Torn Loyalties

by Vicki Hinze

  Their intentions were not yet clear, but one thing was certain.

  She was definitely in trouble.

  * * *

  At headquarters Grant sat at the far end of the conference-room table. Only he and the commander were in the room, though why Talbot had summoned Grant here rather than to the commander’s office, he had no idea.

  When Talbot turned on the white noise machine that prevented anyone outside the room from hearing what was said inside it, Grant’s nerve endings started buzzing. Whatever this was about, it was bad news.

  “Grant, we’ve got a situation.” The commander paced alongside the conference table, clearly agitated. “I’ve had to detain Madison McKay.”

  “Detain her?” Grant’s heart beat wild as a drum. “Why?”

  Talbot stopped two feet from Grant’s chair. “Did you know that she was spying on the Nest?”

  Oh, no. “Sir?”

  “Look, I know you’ve developed feelings for the woman, but I don’t have time for games. She’s spying on the Nest from its perimeter in the woods. Did you know it?”

  There it was. The direct question he’d most dreaded. “She’s not spying on the Nest, Commander. She’s looking for evidence on a case that has nothing to do with the Nest as an entity.”

  “What case? What kind of evidence?”

  Grant met the commander’s eyes. “Madison believes you or Dayton had Beth Crane and David Pace killed for asking about the Nest.”

  “What?”

  “Their sources were accurate on the information leaked.” Grant lifted a hand.

  Talbot stilled, shut his eyes a brief moment, and when he reopened them, resignation slid down over his face. “I should have known.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “When I refused to release the satellite images on David Pace’s car, I should have known that she wouldn’t just let it rest until I did. I should have known that she’d dismiss Gary Crawford’s confessions—they’re what tagged him as Blue Shoes, the murderer—and I should have anticipated that she’d suspect he was a fraud and Dayton or I was the real Blue Shoes.”

  Before Crawford confessed, Blue Shoes was the moniker the authorities had adopted for David Pace’s murderer. Someone had put neon-blue aquatic shoes on him postmortem. The blue shoes had been seen before in other cases. When Crawford confessed, Blue Shoes’s identity was resolved...or so everyone had thought. Now, Grant wasn’t sure what to think about Blue Shoes, Crawford or about the commander.

  Talbot returned to pacing. “I believed she would trust me.”

  “Madison?” He had to know better. “Sir, she doesn’t trust anyone.” Well, she was trusting Grant now—at least, she had been. But with Talbot detaining her, she likely didn’t trust Grant anymore. She probably thought he’d turned her in.

  Detained.

  The magnitude of her situation bore down on him. She could vanish forever. His heart rebelled.

  “She trusts Renée Renault, and I thought since Renée trusts me, Madison would, too,” Talbot said, then paused and stared at Grant. “Madison does trust Renée, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, sir.” What exactly was Talbot saying? “Why would Madison need to trust you?”

  Sadness joined disappointment and worry and the three warred in Talbot’s eyes. “For the moment, let’s just say if she had, she wouldn’t be detained.”

  “But she is detained.”

  “Yes.”

  Anger churned in Grant. He’d warned her to stay away from the Nest. Why hadn’t she listened to him? “Where?”

  “In a bunker cellblock at the Nest.”

  Grant’s stomach twisted and his chest went tight. “Sir, you know she was a POW. We left her in an Afghan cell for eighteen months. She can’t stand being confined in any way. You know what this will do to her. You can’t—”

  Talbot lifted a hand. “She left me no choice.”

  Grant took a moment to get his temper controlled, then looked from the white wall back at the commander. His emotions remained in riot. “She’s a civilian.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Talbot’s voice rose. “I’m also aware that the evidence against her for spying on the facility is overwhelming. She once had access here at the installation and at the Nest. Have you forgotten that?”

  “She had limited access.”

  “And full knowledge that all Nest operations are classified.”

  “But her interest wasn’t in the Nest, per se.”

  “How do you know that beyond a reasonable doubt?” Talbot shook his head. “We’re talking treason here, Grant.” He lifted a warning finger. “Be careful you don’t let your heart rule your head.”

  Treason? Grant stood up. “Sir, Madison McKay would never commit treason. I know it.” He pulled her Purple Heart medal from his pocket. “This proves it. It means the world to her. She’d never violate it by leaking anything about the Nest, and she’d never double-cross her country. No way.”

  “You said it yourself, Grant. We left her behind. That’s directed the entire course of her life. Don’t you know that’s what Lost, Inc., is all about?”

  “Yes, sir, I do know. She is angry and bitter at what we did. Not about being left—that she understands. But because her parents were told she was dead, and it brought them so much pain. That’s the truth of it. Fault her for being bitter about that and no one on our side dirtying their hands to help her return to the States after she escaped, but don’t accuse her of treason. She is not guilty of it.”

  “Evidence doesn’t lie. We have images of her in the woods, watching the Nest through binoculars. And fabric torn from a sweatshirt that’s indisputably hers was found on a branch near the perimeter.”

  “I’m not disputing she was there,” Grant told him. “I’m disputing that she was committing treason.” His career hung on his next statement. “You know it as well as I do, and you know what detaining her will do to her, yet—”

  “I know what Madison’s been through, but I have an obligation to protect the interests of the nation, I—” He stopped suddenly. “I have to do what I have to do.”

  The man was clearly conflicted, and that confused Grant. Talbot always seemed to know exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. His uncertainty fueled Grant’s own. Was Talbot detaining Madison for an alternative reason? Maybe to protect her? But from what danger? “You won’t harm her.” When Talbot didn’t answer, Grant swallowed hard and reminded him, “Anything happens to her and Mrs. Renault will never forgive you. She looks at Madison—”

  “Like a daughter.” He dragged a hand through his thin hair. “I’m aware of that. But Renée has no reason to blame me. She doesn’t know Madison is here.”

  Everything in Grant rebelled. “What are you going to do to her?”

  Talbot frowned. “Whatever I must do to fulfill my duty.”

  Grant tried to wrap his mind around all this. He couldn’t decide whether Talbot had detained her to prosecute or protect her. “What exactly are you telling me, Commander?”

  He frowned, stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m telling you I am not Blue Shoes.” He dropped the heel of a fisted hand onto the gleaming conference-room table. “Oh, but it grates at my soul to have to defend myself. Thirty years of service, and my integrity is in question with those I’ve trusted implicitly. Do you realize how degrading and infuriating that is?”

  “I don’t, no. But it’s probably about as degrading and infuriating as serving your country, being held as a POW and abandoned, escaping and getting home, then devoting your life to helping the lost return home and being accused of treason. I expect Madison could relate well.”

  Grant accepted the glare that remark earned him without comment, and he reserved judgment on Talbot’s guilt or innocence. Maybe he wasn’t Blue Shoes. Maybe he was. The jury
was still out on that one.

  Innocent until proven guilty was a luxury afforded only in the civilian world. In the military, you were assumed guilty until proven innocent. Considering the potential for disaster and possible consequences to legions of citizens, that was the way things had to work. “Commander, are you telling me Madison is right? That you’re not Blue Shoes so Dayton must be, and he killed David Pace and Beth Crane?”

  Talbot’s face leaked its color and all emotion left him. The man was now buried, leaving only the commander. “I’m saying I don’t believe Crawford is Blue Shoes.”

  “Are you convinced Dayton isn’t?”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched. Talbot clamped his jaw. “Dayton is my vice, Grant.”

  He hadn’t answered the question. Not condemning his second-in-command, but he sure hadn’t defended him. Did that mean he truly believed Dayton was innocent? Or was Talbot just following protocol—guilty until proven innocent?

  Only he knew, and clearly he had revealed all he intended to on the matter. Given no choice, Grant accepted that, and moved on. “You’re afraid the real Blue Shoes will come after Madison.”

  Concern flickered in Talbot’s eyes, then deepened and poured over into his voice. “Aren’t you?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know what to think.”

  The commander shared specifics about the evidence against Madison, ending with, “There’s no doubt she was spying on the Nest. We have her on camera. There’s no disputing the physical evidence.”

  There wasn’t.

  “But her motivation will factor,” Talbot said. “So while that’s significant, it’s not what troubles me most.”

  How could there possibly be more? Grant was already mentally staggering.

  Talbot worried his lower lip, studied Grant a long moment, sizing him up, then added, “Early this morning I received a briefing that made getting Madison here quickly critical. A call from the warden at the Florida State Prison.”

  Chills raced up and down Grant’s spine. “Crawford?”

  Talbot nodded. “About four this morning, Gary Crawford was found murdered in his jail cell.”

  Grant absorbed the shock. Madison’s warning replayed in his mind. She’d said that if Talbot or Dayton were guilty of murdering Pace and Crane, then Gary Crawford would be killed to silence him. She’d said the commanders wouldn’t risk Crawford recanting his confessions. At the time, Grant had thought if she was right, Crawford’s days were numbered.

  And they had been.

  So Madison had been right about Crawford. Did that make her right about Talbot or Dayton? Or did they have a different suspect on their hands?

  “I’ve restricted access to Madison,” Talbot said, interrupting Grant’s thoughts. “No one is permitted near her except you and Major Beecher.”

  “Me?” Shock streaked up Grant’s back. “But, sir, she probably thinks I turned her in to you. She’s not going to cooperate with me.” And why Beecher? He was an explosives specialist. He wasn’t... Wait. Talbot trusted him. He trusted them both.

  “I said, only you and Beecher,” Talbot repeated. “Do I need to make that a direct order, Major?”

  Resignation seeped in and settled into his every cell. Any hope for Madison and him as a couple died. His heart ached, hollowed. “Yes, sir.” Grant hiked his chin. “A direct order might help.” If Dayton pushed to see her, Grant would need it.

  “Then that’s a direct order, Major. No one else gets close to Madison McKay—and I do mean no one.”

  Dayton. Maybe others. “I understand, sir.”

  Talbot’s mask slid. “I am sorry, Grant. I know what it’s like to care about someone and be in a...bad position.”

  Mrs. Renault. He didn’t have to say her name for Grant to know what he meant. “Yes, sir.” Grant stood up. “Is that it?”

  “For now.” Talbot lifted his chin. “Report to the cellblock. Major Beecher is manning it now. You two can work out a schedule—one of you stays with her all the time. He’ll direct you to her.”

  “How long will she be detained?” That would be the first question out of her mouth—after she stopped screaming at Grant for betraying her. Would she even hear his explanations? Doubtful.

  “Indefinitely.”

  FOUR

  Madison stood in the middle of her six-by-eight jail cell. She’d been blindfolded and guided here and only when inside the cell had the blindfold been removed.

  That’s when the panic really started. She’d done every relaxation exercise she’d ever learned and, while the images of her cell in Afghanistan weren’t bleeding into the images of this one anymore, the feelings she’d had at being held against her will had returned full force.

  A narrow cot, a toilet behind a short cinder-block wall. Nothing else. Not one other thing in this cell. She stared at the ceiling light—the old-type bare lightbulb—in the aisle between the two long rows of cells and tried to comfort herself. No scorpions or spiders, no crushing heat. This space was climate controlled, a comfortable seventy-five degrees, and the large grate embedded in the white ceiling was a potent reminder that this was not Afghanistan. Even at night her Afghan cell had been hot and the ceiling had been rock, the floor dirt and hard, not tiled. No natural light penetrated into this cell or slanted down the center, no fresh air flowed in from outside. The bars were heavy steel, not wood. This cell had to be in a vault above ground...or in an underground bunker.

  That realization sobered her. Please, don’t let it be at the Nest. Please.

  So far, she’d spotted two cameras fixed in her direction. Talbot’s minions were watching her every move. She refused to pace or to give in to fear. Mrs. Renault knew she was here. She’d do something. She’d tell Grant—she’d brought him out to the Nest, hadn’t she? He’d do something...if he hadn’t helped put her in here.

  Had he been playing her for a fool all along, worming his way into her heart to get her to trust him, only to betray her?

  No. He’d accepted her Purple Heart.

  She took in three deep breaths, then let them out slowly and rubbed her arms, chasing away the goose bumps that peppered her flesh. Believing the worst about Grant would be so easy. As easy as it had been to be bitter with God for not sparing her the experience of being a POW. Maybe she needed the wisdom gained then for what was happening now? God had deserved better than bitterness. She prayed for forgiveness for not seeing that before now.

  God and Grant deserved better than bitterness and distrust, and so did she. She wouldn’t fall into that trap.

  Yet Grant had warned her to trust her instincts. Had he meant for her not to trust him? Her thoughts flitted all over the place, bringing questions and doubts but no answers.

  It had been hours since Dayton and Lieutenant Blake had slammed the cell door behind her. She hadn’t seen a soul since then. This had to be the Nest. Where else would Talbot hold her and be certain no one else came around? Certainly not at the main installation’s brig. It’d be bustling with activity. This cellblock was deserted, except for her. It had to be at a remote location, and nowhere was as remote as inside the Nest.

  Maybe Mrs. Renault had already gone to Talbot to find out where Madison was and why she’d been brought in. Surely she had. What kind of reception would she get?

  Not knowing, Madison didn’t even know what to pray for on this. Talbot, and not Dayton, had ordered her detained. Would going to him be a wise or foolish move? Clueless, she lifted her gaze toward the ceiling. The greater good, God. I don’t know what help I need, but You do. I—I—

  Footsteps sounded in the aisle. “Madison.”

  She looked down and through the bars, stunned silent. Grant? He was the last person she expected to see here—and the last person she wanted to see.

  Betrayed.

  He searched her face. “Are you all
right?”

  Madison didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Grant. Here? He knew not only about the Nest but stood deep within its bowels—where else could this be—and he was wearing his military uniform. The truth slammed into her. Traitor. Betrayal stung her again and pain sliced through her heart “You lied to me.”

  “Yes.” He flinched, his eyes shining overly bright. “As little as possible,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you.” He mouthed, You’re being monitored. He shifted his gaze left, then right.

  She’d already pegged the two cameras aimed at her cell from the center aisle ceiling and blinked once. He’d recognize her Yes response.

  Logically, she knew he’d had to keep his active-duty status from her, but it didn’t do a thing to make her feel better. She turned her back to him and the cameras. “Was it all a lie?” When he didn’t answer, she looked back over her shoulder at him.

  No. He again mouthed the word, keeping his back to the cameras’ watchful lenses. He stepped closer to the bars, shielding his hand with his body. “Do you need anything?” He wiggled his fingertip, motioned her closer.

  She stepped up to the bars. “Water would be good.” He pressed something through the bars. Her Purple Heart.

  Tears threatened. She sucked in a sharp breath.

  Look at it later, he silently mouthed.

  Again she blinked. She pulled the pink rubbing stone out of her pocket, tried to pass it to him. That Major Beecher had let her keep it surprised her. It was the first bit of good anything that had happened today.

  “Keep it.” Grant refused to take it.

  He still trusted her, and wordlessly reiterated his warning to her to trust her instincts. She slipped both the medal and the stone into her pocket.

  “Have you eaten?”

  This wasn’t natural. It wasn’t normal. Her feelings were so jumbled she didn’t know whether to kiss him or knock his lights out. “You owe me an explanation.”

  “The only one I can give you, you won’t like.”

  “I’d like to hear it anyway.”

  Regret flashed through his eyes. “Orders, Madison. You wore the uniform. You know how it is.”