Chapter Five
The FBI conference room sprang to sudden life. While Russ was on the phone trying to find someone - anyone - who could authorize the opening of Claudia Spencer's grave, Steve (who was somewhat stoic now)arrived with the news that Claudia was dead.
"I just heard from Bethesda," Hansen told him. "Rudy Wells is fine, but they're keeping him overnight for observation, mainly due to his age."
Russ was still on the phone and about to reach his full-rage-mode when General Bailey walked in. "I don't care if he's in a private conference with God himself," Russ was shouting, "I need his permission to open a grave, and I need it yesterday!" The General took the phone from his hand and spoke very softly - but with an iron-tough edge - to the bureaucratic go-between on the other end.
"This is General Franklin Bailey, United States Air Force. Kindly remove your head from your other end and get this young man what he needs. I mean do it now!" Bailey nodded to Russ as he handed him the phone. He walked over to Steve and pulled him off to one side, placing a paternal hand on his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry about what's happened," he said in a much kinder voice than he'd just used on the phone. "I know how much Jaime means to you. Any leads at all?"
"Claudia admitted to kidnapping Jaime," Steve replied, almost choking with emotion as he said his wife's name. "She's claims to have turned her over to someone else - someone that she paid to...kill her."
"You found Claudia?"
"I was with Rudy Wells, and she found us. She tried to knock Rudy out with chloroform and was about to shoot me, but Rudy got her first."
"She's - dead?" Bailey asked.
"Yeah." Steve shook his head at the irony. "Here we are, about to dig up the month-old grave of a woman who just died today."
"Who did she turn Jaime over to? Did she say?"
"No."
Bailey patted Steve's shoulder. "I'll go and pull her expanded file; maybe it'll give us a clue. Not to worry, Steve - we'll have that little lady back in your arms in no time. I'll call as soon as I find something."
"I'll be back at the house," Steve told him. "There's gotta be something there that we've overlooked."
------
Jaime's captor was in a major hurry. He was losing in his race against time, and he knew it. Quickly, he parked his car out of sight, behind some trees at the edge of the forest. He took a shovel from the trunk and, after a few minutes, found his intended spot - a heart-breakingly ironic choice - and began to dig.
------
Steve wondered how a heart that was shattered could feel so heavy. He sat wearily in the easy chair, and tears filled his eyes as he looked up at the portrait above the mantle.
"I'm trying, Sweetheart - we're all trying to find you," he said to the woman in the picture and in his heart. "Oh, Jaime...where are you?" Images flooded his mind, even though he was wide awake: Jaime, hurt, tortured and bleeding, growing weaker by the minute, dying...
------
Steve's vision was closer to reality than he could possibly know. Jaime was growing weaker every minute as blood seeped out of the wound in her side. She seemed to be sideways in the box, so at least the back of her head was spared, for now. She was no longer able to isolate pain in her side, on her face, on her head; all Jaime knew was that she hurt. Her husband's face was affixed in her mind, and as the thick, suffocating blackness descended upon her, one lone thought echoed there: I love you, Steve.
------
Steve felt inexplicably drawn to the woods behind the house, to try and clear his head and feel a little more connected to his wife. He rested his hand on the back of one very special tree - the one on which he and Jaime had carved their names and the date when they'd returned home after their wedding. He ran his hand around the tree, tracing the carving on the other side before actually looking at it.
When he walked around to the other side, he somehow stopped just short of breaking his neck. Directly in front of him - in front of their tree - was a hole in the dirt, about 6 feet by 3 feet, and maybe 7 or 8 feet deep. It almost looked like...a grave, but Steve knew that grief was taking his imagination for a ride. If that damned utility company thought they could run cables through this woods, they were sorely mistaken. He would personally straighten them out - as soon as he found his wife.
------
Jaime's captor opened the hatch to find his prisoner had lost her battle against unconsciousness. Why wasn't she following the plan? She was supposed to be awake. It wouldn't be right for her to miss her own grand finale. He yanked her out by jerking on the handcuffs, slamming her head against the edge of the metal box before savagely throwing her to the floor. Jaime moaned softly and opened her eyes.
"That's better," he said with a sneer. "Did you think I was leaving you in there to bleed to death? Too easy. Not that I want you to suffer, Little lady, but your husband has some significant payback coming to him. Not to worry, though - it'll only hurt for a little while longer." He pulled a gun from his pocket. "Get up."
Jaime stared at him numbly. She couldn't even get her eyes to focus; there was no way she could stand. As she looked silently into the face of the man who was about to kill her, she took comfort in the knowledge that, one way or another, her ordeal was nearly over.
------
Steve sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, picking apart Claudia's words to try and find some sort of clue, but he was coming up with nothing. He was so deep in thought that he barely heard the phone ring. The OSI had pushed through a rush repair job on the phone line, attaching a tracer at the same time. Steve took a deep, steadying breath before answering.
"Hello?"
"I've dug your wife's grave." A voice, obviously disguised, spoke so softly that Steve had to strain to hear it. The sheer evil in the words made him shiver.
"Who are you? Where's -"
"Your wife? She's right here with me. Pretty little thing. Shame she's in so much pain."
"You son-of-a -"
"Now Colonel, watch that temper. You brought this on yourself, you know. But not to worry - she won't suffer much longer. It's time. See, I'm about to bury her alive."
Steve called Hansen immediately, but the caller hadn't been on the line long enough, and the trace had failed. "We may have something soon, though," Hansen said. "Russ & his team just broke ground at the gravesite..."
The gravesite! Steve thought to himself. That creep wouldn't have put Jaime in Claudia's grave, would he? It might've come to him sooner if he hadn't been so depleted, but suddenly everything gelled in Steve's head. "Jack, I gotta go!"
------