Missing Justice (The Justice Team Book 7)

by Adrienne Giordano

  Besides, Meg’s office doubled as a secondary art studio and, like her vehicle, she needed all the room she could get.

  “Hey, Matt.” Charlie’s voice drifted down the hallway, the echo gobbled up by the thick carpeting and array of Meg-created artwork lining the steel-gray walls.

  Meg had given him a whole dissertation on the whys and hows of steel gray, but he was a guy. What the hell did he care what color the walls were?

  He stopped at the first open door, found Meg, as usual, putting her hands to work. Today’s project? A skull reconstruction.

  Entering the office, Matt let out a low whistle, drawing his boss’s attention. She tugged on her earbuds and swung them over her shoulder for safekeeping.

  “Hi,” she said. “I didn’t hear you.”

  She rubbed the back of her clay littered hand across her forehead in an attempt to tame the wisps of honey blonde hair that had broken free of her ponytail. He studied her face, took in the slight darkness under her eyes contrasting with her pale face.

  “You look tired.” He propped his ass on the cherry credenza that weighed more than him and gestured to the sculpture. “How long you been at it?”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night. She’s bugging me.”

  Meg went back to the sculpture. It appeared to be a woman, but, as yet, she hadn’t added hair or any sort of coloring to the face. Basically, what she had here was clay carefully molded over high cheekbones, but without a doubt, the vic was female.

  “She’s young,” Matt said.

  “My anthropologist says early twenties.”

  Her anthropologist. The one she’d met while working a case last year. The two had dated briefly, but the relationship, from what Matt knew, fizzled. Meg, by her own admission, couldn’t dedicate herself to a relationship when there was so much to be done on the missing persons front.

  “Cause of death?”

  Using her thumb, she smoothed more clay around the eye area. Blue eyes. That’s what Meg had given her. Whether the young woman actually had blue eyes, Meg couldn’t know. If she didn’t have proof of the victim’s eye and hair color, she went on instinct.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Meg and Charlie had been contacted two weeks ago by the sheriff from a small town in Maryland. Months earlier, he’d read about the sisters in a law enforcement newsletter and had saved the article. After two years of holding on to this skull and trying to solve the case on their own, the sheriff’s need to identify the vic prompted him to pick up the phone and ask for help.

  The sisters, as they were known, a forensic psychologist turned private eye and a sculptor, liked to dabble in cold cases in their down time. They’d become an unofficial resource for law enforcement officials with stalled cases. Whether they didn’t have the manpower, the expertise, or the budget, for whatever reason, these cases sat unsolved. At least until the sisters got involved.

  With this particular case, the sheriff had a skull and seventy percent of the victim’s bones, which he turned over to the sisters. Meg went to work on the skull and bones while Charlie studied the case file.

  Matt gestured to the skull. “Do I need to do anything with this case yet?”

  Meg shook her head. “Not yet. Once I finish here, we’ll send out bulletins. See if anyone recognizes her. Poor thing.”

  “Any hits from NaMus?”

  NaMus, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System was a database developed by the Justice Department to improve the information available on missing persons and human remains.

  “Nothing,” Meg said. “Whoever she is, her family hasn’t reported her missing.”

  And that, Matt knew, was a deal-breaker for Meg. Having an intensely close relationship with her family, Meg couldn’t stand the idea of someone not being loved enough to be declared missing.

  Matt? His years growing up around cops, listening to the war stories, and then his time as a homicide detective had hardened him to this sort of thing. The shitty truth was there were people that no one gave a damn about.

  He’d learned early on if he got emotionally invested, the torment would destroy him.

  Meg hadn’t learned that lesson yet. Maybe she never would. Who knew?

  Matt boosted off the credenza. “Let me know what you need from me.”

  Charlie appeared in the doorway. She wore black slacks and a gray blouse that blended with the wall color. The overhead light glinted across her dark red hair and, unlike her sister, her blue eyes were sharp, the makeup around them perfectly applied.

  The sisters. Such a puzzle.

  “Hey,” Matt said.

  “Hi.” She propped one shoulder against the doorframe. “How are things with the senator?”

  “I suggested he get his lawyer involved. Now that they have a body—or at least bones—the feds are gonna look hard at him.”

  Meg stopped messing with her sculpture and waved the carving tool she’d picked up. “Charlie, have we heard from your guy at the ME’s office?”

  “Not yet. What about your FBI contact?”

  Having consulted on missing persons cases for the feds, Meg had earned a few favors from inside the Hoover building. Favors she never minded calling in.

  “He confirmed the remains are Felicity.”

  This information wasn’t a shock. Not with what he’d learned while at the senator’s with Taylor. Whom he owed a text. Or better yet, a call because, case or no case, he’d spent a good portion of the night wide awake, imagining all the places he’d like to have sex with her. Imagining that mouth against his ear, once again telling him all the ways she wanted him to fuck her. Ooh-eee, the woman was wicked.

  Thoughts of Taylor and her filthy mouth and amazing legs stirred him up, and God help him if he got a hard-on in front of the sisters.

  He brought his focus back to the senator and his dead wife. “Not surprised. They found her rings with the bones. What about the baby?”

  “Nothing on him.”

  Damn. Matt ran a hand over his face and reminded himself not to get caught up. But kids—babies, for fuck’s sake—did him in. Children couldn’t defend themselves and any crime, anything against a child, froze his blood.

  At the time of her disappearance, Felicity had been eight months pregnant and about to give her husband a child.

  “Which means,” Matt said, “the feds are probably at the site searching for him. Do we know how shallow the grave was? If whoever buried her didn’t go deep enough—”

  Meg put her hand up. She didn’t want to hear about animals getting to the remains. He couldn’t blame her.

  “They’re out there now. Everyone available is on it. Hopefully, they’ll find him. There’s something else.”

  Matt met her gaze and her blue eyes, so like her sisters, held a hardness. Challenge. “What’s that?”

  “Taylor Sinclair.”

  Whoopsie. A sting shot through his shoulders. Whatever this was, it wouldn’t be good. Not with the way Meg was looking at him. He cocked his head. “What about her?”

  Meg slid her eyes to Charlie, who took the cue that her sister wanted her to amscray. She straightened up, tugging on her blouse sleeves. “I have calls to make. If I hear from the ME, I’ll update you.”

  “Thank you,” Meg said.

  While waiting for Charlie to clear the area, Matt kept his gaze on Meg, wondering WTF. Why the hell would she be bringing up Taylor? Yes, he’d let her know he’d seen Taylor at the senator’s and that he’d shared the dental records with her. Outside of that, there wasn’t a whole lot to discuss.

  Unless…

  “Taylor Sinclair,” Meg repeated. She set her sculpting tool on the worktable and faced him. “Make sure you know what you’re doing there.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the FBI has big plans for her. If someone is going to take a fall, it won’t be her.”

  Whoa. Matt pursued his lips, considered his options. Although Charlie had been the one to hire him, he and Meg had always had a good
—a great—working relationship. The thing he appreciated about her was her honesty. Her no-holds-barred approach to all things. She didn’t have time for subtle, and preferred gut-wrenching, let’s-get-shit-done truth.

  “Meg?”

  “Yes?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? And since when do we not talk straight with each other?”

  The corner of her mouth lifted and she let out a huffing laugh. “Matt, I do adore you.” She leaned back on her worktable, stared down at her battered Crocs, the work shoe of choice. “A friend of mine was at the conference you attended.”

  Bingo.

  “That friend saw you and Taylor in the hallway outside the room you went into together.”

  He ticked back to that hallway. His pressing her against the door. Nibbling her neck. Or was it her ear? Who the hell knew? All he knew was he’d clamped his hands over her ass, bringing her flush against him so she’d understand exactly how much he wanted her.

  All in a public hallway.

  Excellent.

  For the first time in his adult life, Matt felt his cheeks fire. This was as bad as his mother busting him and Joelle Connors in the backseat of his car. He cleared his throat and blew out a breath. “I see.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Meg said.

  “Actually, it is. The senator is our client. At the time, Taylor wasn’t assigned to Felicity’s case. That happened the following morning.” He held up one hand. “God’s honest truth.”

  “I believe you. I know your work ethic.”

  “But?”

  “Lust is a tricky thing, isn’t it? Makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do.”

  “Like behaving unprofessionally in a hotel hallway?”

  Meg held her hands wide. “You said it, not me. I don’t know what your relationship is with her.”

  That made two of them. Meg stayed silent and Matt raised his eyebrows. If she expected him to comment, she’d be waiting awhile. Not because he wanted to protect his and Taylor’s privacy. Pretty much, that had been blown out of the water when they dry-humped each other in a hotel hallway. His resistance to elaborate was more about his own ignorance on where exactly his relationship with Taylor stood.

  “My only intention here,” Meg continued, “is to make sure you have your head clear. The wife of a United States Senator is dead. More than likely, their baby also. We have a responsibility here, and the FBI does as well. Not to mention, the press will be all over this. Please, just be careful with Taylor. I hear she’s a pitbull.”

  Chapter Five

  Today wasn’t a three-and-a-half-inch heel day. It was only eleven and Taylor’s feet were killing her.

  Thank you, Mad Dog.

  She’d picked out the designer heels and the red satin bra and panty set this morning with Matt on her mind. Now her feet ached as she marched to the conference room, ready to get some answers from the good senator, and the underwires in the new bra felt like a vise around her chest as they lifted her matching Cs to epic heights.

  Stupid. Even after she hadn’t heard a word from Matt, she’d designed the day’s wardrobe around the infinitesimally small chance she might see him today. Now, she was paying the price for letting her personal life get in the way of work. Meredith would cuff the back of her head if she knew.

  Not for long though. The senator was hers to question finally and she was in warrior mode. No more of his dancing around. She wanted answers and he had them. He and his lawyer were about to learn that she wasn’t one to mess with. She had her notes and her strategy outlined and Taylor, agent extraordinaire, was ready for battle.

  The conference room was small and clean, but she pulled up short in the doorway. It was also empty. Taylor glanced at her watch and frowned. The senator should have arrived five minutes ago.

  A fresh wave of annoyance hit her. Who did this asshole think he was? She’d been patient and understanding—at least as much as she could be when her gut was telling her flat out that Senator Jarvis had played a hand in his wife’s disappearance.

  Women and girls made up the bulk of the cases on her desk. From past experience and sheer numbers, she knew the majority of them had been hurt, raped, kidnapped, or killed by someone they knew. Someone who supposedly loved them. It made her absolutely sick.

  Smacking her files down on the glass tabletop, she checked her phone for messages. None from the senator or his lawyer.

  Dammit.

  None from Matt either. The fink.

  She straightened her pen next to her files and huffed out a breath. Her yellow notebook sat on top of the stack of files with her list of questions—a list she’d gone over a dozen times last night. Things did not add up with this case and she was sure the senator knew more—much more—than he was letting on.

  Beckett Pearson blew into the room, fixing his Burberry tie with one hand while he balanced a white paper cup with the other. “Wait…no senator?”

  Beck was her right-hand investigative specialist. Men like Senator Jarvis often opened up to him better than they did her—a female in a strong, high-raking position of authority. Beck would start talking about the Sabers or Jets and the next thing she knew, the person across the table would be telling him their deepest, darkest secret.

  “He’s late.” Taylor drew a fingernail down the corner of the folders. She would have been pacing if not for her feet screaming at her. “I get the feeling he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  Beckett plunked down beside her and handed her the white cup. “Green tea with jasmine. It will detox your liver and open your crown chakra.”

  She’d rather have a scotch. “Thanks… I think.”

  “So old Walt is letting you know he’s in control.”

  Beck had once been a defensive lineman in college. He kept himself in good shape and dressed like a GQ model. Rumor was, he’d modeled for Vogue during his college days as well. If Taylor had a guess, he finally got tired of people seeing him for his outward appearance only and not for the high IQ and natural analytical skills he possessed that they couldn’t teach at Quantico.

  “He thinks he is. He kicked me out of his house yesterday morning, insisted on having his lawyer present for the interview, and now, he’s not here at the time his assistant cleared his calendar for. If he were innocent, why the power play?”

  Beckett made a big deal about looking over one shoulder and then the other.

  Taylor took a sip of the tea. It wasn’t bad, but too hot. “What are you doing?”

  The man grinned, those gorgeous cheekbones above his closely trimmed beard bunching. “Looking for your balls, boss.”

  “Haha, be careful or I’ll have yours in a sling.” She set down the paper cup and checked her messages again. Nada from any of the men she was currently waiting on.

  Leo Wellington walked by the glass wall, saw her and Beckett, and backtracked. “Hey, I heard about the Jarvis case. I want in. Let me know when Walt gets here.”

  Fat chance. “You bet.” She gave him a thumbs-up and he smiled before continuing on his way.

  “Now there’s a surprise,” Beckett murmured, fiddling with the digital camera set up to record the interview. “Fresh life gets breathed into an old, high-profile case, and bam, the shark shows up to catch a slice of the limelight.”

  Last week, Taylor would have admonished Beck for his insubordination. Today, she felt the same way. He was interested in her cases, including thinking he could solve Isabel’s where she couldn’t.

  Fink number two.

  At least Matt had redeemable qualities.

  Yeah, like using me for my body instead of my mind.

  She kinda liked that about him.

  Once upon a time, she’d believed the biggest competition she’d ever have would be at Quantico. She figured once she made it into the Bureau, she’d proven herself. That she deserved to be here.

  The reality was completely different. As a new agent, she’d had to prove herself time and time again, and the competition for the
attention of the higher-ups had been fierce. Once she’d been placed in charge of the cold case unit, she’d encountered competition from the other supervisors and team leaders, everyone vying for funding, more staff, and/or a promotion.

  Cutthroat and competitive. It was similar to that Survivor show on TV that she never had time to watch.

  Everyone wanted to be a star inside these walls. Leo had done a mighty fine job of that, but now she wondered how many backs of his counterparts he’d used to get to that spot.

  And now he wanted a lift on her rising star.

  Screw that.

  Taylor ignored the groan from her feet as she stood, grabbing her stack of files. “Have Janiece call the senator’s office and see why he’s been detained. We’ll have to reschedule. There are 90,000 missing people out there waiting on me to find them.”

  That statistic made the green tea in her stomach turn to acid, but it was true. There were easily 200,000 cold cases in the United States and not all were unsolved homicides. Many involved missing persons, unidentified remains, and wrongfully convicted persons whose names might be cleared using new methods of analyzing evidence that had been developed after those crimes had been tried.

  Not all cold cases were federal, but even one was too many in her book. At that moment, her team had 52 missing persons cases alone. Nearly half involved children. There were plenty more nonactive, unsolved cases in her file cabinets, just waiting for her team to take another look at them and find a new lead or witness.

  Beckett jumped up and handed her the cup. “Maybe we should pay a visit to the senator’s office. Bring a little heat on him. I volunteer to be your muscle.”

  Taylor would have loved to do exactly that. “I’m not chasing Walt Jarvis. If he thinks he can dick me around, I’ll get a subpoena and drag his ass in here one way or another. He’ll be breaking the law if he doesn’t show up and give us his interview. I’m sure that will go over well with his constituents when he can’t do his job because he’s in a jail cell for impeding a federal investigation.”