Missing Justice (The Justice Team Book 7)

by Adrienne Giordano

  A part of her cringed at that, Mer’s voice chiding her. The rebel in her told Mer to take a hike. “You told Matt this had to do with Felicity’s autopsy,” she said to Grey, “and you didn’t want to discuss it over the phone. What’s going on?”

  As if he had mental telepathy, Grey pointed at the center computer screen and the tech geek automatically hit two keys and voila, the ME’s report appeared.

  Grey’s finger went to a specific line on the report. “We have confirmation that Felicity did indeed give birth before she died.”

  The ME had sent the report to Grey first. Or maybe Taylor had the same thing waiting in her inbox. “So the baby could still be alive.”

  Matt scanned the report. “The kidnapper could have targeted Felicity to get the child.”

  “I’d say it’s more than a strong possibility,” Grey said. “And if that’s the case, my earlier suspicion that Senator Jarvis played a part in his wife’s disappearance may have been wrong.”

  Her gut may have been wrong, too, and the baby might be out there somewhere alive. Her brain made the calculations—the Jarvis child was no longer a baby. He’d been missing for approximately eight years. “If I find the child, I can find Felicity’s killer.”

  “She was definitely murdered.” Grey pointed to another section of the report and the tech guy zoomed in on it. “The forensic anthro found a nick on the hyoid bone in Felicity’s neck.”

  A second screen showed a photograph with an enhanced view of a bone. A red arrow pointed to a thin scratch.

  The coffee she’d sipped turned to acid in Taylor’s stomach. “Her throat was cut.”

  Grey nodded, looking grim. “Official cause of death at this point is speculated as loss of blood from the throat wound. For a nick to happen that deep, her carotid was severed. Dr. Smith, our ME, believes it was more of a jab, causing a deep laceration and the cut on the bone, than say, a slice across the trachea.”

  Tony joined them, holding a plastic knife. His hand went up, the tip poking the side of the tech guy’s neck, right under the jaw. “Like this?”

  “Hey!” The tech guy jerked his head away. “What the hell’s the matter with you, a-hole! I’m not your reenactment bitch.”

  “Jesus, Teeg,” Gerard said, drawing the knife away. “Don’t be such a pansy.”

  Grey waggled his fingers at Gerard and the man brought the plastic knife to Grey’s throat in the same spot. “The weapon had to be sharp, but thin, and went through the carotid all the way to the hyoid.”

  The weapon could tell her a lot about the killer. “Did Dr. Smith have any idea what type of knife was used?” Taylor asked.

  Gerard let his hand fall. Grey pointed at the report one more time. “She couldn’t list anything conclusive, but she did have an idea.”

  “What?” Matt asked. He’d finished his donut and had a spot of icing on the corner of his mouth that Taylor wished she could lick off. “Must have been a skinny blade from the size of that cut. Either that, or only the tip of the knife made that nick.”

  Grey sipped his coffee as the third screen filled with pictures of a particular type of blade that made Taylor’s gut tighten. “Seriously?”

  Matt’s jaw jumped. “Is that a scalpel?”

  “Sure is,” Grey confirmed. “It’s difficult from a single, tiny nick to determine a conclusive weapon, but I’ve found it’s rare for Dr. Smith to be wrong about her hunches.”

  Matt blew out a long, slow breath. “Surgeons, the ME, all the medical teaching hospitals in the area…hell, even veterinarians use scalpels. Might as well be a hunting knife that Wal-Mart sells for all the good that does us.”

  Taylor didn’t see it that way. “It’s a starting point we didn’t have before.”

  Grey wasn’t a smiler, so when his lips twitched slightly, Taylor took it as a sign he agreed with her. From the look in Matt’s eyes, he did too.

  “I’ll take a copy of the report to Walt first thing this morning,” Matt said. “Taylor, you’re welcome to come with me. Then I suggest we pay a visit to Felicity’s OB/GYN. Start ruling out any and all medical personnel who came in contact with her.”

  Taylor already had her no-longer-dead cell phone out, hitting the speed dial button for Beckett as she walked away from the huddle around Teeg.

  “Greetings, fair lady,” Beck said, yawning. “I had a twenty on you calling before four a.m. You did stay up all night working on the Jarvis case, didn’t you? I thought for sure you’d have orders for me before now.”

  She’d been up, all right, but not working per se. Damn Matt. She glanced back and saw he was still talking to Grey and Gerard. “We need to attack this from a fresh angle. Let’s see what we find if we start investigating the missing child instead.”

  “But we don’t know anything about the kid—what he looked liked, how much he weighed. Hell, we don’t even know if it was a boy or girl.”

  “The Jarvises were expecting a boy. It’s in Felicity’s medical records that Grey got his hands on during the initial investigation. Check out that report. And we do know a few things about the kid based on his parents’ genes. He was—is—”

  “Is? You really think the kid is still alive?”

  “I’d bet my badge on it and we can find him. He’s a Caucasian child who most likely has blond or light brown hair and blue eyes. His father has a cleft in his chin; the kid will too—simple biology. And at Felicity’s last checkup, the child was estimated to weigh nearly eight pounds. He should have been born in September or October of 2009. I want a list of every baby boy in this area born during those two months.”

  Beck let go of a whistle. “You got it boss. When will you be in?”

  Taylor watched as Matt started striding toward her, the same look of grim determination on his face as she felt in her chest. “I’m going to pay Walt Jarvis a visit and then I’m heading to the hospital. I have a baby to find.”

  * * *

  Walt was in a meeting. Despite his wife’s remains being found and needing to plan a proper burial, the senator took his civic duty seriously and was up on the Hill with the Senate majority leader.

  Which didn’t please Matt, and certainly pissed off Taylor, but ballsy or not, she wasn’t about to go busting into the highest-ranking United States senator’s office to interrogate a grieving husband.

  “He didn’t kill her,” Matt said, firing up the Mustang after they left Jarvis’s office.

  “I want to believe that, but he’s not acting the grief-stricken husband he claims to be right now.”

  “First of all, she’s been gone nearly eight years. Second of all, men grieve differently. We’re all about distraction, keeping our minds active so we don’t have to deal with pain-in-the-ass emotional crap. That’s how ninety-percent of us operate.” He whipped off a toothy smile. “Being the crack investigator you are, you should know that.”

  “I do know that. And, being the crack investigator you are, you know the husband is always a suspect.” She returned the toothy smile. “So, I’m still looking at him even though my murder weapon may be a scalpel and I have a missing child on my hands.”

  Yeah, the husband always got a look. Matt himself had done the due diligence on that before signing on for this assignment. A dead woman was one thing. A dead pregnant woman was another. It made his insides boil and he had to be sure, before getting into Walt’s corner, the man was innocent. Nothing in Matt’s investigation indicated Walt could be a murderer.

  Nothing.

  And Matt had torn the guy’s life apart. Then did it again. If Walt had secrets that Matt didn’t find, the man had done a bang-up job of hiding them.

  Taylor seemed so sure though. At least she had been until the scalpel had become their smoking gun. But even though Walt had no history of education or work experience where he might have used one, Taylor still liked the man as a suspect.

  She was too professional to base her suspicions on simply disliking him. Not Taylor. Justice had to prevail, regardless of her own feelings
about a person.

  And her close rate was a thing of beauty. You didn’t get to be the FBI’s hottest closer by making mistakes.

  Which made him wonder if he could have missed something with Walt. He drove on in silence, his mind whirling, working through every bit of intel he could remember.

  He’s clean.

  Had to be. If he wasn’t, Matt would be faced with another career failure and it would only compound the fact that he hadn’t made the cut for Quantico.

  No. The guy was clean. He knew it. Knew it.

  He merged into traffic and headed for St. Mary’s Hospital. “We’ll hit Felicity’s hospital first. Then we can visit the rest. The others are a long shot, but you never know. Hell, they’re all long shots. If she was in labor, her kidnapper wouldn’t bring her to a DC hospital, period, especially not where her OB is on staff. Not a senator’s wife whose picture had been all over the news. He—”

  “Or she. Could be a woman.”

  “Or she, would take Felicity some place out of the way where she wouldn’t be recognized.”

  “Our unsub may have had medical training and delivered the baby himself, then killed Felicity and dumped her body.”

  Another possibility.

  Taylor was in full-blown agent mode. “When you investigated, did you find evidence of marital problems?”

  He glanced over at her. “Why are you harping on Walt if you think the killer had experience with a scalpel?”

  “Walt had the finances to hire someone to kidnap and kill her. Maybe the baby was a bonus. White, male babies bring good money on the black market.”

  She had more experience with that then he did, but it still made his skin crawl. “That’s a horrible suggestion. Do you have a reason I don’t know about from your investigation that suggests Walt and Felicity weren’t happily married?”

  “No. Which is why I’m asking. Everything I have indicates they were happy. No mistresses, no boy toys. Just an up-and-coming power couple about to have a baby. These two were the modern day Kennedys. Everyone loved them.”

  “And that makes you suspicious?”

  “Is anyone’s life that perfect? He did remarry as soon as he could have her declared legally dead. Maybe Ann was waiting in the wings the entire time.”

  She had a point there. But he didn’t want to believe the Jarvis’s marriage had been fucked up enough that Walt would hire someone to get rid of her and sell their child. “It seemed too perfect to me, too, at first. When I couldn’t find any fucking around, I switched to the possibility of abuse.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. I went through bank records, credit card receipts, medical visits, everything. If either one of them was spending money trying to cover an affair or spousal abuse, I couldn’t find it.”

  “Neither did Grey when he originally worked the case. I’ve reviewed all those avenues as well and found nothing suspicious.” She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a thin manila folder. She flipped open the file and studied something inside. “According to Felicity’s OB, her mother never went with her, and with Walt’s schedule, he missed a lot of her prenatal appointments. We should probably talk to her doctor and any nurses who were on staff at that time.”

  “Good thought, but been there, done that. I spoke with her OB last year. He said Felicity went to the appointments with Walt or alone. She liked her privacy. From what I’ve heard, if she ever got bad news, she didn’t want anyone else hearing it. She was worried about tabloids.”

  “Oh, Lord. It wasn’t as if People magazine was banging down their door.”

  “Whatever, Taylor. Her husband was a public figure. She wanted her privacy.”

  Matt pulled into the hospital parking garage, grabbed the first available space and they made their way through the maze of security that would allow them onto the obstetrics floor. The various elevators and multiple entries with crisscrossing hallways should have scared off would-be criminals. A guy needed a damned map for the place.

  “Now that we’re here,” Taylor said, “I remember how tight security is.”

  St. Mary’s was a private hospital smack-dab in the middle of DC that catered to politicians, high-ranking White House officials, big shot CEOs, you name it. If they had pull in this town, St. Mary’s Hospital was the place to go. It took private to another level.

  The first time Matt had come here, he’d been shut down cold. Didn’t even make it past the first security gate. Walt Jarvis had rectified that right quick by taking care of the necessary HIPPA forms that would give Matt access to his wife’s files.

  Taylor stepped off the elevator with him and was greeted by another security guard in front of the giant wooden doors leading into the OB unit. No commercial grade doors here. After a quick check of IDs, the guard pushed a button and the doors swung open.

  “Nurse’s station is on the left,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Taylor hooked her badge on her waistband and adjusted it so anyone within three feet would see it. She knew the drill and Matt was equal parts turned on and envious.

  Not so much the FBI part, but the badge. So much of his life had been spent around law enforcement that the badge had become a part of him. At least until the homicide rate in DC spiked and the emotional toll wore on him.

  Still, he missed it. The ability to serve.

  He followed Taylor to the nurse’s station, a series of oversized counters and desks that formed a large circle in the center of the ward. An older woman, Marge, according to her nametag, in a pair of purple scrubs sat entering something into one of the computers.

  “Good morning.”

  Taylor forced a smile, but the fatigue in her eyes, the puffiness, told a different story. The dead on her feet kind.

  “I’m Special Agent Taylor Sinclair.” She slid the badge from her waistband and let the nurse take a good long look. “This is Matt Stephens.”

  No badge for Matt, but Taylor wasn’t stupid. Alerting the nurse he wasn’t a fed would mess up a potentially good opportunity for fact gathering.

  “How can I help you?”

  “We’re investigating the Felicity Jarvis case.”

  “Oh, that poor woman. I saw they found her remains. What a tragedy.”

  Taylor nodded. “We’re re-interviewing anyone who may have had contact with her. I know it was a long time ago, but is there anyone here who might remember her?”

  “Me,” Marge said. “I’ve been here fifteen years.”

  Now this was lucky. “Great,” Matt said.

  “I can’t really give you any information though. Not without permission.”

  Matt waggled a finger. “If you look it up, you’ll see Senator Jarvis has given permission to share his wife’s medical records with me.”

  Marge put her fingers to work on her keyboard, then studied the screen. “Can I see some ID?”

  Matt whipped out his driver’s license and Marge checked his personal info against the hospital’s files.

  Handing him back the license, she nodded. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you. I might have to get my supervisor.”

  “If you need to, you can do that, of course. In the meantime, Senator Jarvis indicated this was the hospital where Felicity’s doctor—Morton—had privileges. Is that correct?”

  “Still does. His office is right down the street at the TriCenter Birthing Clinic. That’s where he delivers most of the babies. He’s the best. The running joke around here is he should have top level clearance considering all the high-powered babies he’s delivered.”

  “I see,” Taylor said. “He wasn’t her original doctor though. She switched to Morton.”

  “Well, I’m not sure about that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Why is that?”

  The nurse glanced around, then lowered her voice. “Felicity came through here a couple of times toward the end of her pregnancy. I remember it because it was a few weeks before she disappeared.”

  “Yes,” Taylor said. “I saw in her file
that she was admitted.”

  Marge nodded. “She was having trouble urinating. They had to put a catheter in to alleviate the problem. It happened twice. She was admitted both times. She hated the hospital. Dr. Morton explained the advantages of having her baby at the birthing center and she decided to go there for her delivery. She signed up for the Presidential Suite, I heard. I used to help out with their Lamaze classes and I know Dottie Hernandez, the manager. She was thrilled to get Felicity signed up.”

  “Really?”

  A tired smile quirked Marge’s lips. “The Presidential Suite is big bucks, but it’s the best money can buy. It’s the one the VIPs use. They have to pay out of pocket for most of it because insurance won’t cover the entire cost.”

  Taylor looked at Matt who rolled his eyes. Who cared what the room looked like as long as they got a healthy baby out of it? “So,” he asked, “Felicity wanted to see the Presidential?”

  “Yes. And the next day, I saw that Morton’s nurse called and reserved it for October 12th.”

  Matt cocked his head. “Scheduled it? Like a dental exam?”

  Poker face firmly in place, Taylor contemplated that. “She wanted a C-section.”

  Another nurse swung into the pit area and Marge paused. The second nurse grabbed a chart from one of the bins on the desk and walked off. Once the woman was out of earshot, Marge looked up at Matt and Taylor again.

  “Some of these young mothers with their careers and powerful husbands schedule their babies like they do a haircut. Felicity was rich and wanted to be sure she had dibs on that suite, so she scheduled a C-section with the anesthesiologist, doctor, and the birthing team she wanted. I remember her the few times she showed up for the Lamaze group. She was likeable enough, but so spoiled. She had been a ballet dancer, you know. Said she didn’t want to wreck her hips, even if she never danced again. She rarely showed up for the classes, but I guess when you can hire a team to make the birthing process fast and easy, you don’t worry about learning how to breathe through a contraction.”

  This nurse had obviously remembered Felicity as more than the senator’s missing wife, and a scheduled C-section at a posh, private birthing center only confirmed that Felicity had not been some disgruntled housewife who’d run away and ended up dead. They had her bones and confirmation that she’d been murdered after the birth of her child. But why? Was the murderer here? Someone who’d interacted with her, knew she was close to term, and kidnapped her to get to her baby?