“You what?” Meredith looked like she was about to come out of her chair.
And, wow, Taylor had to admit, she’d never seen her boss look so completely vexed at her. That was saying something since Taylor had a way of vexing most everyone.
“Like I said, this break-in is the direct cause of my investigation yesterday, I’m sure of it. I’m also sure the perp was too good to leave behind fingerprints, so let’s not worry about that. Dottie Hernandez is the manager of the TriCare Birthing Center where Felicity and Walt made plans to have their child. It caters to the rich and famous and, according to what Mrs. Hernandez explained to me yesterday, they create binders for each mother that contains numerous pages of personal information on everyone involved, right down to the people who might visit after the kid’s born. They say it’s for security, but that kind can backfire if it falls into the wrong hands.”
“What does that have to do with Felicity’s kidnapping?” The words were clipped. “And who is this friend you had fingerprint your place? Please tell me it wasn’t Grey.”
“Believe it or not, I do have law enforcement friends outside of this office, and no, it wasn’t Grey.” She didn’t have any friends in law enforcement outside of Matt, but Mer certainly didn’t need to know that. “The Jarvis baby could still be alive and Felicity may have been picked by our perp because of a dozen things, all listed in her TriCare birth planner. He learned all he needed to know about Felicity and Baby Jarvis from it. They were handpicked for a reason, and if I can figure out what that is, I can track down our killer.”
Mer tipped back in her chair and studied Taylor. Taylor could almost see the imaginary steam pouring from her ears. “You have less than 12 hours to take solid findings to AD Cunningham, or he’s going to pull the plug on your investigation. Do you really want to waste that time talking to this Hernandez woman?”
There were two types of FBI agents. Guys like Mitch who always had a smartass comment and their own agenda for solving cases, and guys like Justice Greystone, who were levelheaded and smart when dealing with superiors.
The Mitch Monroes typically didn’t last long, but for a moment, Taylor sympathized with them. She wanted to rail against the injustice of AD Cunningham’s demand and Mer for taking his side in their last meeting. Meredith knew Taylor was a damn good agent and would bleed for the Bureau. This case, because it involved a United States senator and the media, was interfering with the search for justice.
A dozen reasons why questioning Dottie Hernandez was exactly what she wanted to do in her last 12 hours skittered through Taylor’s head. In fact, they damn near begged her to channel Mitch Monroe and say them out loud. Instead, she chose the smart, professional, Justice Greystone route, “Yes, ma’am. I do.”
Grey would be so proud.
Meredith shook her head, her gaze dropping to her desktop as she let go of a pained sigh. “I can’t fucking believe this, but it’s your neck, Taylor.”
Disappointment hung in the air between them. Resignation.
Red-hot anger underneath it all.
Taylor wasn’t the shining star in Meredith’s crown anymore and the realization stung, but it was just another wound in her growing list of them.
I need a drink.
Or Matt. Mad Dog had a way of soothing her like nothing else.
If she stuck her neck out too far, she would get her head cut off. Which meant no more Jarvis case. No more grooming to take over Mer’s spot.
One mistake. That’s all it took in the cutthroat world of the Bureau to ruin a career.
Mitch had done it. So had Grey eventually, because he was loyal to Mitch and their friendship.
Taylor wasn’t throwing her career away for a friend or any other noble cause.
Except justice.
Is there anything more noble?
“I’m going to find that child,” Taylor said, standing up. “And when I do, we’ll have our killer.”
“You better hope so,” Mer called as Taylor exited her office. “Because you’ve definitely murdered your career over this.”
For half a second, Taylor hesitated. Then she turned back. “This job used to be about bringing criminals to justice and handing them over to the courts for retribution, not how many likes the Bureau gets on Facebook or the spin a bunch of reporters put on a story.”
Mer did come out of her seat this time. She balled her fists and leaned on her desk, eyes nearly bugging out of her head. “Don’t lecture me on the morality of this institution, Agent Sinclair, or I will personally take your badge and gun and escort you from this building.”
Fidelity, bravery, integrity. Taylor wasn’t quite sure where those principles were hiding these days in the halls of the FBI. But she took a step back and gave her boss—her used to be mentor—a nod of acquiescence. Meredith wasn’t just threatening to take the case away; she was threatening to fire her lead cold case closer.
That took some giant-sized balls.
“Yes, ma’am.” Taylor fought to keep the Mitch Monroe tone out of her voice. “I’ll get back to work.”
In the elevator on the way down to her office, Taylor felt a certain euphoria, which was weird, considering she’d just pissed off her boss for the third day in a row.
On the plus side, she had Mer’s grudging approval to bring Dottie in and question her officially.
Things are about to get real.
Leaving the elevator, she checked her messages. Matt had called three times, all voicemails short and succinct. “Call me.”
From the terse urgency in his voice, Taylor’s euphoria dissipated.
Something was wrong.
She closed her door and dialed his number. “Hey, what’s up?” she said when he answered.
His voice lacked his usual calm. “The sticker on the truck. Do you have anything in your files about it?”
“What sticker?” Taylor went to her desk. Files and half-empty coffee cups littered the top. She cleared away a couple of piles and dragged out the fat Felicity Jarvis folder. “I assume we’re talking about Felicity’s kidnapper’s truck?”
“Walt said in an interview with Charlie that Felicity mentioned a sticker on the truck. Charlie talked to Walt initially, before she handed the investigation over to me last year. Do you have anything in your file about it?”
Taylor frowned, flipping open the main folder and skipping to the transcript of Walt’s initial interview with Grey. “I don’t remember anything about a sticker on the truck. Why? What’s got you all fired up about a truck sticker?”
“Walt never told me about any sticker, but he told Charlie about it in detail, including that it was an eagle with a God Bless America sentiment written on it. It was located on the lower right back window.”
“O-kay.” She wasn’t sure where this was going, although any lead at this point was good with her. “And you believe this has some significance?”
“Not sure what, but it seems weird to me that Felicity noticed the sticker and Walt mentioned it to Charlie and the PD detectives, but then didn’t say anything to me about it. I don’t know. I may be reaching. It could be nothing.”
She read quickly, skimming over Grey’s notes inserted in the transcript. “There’s nothing in the transcript I have about a sticker. Nothing that Grey added in his notes. Walt said Felicity told him it was a silver pickup, but she didn’t mention the make or model. No other details, other than she’d seen it more than once following her. I can look through the rest of the notes if you want.”
A heavy silence came from his end of the phone. “Do it in the car. I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”
“Where are we—”
The line went dead.
“…going?” she finished to the sound of dead air.
She was running low on time, Dottie’s interview still waited, and a small detail like this seemed insignificant.
But Matt was an ace investigator, and this seemingly insignificant detail could blow the investigation wide open. She’d seen it before.
Her own team had solved a crime from 1978 with a parking ticket.
Cramming the Jarvis folder and her stack of notes into her briefcase, she went downstairs to wait for him.
* * *
Matt and Taylor sat in front of a giant whiteboard in Grey’s office. Well, the office being made up of a recycled metal desk, squeaky chair, and a large decorative screen separating his workspace from the rest of his team. The giant rolling whiteboard now sat in a large open area near the windows on the south side of the room.
Justice rolled his desk chair over, but didn’t sit. He went straight to the board and drew four columns. “What exactly do we think we have here?”
This from Mitch who stood beside Taylor, feet at shoulder-width, arms crossed over his chest. For whatever reason, Mitch didn’t like Matt.
Ask him if he cared.
Maybe it was because Matt had gone to the dark side and become a private investigator. Cops didn’t like PIs. They saw them as wannabes, people who didn’t have the stones to get through the academy or, if they did graduate, couldn’t survive the job. In the world of law enforcement, you were either in or out. He’d, according to many of his former law enforcement brethren, sold out. When he’d left the PD, most of his friends and acquaintances dropped away. The true friends though, they’d stayed and he’d always be grateful for their loyalty.
The rest? He’d given up worrying about it. Working cold cases with the sisters allowed him to do the work he loved, to make a damned difference. Allowed him to sleep at night. In his mind, that’s all that mattered.
Matt wandered to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. “I don’t know what we have. That’s why we’re here. We figured with Grey’s history on the case, maybe he could help us piece it out.”
At the top of each column, Matt wrote Felicity, Walt, Baby, and Birthing Center.
“The sticker,” Taylor said. “Grey, do you remember anything about a sticker on the rear window of the truck?”
Grey shook his head. “No. And I’d remember. The small details make cases like this and with the number of silver trucks out there, I’d have chased that.”
Recapping the marker, Matt tapped it against the board. “And, we’re talking more than seven years ago. What are the chances that silver truck is still owned by the same person and has the sticker?”
“It’s a stretch.” Taylor held up the blue folder from the birthing center. “Grey, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but it’s the welcome kit Dottie Hernandez distributed at the open house. If all the forms are completed, the birthing center basically has an entire family history. Including medical and photos.”
“And they need all that, why?”
Matt shrugged. “They say it’s preparation for medical emergencies and security. If family members want to visit, they check the photos on file to make sure it’s really them. I get it, but it’s not sitting right with me.”
Once again, Taylor held up the folder. “If this information landed in the wrong hands, say a kidnapper’s, they’d have an entire medical history for the baby.”
Grey’s lips tipped into a frown. “Makes black market adoptions a cake walk.”
Matt poked his finger. “Bingo.”
“So let’s start running it down.”
On the board, Matt added a column for the Silver Pickup. “Justice, can you pull a list of silver trucks in say, a hundred mile radius? We’d need current and from eight years ago.”
“Teeg,” Grey yelled, “did you get that?”
The Justice Team’s resident Geek Boy was already pounding away on his keyboard. “I’m on it.”
“And,” Taylor snapped her fingers, “how about we run a crosscheck on vehicles owned by employees of the birthing center?”
Good thought. Matt waved the marker. “We could pull employment records for the center to get a list of employees. If they have any illegals, it won’t be accurate, but it’s a start.”
“Good luck,” Monroe said. “It’d be an early Christmas if you guys scored on that.”
Matt angled back, shot him a look. “Hey, it’s a start. Are you gonna help or be a dick about it?”
“He’s gonna be a dick about it. That is his way of helping,” Grey cracked.
Whatever.
Mitch flipped Grey off. “All I’m saying is it’s a long shot. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you sort through the list.”
Well, that was something. Matt met the man’s gaze and nodded. “Thank you. Appreciate it.”
“If the truck is a bust,” Grey said, “what then?”
Taylor held up her hand. “The employees. We run backgrounds on all of them. See if there’s even a sliver of impropriety.”
“Easy enough,” Matt agreed. “We can start on that while we’re working the list of trucks.”
“I can do that,” Taylor said. “The clock is ticking on my deadline. Monroe, if you’ll start on the trucks, Matt and I will run down the employees.”
“Dottie Hernandez,” Matt said. “Let’s start with her. See what’s what there. Then we’ll run financials on everyone.”
“I’ll take those,” Grey said. “I can do it on the down low.”
“Thank you, Grey.”
“No sweat. This case has bugged me for the past eight years.”
“Got it!” Teeg said. “I’m printing you a list of silver pickups.”
“How many?”
“Not too bad. Only twenty-five hundred.”
Twenty-five hundred? What the hell did he consider bad?
“Teeg,” Matt said, “the window decal was a bald eagle. What’s the chance you can figure out if any of the owners of those trucks are former military?”
Teeg glanced at Grey. Yeah, Matt knew what he was asking. He wanted Teeg to hack into military databases and crosscheck the names against the list of truck owners. Another option would be the IRS, but the military databases might be a whole lot faster.
With barely a nod, Grey approved the request.
“Oh, goodie,” Teeg said. “This should be fun.”
“Before you do that,” Matt said, “can you grab that list of employees from TriCenter? I’d like to take a crack at that while you’re working the military angle.”
“Sure. Any idea how many employees they have?”
Taylor flipped open the welcome kit and shuffled through pages. “Yes, I saw it in here. There’s a page that has all the stats about the center, history, number of births, employees, that sort of thing. Here it is.” She tugged the page out, set the folder on her lap with the information sheet on top and ran her finger along the margin as she read. “Looks like…twelve full-time staffers. But then there are all the doctors, including the anesthesiologists and nurses. We have the lists of all the medical personnel who have privileges at the center. I haven’t counted them, but I’d say it’s around fifty all combined.”
“Okay,” Matt said. “We need Teeg to pull us the full-timers. See if anything pops. Then we run the list of medical personnel in the welcome kit.”
Grey held out his hand and waggled his fingers. “Let me scan a copy of the medical staff. Teeg, if you have social security numbers on the admin folks, that’ll help.”
“No prob. What the hell, I’ll grab their tax returns. We’ve only broken a few dozen laws so far today.”
As whacky as this was, it was coming together. “We’re good to go then. I’ll work with Taylor on criminal backgrounds, Grey runs finances, and Monroe starts on the trucks.”
Taylor smacked her hands together. “Let’s do this, people.”
Chapter Twelve
It was well past midnight when Taylor left her office in the J. Edgar Building, heading for home. Mer didn’t seem to care what time it was since her voice on Taylor’s cell reached similar levels to the karaoke singer from the cold case conference last weekend.
“I need your report by eight a.m.,” Meredith said. “Not a second past.”
“I’ll have it to you.”
That would be a minor mir
acle, but what the hell. She was already in deep shit. At this moment, a slight exaggeration with her boss was the least of her worries.
And she was damned tired of Mer’s lack of faith in her.
Damned tired, period.
She needed a finger of scotch and eight—no, make that twelve—hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Not gonna happen.
She had a case to solve and a deadline to meet. She’d have to sleep when it was over.
By then, she’d probably be out of a job, so there’d be plenty of time for catching up on her ZZZs.
Matt didn’t want her to stay at her place tonight, but she’d be damned if she let someone scare her off for a second night.
Ditto on the not gonna happen.
She’d already had the security system company upgrade her alarm, and added motion sensors to all the windows. If anyone paid her another visit, she’d be waiting for them.
“Did you interview that woman, yet?” Mer continued. “What did she say? The birthing center is a dead end, isn’t it? I told you it was a waste of time.”
Oopsie. After the brainstorming party at the armory with Grey, Taylor had been anxious to keep digging and Matt had dropped her off at the Bureau so she could check in with her team and update them on the investigation while he went to check in with his bosses. Taylor got the feeling from the little he’d said about the situation they were none too happy that he was mingling work and pleasure with her.
Tough cookies. All these procedures and rules clamped down on their investigation when a child’s life might be hanging in the balance. For that, she’d risk it all.
No hesitation.
The parking garage was hot and humid even though the outside temp had dropped into the 70s. Her car was one of the few left on Parking Level C and her heels clicked on the concrete floor, echoing around the gloomy space.
The paperwork on the employees and military records of silver truck owners had been extensive and convoluted. Hours of weeding out possibilities Grey, Mitch, and Matt provided had narrowed it down to fewer than ten leads. More than manageable. “I’ll have all of my findings in tomorrow’s report,” she told her boss. It was the best she could do considering she hadn’t interviewed Dottie yet.
Missing Justice (The Justice Team Book 7) Page 15
