Acts of Honor Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Acts of Honor

  Other Vicki Hinze Titles From Bell Bridge Books

  Acts of Honor

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  seventeen

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  twenty-one

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  About Vicki Hinze

  Promo Page

  He survived a mysterious mission more horrible than the mind can imagine; only she can break through the trauma and get him to talk. But if she succeeds, they both may not survive.

  Dr. Sara West knows only that her high-security military patient goes by the name “Joe,” that he’s in a catatonic state and can only repeat the code words, “I wept,” and that his post-traumatic stress disorder is a result of his last mission as a Shadow Watcher—a spy who spies on other spies. Her brother-in-law was also a Shadow Watcher. He committed suicide in the same sinister military facility where Joe, and other military men like him, are now in treatment. Sara wants to learn what caused her sister’s unshakable husband to kill himself and, in the process, to heal Joe, a compelling man who wins her love. But the secrets inside him reveal a shocking truth. One she isn’t sure they can overcome.

  Praise for Acts of Honor

  “Gripping and adrenaline-charged, Hinze’s plot will appeal to fans who like their suspense razor sharp.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “If you like military–romance–suspense–just a great read–you have to pick up [Hinze’s] books!”

  —The Jackson Journal

  “Utterly thrilling from beginning to end . . . Hinze has proven herself a true master of military romantic suspense tales.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Absolutely riveting.”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  Other Vicki Hinze Titles

  From Bell Bridge Books

  Novella

  Before The White Rose

  Military Romances

  Shades of Gray

  Acts of Honor

  All Due Respect (Fall 2012)

  Metaphysical Romantic Suspense

  Coming in 2013

  Festival

  Maybe This Time.

  The Seascape Trilogy

  Beyond The Misty Shore

  Beside A Dreamswept Sea

  Upon A Mystic Tide

  Acts of Honor

  by

  Vicki Hinze

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-193-7

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-177-7

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 1999 by Vicki Hinze

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  A mass market edition of this book was published by St. Martin’s in 1999

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo credits:

  Gun sight © Pedro Nogueira | Dreamstime.com

  Laser (manipulated) © Shawn Hempel | Dreamstime.com

  Woman (manipulated) © Chaoss | Dreamstime.com

  :Mha:01:

  one

  “Oh, no.” Sara West looked up from her desk and frowned. “What the hell are you doing here, Foster?”

  That frank reaction earned her a rare smile. “Glad to see you, too, Dr. West.” He removed his cap and sat down in her visitor’s chair. “How long has it been?”

  How long? How dare he do this? He ignored her inquiries into her brother-in-law Captain David Quade’s death, stonewalled her investigation at every turn, and then just waltzes into her office as if they were close friends? “It’s been seven months, two weeks, and four days—not nearly long enough.”

  Sara closed the patient file open on her desk, then slid it aside. “Now, this is a private office—mine—and not your military base, Colonel, but I’m going to be gracious and ask you once more before I kick you out on your pompous ass.” She hiked her chin. “What do you want?”

  His smile faded, and he scanned the bookshelves spanning a long wall.

  Sara grimaced. All of the titles were on post-traumatic stress disorder, and Foster definitely would notice. He never missed anything, or gave anything away. Likely a hazard of his job, though even after five years of discussions with him—mostly discussions aimed at him with her trying to get information from him about David—Sara still wasn’t exactly sure what Foster’s job entailed.

  She knew he was military. An Air Force colonel who worked with the AID. But her discreet inquiries at the Air Force Intelligence Division had convinced Sara that even regular AID personnel weren’t familiar with specifically what job Colonel Jack Foster performed for the military. He was an enigma to them and, by extension, to her. An enigma currently standing in her Pensacola, Florida, office—which was a long way from his office at the Pentagon—staring at her in open challenge.

  Being even thinner now than when they’d last met, Sara supposed she still looked fragile to him. God, how that rankled. With her blond hair snagged in a barrette at her nape, and wearing the lab coat and navy power suit she’d worn to give her PTSD lecture to two hundred psychologists and psychiatrists that morning, she felt almost prim. But she was not prim, nor fragile. She was thirty-four, stood five-eight in stocking feet, and his unwelcome presence in her office had her and her temper rising to meet his challenge. “Well, are you going to answer me? Or do I get the delayed gratification of kicking you out?”

  Foster grunted and tucked his cloth cap under his belt, between the loops on his slacks. “Still ticked off at me, eh?”

  “Forever, plus ten years. Count on it.”

  “I did attempt to learn more about Captain Quade’s incident, Dr. West. Unfortunately, I was denied access to his files.”

  Who was he trying to kid? Foster had clout. That much everyone in AID knew—even those who had needed a little friendly persuasion to admit they had ever heard of him. “Why?”

  “That’s classified information.”

  Sara grunted. He was lying to her. She’d heard whispers during her last fact-finding trip to the Pentagon that Foster’s security clearance exceeded Top Secret. He could get file access. He chose not to do it.

  He looked her straight in the eye. “Isn’t it enough to know David is dead?”

  “No, it isn’t enough.” Vexed that she couldn’t force Foster to be honest, she stabbed the toe of her shoe deep into the teal carpet beneath her desk. “Not when David’s widow—my sister—is collec
ting husbands the way you have a chest full of medals.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. After five years . . .” His voice trailed off, and then he went on. “Well, I’d hoped Brenda, er, Mrs. Quade, would adjust.”

  Foster sounded sincere. But Sara had experienced his “sincerity” before. She knew better than to believe it, and let him know it by arching a skeptical brow.

  A faint flush swept up his neck and flooded his face. “No progress on your research, I take it.”

  He’d caught the gesture. Foster was a pain, but he was swift on the uptake. “Plenty of progress on PTSD, just not on how patients’ families successfully cope with it.” She let her gaze slide to the window, unwilling to let him see how deeply her failure affected her. “Brenda stood on shaky ground before David committed suicide. Now, in a way, she’s doing her damnedest to join him.”

  “Through the marriages?”

  Sara nodded. “Five in four years.” Guilt swam through her chest and settled like heavy stones in her stomach. Brenda was thirty-six, the older sister, and yet Sara always had been the big sister. Not by choice, but by necessity. Since grade school, Brenda had gotten herself into more scrapes than a teen with her first training bra. And Sara always had pulled her out. But on this, when it mattered most, Sara couldn’t seem to find a way out.

  Foster let his gaze drop to his knees. “And you feel responsible because you’re an expert on PTSD, and yet you still can’t seem to help her.”

  How typical of him to lay out her feelings like bare bones and then peck at them. Bristling, Sara snapped. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  Surprised by that admission, Sara pursed her lips and opted to be a little more civil, though she had to work at it. She didn’t like Foster any more than he liked her. The only thing that made their interactions possible was that they both knew it and were never hypocritical enough to deny it. “Thanks for holding off on the platitudes and absolutions.” She meant it sincerely.

  “You’re welcome.” His smile returned. “Does that mean all is forgiven?”

  “Not by a long shot.” She tugged at her lab coat cuff and slid him a glare. “I make it a practice never to forgive men I don’t trust.”

  “Unfortunate.” He feigned a sigh that held a breath of truth.

  Tired of this mousing around, Sara cut to the chase. “Why are you here?”

  Foster’s demeanor changed dramatically, turned somber and serious, deepening the creases to grooves across his forehead. “I’ve got a problem, Sara. A significant one.”

  Worry seeped into her. In five years, Jack Foster never once had used her first name, nor had he admitted a weakness. Both unnerved her. She tried her best to bury her reaction under the sarcasm common between them. “Welcome to the human race. We’ve all got problems. That’s why we’ve got shrinks, and we shrinks have shingles on our doors.”

  “We don’t all have problems like this one.” He again scanned the row of dog-eared books, clearly avoiding her eyes. “I need your help.”

  Surprise rippled through her. Men like Foster didn’t need help, they created a need for help in others. God knew he’d given her more than her fair share of trouble—and nightmares. And his type never asked for favors. Intrigued, she paused to let her tone steady, and then quizzed him. “What? The Air Force doesn’t have its own shrinks anymore?”

  “This is different.” He shifted uneasily on his chair. “It’s . . . delicate.”

  Delicate? More likely, the matter was classified, and he wanted it buried far from other military eyes. “Is this problem personal, or professional?”

  “Professional.” He sighed. This time, it was genuine and tinged with discomfort and impatience. “I don’t need military assistance. I need yours.”

  “This, I know. Therapy would work wonders for your disposition. But I can’t treat you, Foster. A doctor should want to cure her patients, not to murder them.” She rolled the end of a pencil over her lower lip, then nipped down on it. “The licensing board discourages murdering patients—though in your case, it might be willing to make an except—”

  “Stop it.” Foster stiffened. “We both know you’re about as apt to kill someone as the tooth fairy.” His gaze turned piercing, stone-cold. “This is serious, and only you can help me.”

  “Me? Help you? After all the times you’ve refused to help me?” Her temper reared, and she guffawed. “Forget it.”

  “I can’t do that.” His terse tone proved he’d like nothing better.

  She slid forward in her chair, laced her hands atop her desk blotter. “Look, I don’t like the military, and I don’t work for it, aside from cleaning up the messes you guys make of some people’s minds. I work with five patients at a time—no more, and no less—in a private practice. I work only with PTSD patients and/or their families, and I damn sure don’t help arrogant military bastards who needlessly let others suffer—especially when those suffering others are members of my family.”

  “I’m well aware of what you do and do not do. I’m also aware that many of your professional peers consider your methods extremely unorthodox.”

  “There’s a good reason for that.” She lifted a hand. “By traditional standards, my methods are extremely unorthodox.”

  “Some consider you out in left field.”

  “And some think I’m a brick short of a full load. So what? I don’t need their approval, or care if I have it. Intensive one-on-one therapy—treating the mind, body, and spirit—works.”

  Foster lifted his chin, annoyingly calm and typically arrogant. “Frankly, the professional acceptance of your methods means nothing to me. You have an eighty-percent success rate on the PTSD patients you treat—far higher than the standard—and that means everything.”

  “Success is hard to dispute.”

  “Yes, it is.” He stood up. His knees cracked, and he walked across the office to the bookshelf and then let his fingertip drift across the spines of the books, obviously mulling over what to tell her and what to withhold. “I can’t disclose certain things without physician/patient privilege. You don’t have security clearance.” He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at her. “You understand?”

  David. This was about David. Her heart thudded deep in her chest. Low and hard. A little breathless, she nodded. She didn’t trust Foster—after five years, she had hundreds of valid reasons not to trust him—but could she afford to brush off a potential opportunity? They were so rare. “Okay.” She conceded with as much grace as she could muster. “I’ll make an exception—short-term.”

  Foster turned toward her. Bars of light slashed through the vertical blinds at the window, streaked across his pale-blue uniform shirt, and glinted on the metal eagle rank pinned to his collar. “So, you’re my doctor now?”

  “Give me twenty dollars.”

  He fished a bill from his wallet. She took it. “I’m your doctor.” After scribbling out a receipt, she thrust it at him. “Now, what do you know about David?”

  Foster leaned a shoulder against the bookshelf and crossed his chest with his arms. “I know if you do what I ask, you’ll find your answers about what happened to him.”

  Sara’s skin crawled. Foster’s tone and the look in his eyes swore she’d find more. Far more. “Exactly what answers will I find?”

  “The ones to all the unanswered questions that made you become an expert on PTSD so you could help others like David, Brenda, and Lisa.” Foster rubbed at his chin, spoke slowly. Distinctly. “You and the Quades’ daughter are very close.”

  He’d been monitoring them. All of them. Sara, Brenda, and Lisa.

  An uneasy shiver slithered up Sara’s spine, and her gaze slid to a photo of the three of them on the corner of her desk. For some reason, Foster must feel threatened. “Of course we’re close. Lisa is my only niece. But what does that have to do with this?”

  “It’s irrelevant,” Foster said. “What is relevant is that I won’t tell you anything more about David’s situatio
n because I’d have to breach national security to do it. But I will put you in a position where you’ll have the opportunity to discover your answers for yourself.” Pacing a short path before her desk, Foster stopped and fisted a hand at his side. “I know you don’t forgive and you never forget, but let me be clear about something, Sara. Playing games with me is not honorable, nor is it in your best interests.”

  “Now why does that remark strike me as a threat?” Tight-lipped, she glared at him. “You know, in five years, I have never—not once—given you a reason to question my honor.” She cocked her head. “Can you say the same to me?”

  “Our topic isn’t my honor, it’s your family’s best interests.”

  Chilling her tone even more, Sara looked up at him from under her lashes. “Obviously, you don’t know me as well as you think, or you’d know warning me against game-playing isn’t necessary. Not when it comes to my family.”

  “Oh, I know you, Sara.” Foster leaned forward and bracketed her desk blotter with his hands. The muscles in his forearms twitched. “I know you’re weak when it comes to defending yourself, but tougher than nails at defending others. And you’d like to be even tougher on me.”

  She would. She didn’t like this conversation, or him. Yet Foster’s palms were glistening with sweat and he looked as if he wanted to heave. He clearly needed something from her—why else would he be here? But whatever it was, he didn’t feel certain of getting it, which meant he had failed to stack the odds in his favor. The master manipulator felt vulnerable, and that worried her.

  “I also know you avoid relationships because you feel guilty,” he went on. “It wouldn’t be right for you to have all your sister has lost, would it? You have to fix things for her and Lisa first—and for your brother, Steve. It really got you that his wife had him committed for psychiatric evaluation, didn’t it? Isn’t that incident what drove you to become a psychiatrist?”