divorce. But they didn’t swallow Jeff’s kidnapping. Now they’re questioning Benedetto’s ethics and doubting his ability to protect them.”

  “Because Morse has failed to get Home Base operational?” Seth asked.

  “And because of poor judgment on Jeff, and the drugs.”

  Julia leaned heavily against Seth for support. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Until what, honey?”

  She looked up at him. “Until the loyalists find out Benedetto deliberately broke the honor code not for any family but for the technology. He’s damned to an emotional downward spiral, Seth. It’s inevitable, especially with the drugs altering his perceptions.”

  Seth followed her line of thought. Benedetto was a trapped rat with no exit strategy that left him upright. He was out of options. “Desperate men commit desperate acts.”

 
She nodded. “Capable of anything.” One breath at a time.

  “There’s more,” Matthew said. “The last transmission Intel received from the operatives inside Two West projects that Home Base will be operational within forty-eight hours. They’re that close.”

  “But they don’t have the launching sequence.”

  “Evidently, they’ve come up with one on their own.”

  Julia braced her forehead against Seth’s chest, inhaled sharply. He tightened his hold on her, knowing exactly what she was thinking because he and Matthew were thinking it, too.

  Cornered rats attack.

  Julia stared up at him. “Seth, we’ve got to do something.”

  “I know.” He did know. But the U.S. had no operational missile-defense system, and Congress wouldn’t fund his damn sensor system. So what exactly could they do? “Let’s talk to Colonel Kane.”

  “No.” Colonel Kane flatly refused, then sent Julia a sympathetic look. “I understand, okay? You love Jeff as if he were your own. I have kids, too, so I really do understand. But I can’t save one child and jeopardize a nation, and that’s what you’re asking me to do.”

  Julia glanced down her mud-streaked arm to her wrist at her watch. Nine hours—that was how long they knew for certain Jeff had been buried. It could be longer. Karl had to have buried Jeff before coming to the cabin. It had to have taken him a couple of hours to wire the area with bricks of C-4, but he could have done that before burying Jeff. When, exactly, he had buried Jeff now became critical. Jeff could already be out of oxygen.

  Think, Julia. Think!

  She licked at her lips. “Colonel Kane, I suggested this before, and I understand why you didn’t do it then, but we’re out of time. Jeff could be out of time. You’ve got to check the grounds around my apartment and Seth’s house in town.”

  “Why would Hyde risk that?” Colonel Kane asked. “He’d be exposed in neighborhoods, Julia. Being seen burying a kid in your front yard just doesn’t fit his professional profile.”

  “Oh, but it fits his personal one,” she countered. “Karl has always flaunted his superiority over others by dominating them. He builds his power by draining it from others. He would risk it. He’d get a royal high out of burying Jeff alive right under everyone’s noses.”

  Because that was true, and she once had married him, once even had loved him, venom filled her voice. “He’d see a poetic justice in it. Either place—my apartment, or Seth’s house. If Jeff’s near my apartment, then Karl’s rubbing my face in it. I love Jeff, and his death is my fault. If he’s near Seth’s, well, Karl always has believed Seth and I were lovers—which we’re not, although he still believed it. So it would be Karl’s way of punishing me for being unfaithful. He doesn’t recognize divorce, either.”

  “I agree with her, Colonel.” Seth stepped to her side, put his arm around her waist. “Either place does fit Karl’s personal profile.”

  Colonel Kane blew out a breath, looked off into the distance, and weighed the matter. “Okay. We’ll try it.”

  Hope lifted in Julia, and she gave Seth’s hand a squeeze. “Thank you.”

  Kane nodded and adjusted his lip mike. “Paddy, scramble two teams. Send one to Dr. Warner’s apartment to nose around, and the other to Dr. Holt’s home in town.”

  “Let’s go, Julia.” Seth guided her toward the Camry.

  She followed but cast him a frown. “Where are we going?”

  “To your apartment.” The car door opened with a squeak. “We learn what we can from our abuse and shut out the rest. It’s how we survive, right?” When she nodded, he went on. “Something you said about Karl struck one of my shut-outs. My father used to be just like Karl. He never eased up on my mother. Constantly, he proved to her that she deserved being ‘punished.’ He’d leave her little reminders that she’d forced him to do what he’d done to her. Karl would do that, too. And if he runs as true to form as my father did, he’ll do it at your place, not mine. Maximum guilt.”

  When Julia and Seth arrived at her apartment, the team was already on-site, scouring the grounds with electronic equipment. Heat-seeking sensors, Julia supposed, and only God knew what else.

  A dog handler arrived. He had the dog smell Jeff’s lunch box, and then turned him loose. Julia grimaced. So many people had handled the box. It would take a miracle for the dog to actually track Jeff from it.

  “Dr. Holt?” A sergeant dressed in fatigues came up to Seth. “We’ve been over every inch of the yard.” His forehead filled with creases. “Nothing.”

  Julia clasped Seth’s forearm, urging him to look at her. “He’s here, Seth. I feel it.”

  Seth knew exactly what she meant. His own instincts were screaming it as loudly as if Jeff himself were shouting. “I know.”

  “Check again,” Seth told the sergeant. “The guy who buried him is a trained professional with nothing left to lose. He might not have broken the sod or left the typical evidence. Look for the unusual.”

  “Yes, sir.” The sergeant turned and issued orders to the rest of the team.

  Seth looked over at Julia. “You start on the left. I’ll take the right. Look for anything, Julia. Anything at all.”

  Already walking away, she nodded, and Seth watched her go. His heart felt heavy and full at the same time; a damn strange feeling. He had loved three people in his life. One was his mother, and she was dead. Julia was the second, and he had nearly lost her. The third was Jeff.

  Jeff, who had chosen to trust Seth above everyone else. Who had hugged Seth, and had sounded so awed and surprised and so damn happy to see him. Jeff, who after being betrayed by his father had shown more courage than most adults, telling Seth the truth about the bruise, and then had shown still more courage by opening his heart, looking into Seth’s eyes, and saying, “I love you.”

  He couldn’t lose the boy. He couldn’t . . . lose the boy.

  Seth turned right, strode past the patio and down the lawn from the lot line to the row of azaleas. He backed into them, stepping between two bushes.

  His feet sank down a good six inches.

  Seth riveted his flashlight. Broken branches between the two bushes. He swept down to the ground. Wet soil, but freshly turned. Something red. His skin prickled, the little hairs on his neck lifted. Jeff’s BAMA key ring. “Jeff? Can you hear me, son?”

  No answer.

  “Jeff, hold on, buddy. Just hold on.” Seth dropped to his knees, began digging with his hands. “Julia!” he shouted. “Over here.”

  Julia ran the width of the yard, clipped the corner of the house with her right shoulder. Pain streaked down her arm, across her back, but she kept running. “Where are you?”

  “Under here.” Seth didn’t pause digging. Dirt flew out from his cupped hands. “Get help. Get a shovel. I think he’s down here.”

  “You think?”

  “Damn it, I know, okay?” Seth threw her an ornery look. “I know the same way I know I love you, and you love me. Now would you get me a damn shovel?”

  “Yeah.” A little stunned by his declaration, Julia turned, spotted the sergeant, and yelled her request.

  Within half a minute, the dark side of the apartment between buildings was flooded with men and spotlights and the sounds of shovels scraping dirt.

  One hit something metallic. “It’s here, Dr. Holt.”

  On his knees, Seth shifted toward the spot. So did Julia. Standing behind Seth, she looked over his shoulder, elated and full of fear. What if it had been too long? What if Karl hadn’t left Jeff oxygen? What if . . . ?

  “Open the damn thing.” Seth’s elevated voice proved his fears matched her own.

  The lid opened.

  And Jeff lay inside, tucked into a tight little ball.

  Seth reached in, felt for a pulse. For a second, nothing registered. He swiped the mud caked to his fingertips away, then tried again, pressing his fingertips lightly against Jeff’s carotid.

  “Seth?” Julia couldn’t stand it. Jeff lay so still. So utterly, lif
elessly still.

  The beat felt more like a flutter. But it was the most beautiful feeling Seth had ever felt. “He’s alive, honey.” Tears filmed Seth’s eyes, choked his voice.

  He tested the oxygen mask but got no air. It was only blocking Jeff’s breathing. Seth removed it, tossed it on the grass. “Get the medics in here—STAT.”

  Seth lifted Jeff’s little body out of the box, laid him flat on the grass. Julia dropped to her knees at Jeff’s head, smoothed his hair back, her smile devastating and devastated.

  Seth swiped a finger through the boy’s mouth, making sure nothing blocked his airway, gave him a few breaths to jump-start him, and then checked his pupils and his pulse.

  It took only moments to see that Jeff was in trouble. Julia sniffed back tears. “Is he breathing okay?”

  “A little shallow. Pulse’s weak and thready,” Seth whispered so only she could hear, then leaned forward, close to Jeff’s ear. “Come on, buddy. Come back to us. Dr. Julia’s going to have a fit if you go to heaven and leave us here.”

  A little groan escaped Jeff’s mouth.

  “That’s it, honey,” Julia said. “Come on, Jeff. You’ve got to fight to come back to us.” She looked over at Seth. “CPR?”

  “No, just a little time.” The oxygen canister was nearly empty. Jeff likely had been functioning on diminished oxygen for a short time. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for symptoms to appear. He was slow to come around. But inside, Seth knew the reason wasn’t physical. “He needs to know—”

  “He’s safe,” Julia finished. Understanding perfectly, she bent low, pressed butterfly kisses to Jeff’s muddy forehead. “It’s okay, honey. Dr. Seth and I are here. We’re always going to be here for you.”

  Jeff grunted and whispered something she couldn’t make out. “What did he say?”

  Seth smiled at her, tears shining in his eyes. “Promise?”

  She laughed. “I promise, honey.” She nuzzled him and reached for Seth’s hand. “We both do.”

  Jeff wiggled his fingertips. They clasped his hands and held tight.