All Due Respect by Vicki Hinze Read Free Book Online Page A

thick are the walls in this place?”
    “Well over eighteen feet.”
    Not an exact response, which meant he had no intention of stating specifics, but the footage cited was thick enough to sustain a direct hit from any missile known to man, except for the Rogue, without concerns of penetration compromising the vault’s integrity.
    The double doors closed behind them. Julia looked around. Offices on the outer perimeter, the inner lab in the center of the complex. A handful of men and women sat at their workstations. Same gray tile floors and white walls as everywhere else, but the lab didn’t feel abandoned. Pulsating energy, it felt alive.
    “Come on,” Seth said. “I’ll give you the nickel tour. Maybe we’ll run into Dempsey.”
    “Who’s Dempsey?” Julia looked at the lab tables with pure envy. Everything imaginable, right at the fingertips. And for the thousandth time, she felt that hollow ache of loss at having to leave her work behind. The lab had been the one place she had felt comfortable. The one place she hadn’t felt compelled to lock doors and constantly look back over her shoulder.
    The only place she had been safe.
    “Dempsey Morse,” Seth said, pausing at the water fountain to get a quick drink. “He represents Sheer Industries on the team.”
    Home Base’s contractor. “Ah, I see.”
    “We have a briefing set up for ten. You’ll definitely meet him then. I think you’ll like him. Dempsey’s sharp. A UCLA graduate with about twenty years’ experience. A little gruff, but a good man to have on our side.”
    “Sounds charming.”
    “Right.”
    Ignoring him, Julia looked around. Three offices, a conference room, an employee’s lounge, several sets of rest rooms, a showering facility, and a detox sterilization chamber formed the outer perimeter, and the hub—the inner
    lab—at the complex’s center. An admin section stood in the southeast corner, across from the three offices. In it, she saw an unmanned desk—administrative assistance was banned in the inner lab—a keyed copier that tracked who made copies, when, how many, and of what, and a one-way fax. Anything could come into the Black Box, but nothing went out.
    “The computers in here are on a closed system,” Seth said. “No networking to the outside, no Internet access. We have two offices outside the vault with access and email. You can use those, but on nothing regarding the project, of course.”
    “Electronic mail wasn’t a big deal before I left.”
    “It is now.”
    As she had thought. In three years, a lot had changed.
    Seth ducked in through an open door. “Your office. Mine’s next door.”
    “Terrific.” She stepped inside and sat down at her desk. It felt good. Strange, but good. Almost like home.
    “Why don’t you settle in? Files on the desk there relate to the project and team members. Specific project files, you’ll have to sign out one by one. Greta handles that for us. You’ll meet her at the briefing.”
    “Fine.”
    A frown knit Seth’s brow. He seemed hesitant. Finally, he worked his way up to asking what he wanted to know. “Julia, why have you dropped—” He stopped suddenly. “Never mind.”
    He looked at her, seeking encouragement to finish his question. Knowing what it was—why she’d dropped Karl’s surname—she didn’t give it.
    “Well.” He motioned to the far wall. “Conference room is on the other side of the lab. See you there at ten.”
    Julia nodded, and then watched him through the glass wall, giving her a view of the lab. He walked straight to his office. Seth had done everything in the world to make her comfortable—at the apartment and here. He even had quelled his curiosity about her name change. Grateful for
    that small mercy, she shoved her hair back from her face and looked around.
    The office was decent. About twenty feet long and twelve wide. Tiled, like everything else, but the far white wall had been decorated with a mural of an English garden. Pretty