All Due Respect Read online

  He shouldn’t have asked but, damn it, he wanted the tension between them to end. And he wanted answers. He needed answers. She worried about trusting him, but he worried about trusting her, too. His financial and professional reputations were on the line—even more so now than when he had gone to her for help. “Maybe you’d feel better if you ate.”

  “I’ll pass, Seth.”

  Dead end. He couldn’t force her to tell him anything, and odds were she wouldn’t, but he had to ask. It didn’t take much of a stretch to imagine Julia being radically different from the person she had been three years ago.

  Is she different?

  Torn between wanting to know and fearing what he would discover, Seth accepted that he had no choice but to find out. Because he had met with one other person both before and after the briefing. One other person who had both access and the opportunity to pull the double switch with the badges. One other person he would be a damn fool not to consider a viable suspect, because she had wanted to keep the sensor theft quiet.

  Julia.

  Chapter Five

  The migraine won.

  Julia crawled into bed moaning, sank back against the pillow, and draped a cold washcloth over her forehead and eyes. Her stomach rolled, her every pulse beat throbbed with the force of a hammer strike against her temples, at the backs of her eyes. If she moved to pull up the covers or turn off the nightstand’s lamp, she would throw up. And that would trigger an all-night vigil of vomiting and pain. Taking the oral medication Dr. Flynn had prescribed would be an exercise in futility. She had waited too long. Now a muscle in her left arm knotted, raising a lump the size of a lemon, and it throbbed, too.

  You know better than to get stressed. You know better.

  “Oh, shut up.” The headache would run its course, as so many had in the past three years, and the muscle spasms in her arm and shoulder would eventually stop, too. Until then, she was damned to suffer them both. Just one more challenge in a long list of them. Some legacy.

  One breath at a time.

  At least Seth hadn’t pushed her for answers tonight. But he had again assured her that he hadn’t copied the sensor codes, and he had confessed that, when in his office, he often kept his badge on his desk. He took it off because, when he worked at the computer, it dug into his arm. And he had wrangled a commitment from her for dinner at Antonio’s restaurant tomorrow night after work.

  His questions would come then.

  They were inevitable. She might as well let him ask the damn things, and have it done and over. But, God, she didn’t want him to look at her with pity. Or with morose curiosity. Or without the respect she had always seen in his eyes.

  Yet how could she avoid it? What could she tell him?

  Anything—except the truth. She would have to lie.

  To Seth? To Seth, whose laughter gave you strength when you had none and you needed it to survive? You’re going to lie to Seth?

  Her stomach heaved.

  The vigil had started.

  Seth stood on the porch, outside the front door. “I know it’s late, Camden, but I want to see him.”

  “Damn it, Holt, he’s asleep.” Camden scratched his head, shrugged a robe-clad shoulder. “So was I.”

  Seth resisted an urge to sigh. “Look, I thought we had an understanding about this.”

  “Understanding? I call it blackmail.”

  “And I call your bruising Jeff a felony,” Seth countered. “You can let me peek in on him, or I call the cops and complain and they’ll check on him—every two hours. Your choice.”

  Cinching the belt on his blue robe, Camden frowned, opened the door, and then led Seth upstairs to Jeff’s room.

  It was spotless. Toys shelved against the wall, nothing tossed on the carpeted floor. Even his lunch box had been placed on his desk chair. Weird for a six-year-old boy. And Jeff lay on a twin bed, scrunched up under a quilted crimson bedspread with BAMA stamped in white lettering all over it.

  Camden stayed in the hallway.

  Jeff opened his eyes. “Dr. Seth.”

  “Hey, buddy.” Seth smiled into Jeff’s droopy eyes. “Sorry I woke you.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” he whispered, glancing at the door to make sure they were alone.

  “Pretending, huh?”

  Jeff nodded against the pillow. “Dad said you forgot me, but I knew you didn’t.” He reached out from under the covers and patted Seth’s chest. “I knew the truth in here.”

  Jeff had remembered what Seth had told him. His heart swelled, and the boy snagged the whole thing. “I’d never forget you,” Seth said, knowing it was true. Before Jeff could ask, Seth added, “That’s a promise.”

  “Cuz we’re buddies.” Jeff flung himself into Seth’s arms, then hugged him hard.

  So this was what hugging a kid was like. The soapy-kid smell, the tiny arms stretching to reach and fasten around your neck. The sense of total trust. Damn, but it rattled a man. Deep. Seth patted Jeff’s back, his own throat thick. “Yeah. We’re buddies.”

  “I love you, Dr. Seth.”

  Tears burned the back of Seth’s nose, stung his eyes. Since he was six, he had waited to hear those words come his way—without sex being a factor and it being hormones talking—and they never had. Not until now. Not until Jeff.

  Seth blinked hard and hugged gently. Jeff made him feel protective, but the boy also pulled at something softer in Seth that he wasn’t sure how to tag. Still, he understood what it meant at gut level. He’d go to the wall and scale it or tear it down for this kid. Anywhere, anytime. Go up against anyone. And yet giving Jeff the words wouldn’t be easy. Doing something alien never comes easy. But the boy needed the words—and, Seth realized, he needed to give them.

  Still, just thinking about saying it had his chest in a vise, his throat stuffed with sandpaper, and his gut full of concrete. But determined, he squeezed his eyes shut, and took the plunge. “I love you, too, Jeff.”

  During the night the phone rang.

  Fingering her way across the nightstand, Julia peeked out from under the cold washcloth and lifted the receiver. “Hello.” She sounded half-dead. She felt worse.

  “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not from me, sugar.” The man’s grated whisper disintegrated into an eerie warning. “You should know better than to even try.”

  Oh, God. Terror ripped through her veins. Julia flung the receiver onto the sheets and stared at it as if it were a hissing rattler. Hearing his sardonic laughter through the receiver, she grabbed the phone and slammed it on its hook, jerked the plug out of the wall, and then slung it down on the carpeted floor. It bounced and settled with a dull thunk.

  Tears blurred her eyes, stole her breath, and a disappointment so deep it felt as if it were cutting her in two slashed through her body. There would be no break from the threats.

  Karl had found her.

  Chapter Six

  Julia stared into the bathroom mirror and groaned. A corpse had more color than she did this morning.

  She slathered on extra makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes and her deathly pallor, dressed, and then dragged herself into work by nine.

  Her gray suit looked drab, but she needed the comfort of quiet to recover. Finally, just before dawn, she had stopped heaving, but her insides were still shaky.

  As soon as she left the Camry to approach the building, something Seth had said in the car the night before niggled at her. If when in his office he often kept his badge on his desk, then anyone could have made the first switch. But the sensor codes had been copied at 1040 and Seth had left the building for lunch at 1100. So the second switch, where the thief had returned Seth’s badge, had to have occurred during that twenty-minute time span.

  If she were committing treason by stealing Top Secret information, what’s the first thing she would do?

  Get the codes out of the building.

  Yeah. Before the second switch. Before anyone noticed the copies had been made. Before any irregularity had been note
d and Security shut down the lab.

  So, who on the first-switch suspect list also left the building between 1040 and 1100?

  Good question.

  After clearing the lab’s first Security checkpoint, she stopped at the second one. Sergeant Grimm was on duty. He lifted the handheld scanner to run his check, and she asked, “Sergeant, where is the Security office?”

  He backed away. “First corridor to the right after you come out of the transporter.”

  “Thanks.” Julia went through the cylinder, and then to the Security office.

  A female sergeant who appeared about six months pregnant sat at the reception desk. “May I help you, Dr. Warner?”

  Word was out. Everyone in the building knew her name and credentials, and they’d likely already started a betting pool on where she had been for the past three years. Merciless gossip grapevine. “Yes, please. Who is responsible for inner-lab security?”

  “That would be Colonel Mason, ma’am. But I can probably help you with whatever you need.”

  “Great.” Julia thought fast. “I’m looking for clarification on a specific security procedure. There appears to be conflicting instructions in the regs.”

  The smile faded. “I’d better get the colonel.”

  Julia smiled. “Thank you.” Conflicts in the regulations usually signaled sticky wickets, often with legal repercussions. No one voluntarily became involved. At least that hadn’t changed.

  “This way, Dr. Warner.” The sergeant led Julia to the colonel’s office.

  The colonel stood and offered his hand. “Bob Mason.”

  Julia clasped it firmly and shook. Mason was a huge man, barrel-chested and broad-nosed. His crew cut was short and his complexion ruddy.

  “Have a seat, Doctor.” He waved to a chair.

  Grateful, Julia sat down. After the exercise of walking through the building to his office, she found her insides weren’t just shaky from last night’s vigil, they rattled. “Thank you.”

  “We have a problem on a reg?”

  “No, we don’t.” Julia smiled. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to discuss this with anyone else.”

  His eyes sparkled interest. “So what do you want to discuss, Doc?”

  “I need a list of everyone who was in the inner lab yesterday morning between nine and eleven. Is it possible to get that information?”

  “Sure.” Smelling a situation in the making, his interest deepened. “Do we have a problem?”

  “Not at present, no.”

  “Can I feel confident that if we develop a problem, I’ll be notified immediately?”

  “You can bank on it.” As soon as Agent 12 gave her an approving nod, she would gladly dump the works in Colonel Mason’s lap.

  The overhead light glinted on his watch. “May I ask why you want this list?”

  “Certainly.” She smiled again.

  He paused, waited, and when it became evident she wasn’t going to elaborate, he laughed. Deep and hard. “I can ask all I want, but you’re not going to answer.”

  Her cagey response amused him. She’d take amusement, so long as she got her list. “I’ll answer if I must,” she said. “But at this time, I would prefer not to have to do it.”

  “It is for professional purposes.”

  Personal purposes would violate the Privacy Act. A huge, huge taboo. “Yes, sir.”

  He nodded. “That works for me.” He turned to his computer, booted up, and keyed in a request. In short order, a list began printing. “I take it you’d prefer this not to come to Colonel Pullman’s attention.”

  The lab commander. “With all due respect, sir, I’d prefer to keep it a private matter, between us.”

  Mason pursed his lips. “Is he still at that high-level WMD symposium in Switzerland?”

  She didn’t have to scan her memory through the military’s many acronyms to translate WMD. Weapons of mass destruction were all too familiar to her. “Yes, he is.”

  “Sounds intensive.”

  “I’m sure it is, sir.” Her heart rate ratcheted. Maybe, just maybe, Mason would go along with her request.

  The list finished printing. He retrieved the pages from the printer’s tray and then passed them to her. “I’m a little reluctant to divert a man’s focus when it’s on something as important as WMDs, so this’ll be staying between us. At least for now.”

  Julia took the list but didn’t look at it, or show her relief that he had agreed to keep the gutless wonder, Pullman, out of the loop. She stood up and shook Mason’s hand, and, because he had just placed an inordinate amount of trust in her, she smiled. “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “You’re welcome, Doc. It was worth the laugh.” He smiled back. “People have you pegged as serious, but they’re wrong.”

  “Are they?” Seemed right as rain in her book. She was damn serious.

  “You’ve got a wicked sense of humor.”

  “Thanks,” she said, then thought better of it. “I think.”

  He laughed again, and she left his office.

  Near the transporter, she stepped to the side of the corridor and checked the list, scanning for first-switch access. As expected, all four people Seth had named had opportunity. Now, she held evidence proving it.

  Scanning the list again, she checked for sign-outs during the twenty-minute time span the thief had to get the codes out of the building and pull the second switch, giving Seth back his badge.

  Linda had signed out for the day at 1020—before the theft. Cracker hadn’t left the inner lab until after four. When a lockdown could occur at any moment, it seemed highly unlikely that he would sit on the codes inside the lab for five hours. If caught with the codes, Cracker would be arrested for treason. The man was a genius not an idiot.

  Cracker and Linda were innocent.

  But both Dempsey Morse and Marcus had signed out during the twenty minutes in question, had had the opportunity to pull both ends of the badge switch, and had had the opportunity to get the codes out of the building before a possible lockdown.

  Both had had opportunity and means, yes. But what about motive?

  Antonio’s restaurant was enjoying a quiet night. A fire roared in the dining room’s grate, but no motive revealed itself in the flames, or in Julia’s records search that day.

  She ordered herself to let go of some tension before her head or arm flared up again, and stared into the fire.

  “You okay?” Seth asked.

  “Frustrated.” She looked across the table at him, knowing she didn’t need to explain. She had filled Seth in first thing that morning. They both had been in motive search-mode ever since.

  “You’ve looked peaked all day.” He glanced at her plate. “Let go, and enjoy your dinner.”

  She nodded, grateful for the short reprieve. And it would be short. Seth’s personal questions for her were inevitable; she knew it. Yet, she still had no idea how to answer them.

  Over the years, he had looked at her in many ways. With amusement, pride, disappointment, doubt, and once, she’d thought, with longing, though that had to have been a trick of the light. Name an emotion, and at some time or another Seth likely had focused it on her—with two exceptions: hatred and pity. If she had to choose one of them, she’d choose hatred. Pity appalled her.

  She had moved mountains, suffered agony month after month alone, making sure he never saw it. All of that suffering couldn’t have been for nothing. She had to have endured it for something. Pity. She hated even the sound of the word. Even the look of it, when written down on a page. She had refused to feel it for herself, for Karl, for the loss of her beloved work; refused by sheer will and determination. She had kept her secrets. Hid them, at times, even from herself. And she had to go on hiding them. Especially from Seth. His opinion shouldn’t matter that much, but it did. He respected her. He always had, and she would not lose that. She had so little left to lose.

  “You’re still not eating.” Seth’s jacket cuff brushed against the edge of the white linen tab
lecloth. “Don’t you like the food?”

  A passing waiter’s eyebrows shot up. If not stressed to the max, Julia would have smiled. Antonio’s was Grayton’s finest for Italian dining, a four-star restaurant, which was saying something, considering its location. And the linguine and white clam sauce tasted as delicious as it smelled; the best she had ever eaten. “It’s outstanding.” She sipped at her iced tea.

  The restaurant was nearly empty, the staff discreet. White columns ran ceiling to floor, their bases covered in thick ivy. Positioned between the tables, they gave diners the illusion of privacy but not of seclusion. Julia liked the feel—and being seated facing the entrance.

  Seth definitely hadn’t forgotten.

  She set her glass back to the pristine tablecloth. “Go ahead, Seth.”

  He paused, his fork in midair. “What?”

  Julia resisted a smile, though only heaven knew why she felt the urge, knowing what was coming. “You’ve had that I-have-a-thousand-questions look on your face all day.” She dabbed at her chin with her napkin. “Go ahead and ask them.”

  “Okay.” He took a drink of water from his glass. When he set it down, a chip of ice slid down the outside of it, spotting the cloth. “Why did you do it?”

  She dredged up a wry grin. “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “Why did you leave without telling me you were going?”

  “It wasn’t personal, Seth. Don’t think for a second it was. I told you, I had no choice.”

  “We were coworkers, but I thought we were also friends.” He snagged a sesame roll from the breadbasket and ripped it in two. “Damn it, Julia. What we had was more than friendship. We were . . . I don’t know. Connected. We were connected. You could have called, dropped me a postcard—something to let me know you were alive.”

  While she had drawn strength from his laughter, he had worried that she’d been dead. Unnerved by how close he had come to being right, she reached for her water glass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would bother you so much.” True, she hadn’t, yet honesty forced her to add, “But even if I had known, I wouldn’t have been able to contact you.” Feeling an overwhelming need to touch him, she placed her hand over his, atop the table. “I am sorry, Seth.”