Missing Justice (The Justice Team Book 7)

by Adrienne Giordano

  If he stayed, she wouldn’t need it. The companionship, the distraction, would be enough. “No more scotch,” she agreed.

  He began moving again, deliberately, inch by inch, in and out, his mouth finding her neck, his teeth nibbling at the sensitive flesh there. “Good. And I’m up for seeing how many orgasms I can give you before the delivery boy shows up.”

  Taylor went lightheaded, succumbing to his mouth, his thrusts, him. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she arched into him and hung on as he increased the speed.

  Freedom. For once, Taylor let go of everything. Her control. The pain. The need to be perfect. The need to be loved. The need to save her sister.

  Gone. All of it. There was only Matt and his skilled hands, teasing mouth, and the way he made her feel.

  The orgasm hit with shocking intensity, ripping up her spine. Taylor threw her head back and screamed.

  It was a banshee yell, full of grief. At the same time, it was also one of absolution. Of liberation.

  Matt froze. As the echo of her cry faded in the kitchen, he swore softly. Poor guy, she’d probably scared him.

  But then one of his hands hit the cabinet behind her as he buried himself deeply one final time, every muscle in his body contracting.

  As he went over the edge with her, Taylor wrapped her arms around him and tucked herself into his sweet oblivion.

  * * *

  Somewhere his phone was ringing.

  Bad to the Bone. Tony’s ringtone.

  Matt’s sleep-addled mind gently prodded his exhausted body awake. He rolled over, fought the heaviness of his eyelids only to receive a blast of sunlight for his efforts. Son of a bitch. They’d forgotten to close the blinds last night. He slapped a hand over his eyes, plunging himself back into darkness before slowly peeling his hand away. All while Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone continued to pound him awake.

  If Taylor intended to keep up this sexual marathon, he’d need to put her on a schedule. As much as he liked to get laid, he required a certain amount of sleep. None of which had happened on the two nights they’d spent together.

  Wasn’t this the blessing/curse of falling for a nymphomaniac?

  “Oh, my God,” Taylor grumbled. “Shut that thing up. What time is it?”

  He glanced at the blazing yellow numbers on the digital clock and scooped his phone off the bedside table. “Six-thirty.”

  Good Christ, man.

  On the third ring, he punched the screen and flopped to his back. “Gerard, this better be good.”

  “Morning, sunshine,” Tony said.

  One thing about Gerard, he’d always been a morning person. Even back in their police academy days when most of the guys wanted to sleep all damned day, he was up and at it, working out, getting in a run, studying, whatever.

  Pain in the ass.

  Beside Matt, Taylor nudged backward, her warm butt connecting with his hip, followed by the rest of her body pressing into his side. Taylor. A snuggler. Go figure. He tucked his free hand under her, spooning her against him and inhaling that soft, floral scent that, after their first night together, had suddenly become a great way to start his day.

  “Do you ever sleep?” Matt said to Tony.

  “I do. Quite well, in fact. Listen up, can you run shotgun with me on a case tonight? Shouldn’t be more than a couple hours.”

  “What is it?”

  “Gay bar. I need a beard. Or would that make you a reverse beard? Whatever. I need a boyfriend.”

  “I’m not kissing you.”

  At that, Taylor flipped over, shooting daggers at him. “Relax,” he said. “It’s my buddy.”

  That drew two raised eyebrows.

  “Undercover work,” he assured her. “For a case.”

  Apparently satisfied, she tucked herself back into his side and rested her head against his chest. She wound her hand through his chest hair and started moving south. At least until he locked onto her wrist. What he didn’t need was little Miss Frisky playing with his hardening dick while he talked business with Gerard.

  Still, this, he could get used to. And if it took marathon sex, well he supposed he could sacrifice his body for the cause.

  “Who’s with you?” Tony asked. “Did you get lucky last night? Let me talk to her.”

  Matt laughed. “Fuck off.”

  A male voice sounded from Tony’s end of the conversation. “Wait. Is that Stephens?”

  “Yeah,” Tony said, “he’s gonna come out and play tonight.”

  “I need to talk to him.” The phone line went silent for a few seconds. “Matt? It’s Justice Greystone.”

  Whoa. Greystone—Grey to his friends and colleagues. Not only was Tony awake, he was already at his office. Jesus. “Do any of you people ever sleep?”

  “Only when the ME isn’t calling me about a senator’s dead wife.”

  Well, all right. That got his attention. Needing to not be in bed with Taylor and his healthy erection, he slid away from her, flipped the sheet off and set his feet on the floor.

  “Why’d the ME call you?”

  “She’s a friend. Taylor dropped my name the other day. Since it used to be my case, the ME thought maybe I was consulting. I tried Taylor but her phone went straight to voicemail.”

  Matt glanced back at Taylor, who’d closed her eyes but wouldn’t be winning any Screen Actors Guild awards because she was, without a doubt, dropping some eaves.

  Such a tangled web.

  He couldn’t blame her. He’d listen too. And if the medical examiner was calling at dawn, something interesting must be in that report. “What’s the news?”

  “Felicity wasn’t pregnant when she died.”

  “The anthropologist’s report came back?”

  “They’re still working on the skeleton, but knowing she was pregnant they analyzed the hip bones first.”

  Matt had learned a few things from Meg, his boss and a forensic sculptor who’d taken classes and studied human bones more than the average artist. One of the lessons was that pregnancy alone wouldn’t change a woman’s bones.

  Childbirth was another story.

  Completely bare-assed, he hopped off the bed and headed for the kitchen where, the night before, he’d spotted a pad and pen by the phone. He swung around the breakfast bar, found the pad and snatched up the pen. “What’d they find?”

  The sound of shuffling paper came through the phone line. “In layman’s terms, they identified small linear indentations on the pubic bones. According to the anthropologist, those dents indicate a woman has given birth.”

  Which confirmed Baby Jarvis had been delivered after Felicity was kidnapped but before she was murdered. Was he alive when he was born? Or had he died in utero and she’d had to deliver a dead baby?

  Jesus. “So, she gave birth. That probably explains why the baby’s bones weren’t with hers.”

  “Exactly.”

  Which meant…missing baby. As in alive.

  Jesus. “So fucking twisted,” Matt muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Talking to myself. If I say pretty please, can I get a copy of that report?”

  “Only if you come and get it. I’m not emailing it or giving you the file. You get a hard copy. And you sure as hell didn’t get it from me. Understand?”

  Grey wasn’t stupid. He ran his own ghostlike team of operatives and wouldn’t put his team—or his operation—at risk for Matt or anyone else. The Justice Team was so far off the books only a handful of FBI big shots knew of their existence. Grey wanted to keep it that way.

  “Absolutely,” Matt said. “If it gets out, it won’t be my doing.”

  “Then you can have it.”

  “I’ll swing by this morning. Besides, Tony needs a date for tonight. I’ll get the deets on that while I’m there.”

  He disconnected from Grey and jotted a couple of notes to himself. He’d need to research these indentations on the pubic bones. Maybe ask Meg about it.

  “What’s up?”

&
nbsp; He glanced up, found Taylor standing in the opening separating the hallway from the kitchen. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess that she’d pulled over one shoulder and she’d slipped on a fluffy cotton pink bathrobe. This woman. So many sides. Last night it was red silk lingerie, this morning cozy cotton. Either way, he wanted her. Again.

  “That was my buddy,” he said. “He needs me to work an undercover op with him tonight.”

  She puckered her lips and a vision of all the places she’d put them filled his mind. He had to stop. Thoughts like this, with a woman like her—a lone wolf who self-medicated with booze and sex—would lead him nowhere good.

  “Tony Gerard?”

  “You know him?”

  “The guy they call Moose? I’m aware he works for Grey’s team.”

  Well, shit. Keeping his promise not to leak the anthropology report meant not leaking the Justice Team’s existence. Obviously Taylor knew all about that. Particularly since Grey had allowed her use of his name to fast track a forensics report. But how much did she know about what the Justice Team actually did?

  She smiled at the consternation on his face, obviously reading his thoughts. “I worked with Grey before he blew his career out of the water. And, yes, I know about his team of spooks and what they do. Sort of, anyway. I’m not sure anyone knows the complete truth, except Grey. Now, all you have to tell me is what he said about those bones that had you hopping out of bed at 6:30 in the morning. It must be something important.”

  “Honey,” he said, “you’re gonna lose it when you hear this one.”

  Chapter Seven

  Taylor couldn’t believe her eyes or the fact that Matt—Matt!—knew Grey’s secret hideout when she didn’t.

  The armory looked deserted and tragic. The outside of the main building was dark, the bricks stained. Weeds grew in the cracked sidewalks and driveways around the place and the fence sported plenty of debris around the edges.

  No lights shone in any of the windows, even though it was a cloudy morning, the sun completely hidden behind a storm system rolling in off the Atlantic. If Grey and his crew were inside, no one would know. There were no cars outside, nor welcome signs of any kind.

  “You’re sure this is the place?” Taylor said as Matt’s car grumbled under her ass by the closed front gate. “I knew it was an undisclosed, hidden location, but I had no idea it was straight out of a Mad Max flick.”

  “Flick?” Matt made a face. “No one uses that term anymore. What century were you born in?”

  “Shut up.” Her sister had loved that word. She’d used it all the time after hearing it once on a rerun of that old show, The Brady Bunch. They’d had a video player and tiny TV in their room and every Friday night, Isabel would haul her sleeping bag and stuffed toys onto the floor and ask Taylor to put in a flick for her. To this day, Taylor couldn’t stand Brady Bunch reruns. “What I want to know is why Justice Greystone would trust you with this location.”

  Matt looked incredulous. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Taylor hid her irritation. Because he didn’t trust me. “So you’re working for him, now?”

  “I told you, I’m helping out a friend. Tony and I work well together, always have. Grey knows Walt hired me and that you’re on the case. He’s giving us equal time. When he couldn’t get hold of you, he called me. Why is this bugging you so much?”

  She’d let her phone die. Because of Matt. Hell on a stick, what was the matter with her? She never, ever, let that happen. Her team might call her with a break in a case. Mer might.

  Her mom might call to say they’d found Isabel.

  I will find Izzy, come hell or high water.

  Matt was screwing with her. Taylor rubbed her forehead, fighting the tension there. Before she could come up with a witty retort, however, a voice came over the speaker at the gate.

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  Mitch Monroe. Perfect.

  Matt held up his middle finger to the video camera overhead. “Your boss called me. Now open the fucking gate and let us in.”

  “No one enters until they answer the question. Superman or Batman?”

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Batman, duh.”

  A moment of pause, then a buzzer sounded and the gate rolled open.

  I will never understand men. “You know Mitch, too, huh?”

  The car shot forward, rumbling as Matt jetted around toward the back of the building. “Jackass? Yep. He’s a real peach.”

  Taylor unplugged her phone from the car’s charger. “He doesn’t like you either.”

  Matt pulled up next to the back door. “You discussed me with Jackass? That’s either incredibly sweet or really weird.”

  The engine cut off and Matt hustled around to open her door. She was already out, pocketing her phone, before he got the chance and he rolled his eyes again. With a possessive hand on her lower back, he guided her to the door.

  A big, tall man with dark features met them. “About time. Did you have to do your hair and paint your nails, princess?”

  Matt flipped him the bird. “Good to see you, too, Moose.”

  So this was Moose, aka Tony Gerard. His nickname fit—big guy, well over six foot and filled out like a football linebacker. His eyes missed nothing, taking in Taylor and her still-wet-from-the-shower hair.

  She held out a hand. “Agent Sinclair, FBI.”

  His big paw grabbed hers and gave a firm shake, then he motioned her in. “So you’re the Feebie I’ve been hearing about.”

  Matt pressed on her back and she stepped across the threshold, seeing a wide-open warehouse with a smattering of old Army desks and metal chairs. “And you’re Matt’s gay friend,” Taylor said with a straight face. “I’ve heard about you too.”

  Gerard grinned and he and Matt exchanged a standard male-to-male greeting that involved some violent backslapping and knuckle bumping.

  The sound of the door closing behind them echoed off the high ceiling. Mitch sat on the top of a desk where another former FBI agent, Caroline Foster—now Caroline Foster Monroe—typed efficiently on a computer. Caroline and Mitch, in a rather bold move, had gotten hitched in Las Vegas after closing a case together. Beck had told her about it, but Taylor had forgotten until now.

  He Who Shall Not Be Named in Meredith’s world was throwing a stapler up and catching it, over and over again. Caroline reached out and snatched it in midair, slamming it back onto the desk.

  “You’re no fun,” Taylor heard Mitch mumble as he sent her and Matt the stink eye.

  Grey walked out from behind a screen and hailed them, while a skinny guy in a tricked-out ergonomic office chair watched the three giant screens in front of him and ignored everyone.

  The smell of deliciously dark coffee hit Taylor’s nose and she realized she was running a quart low since they hadn’t stopped for any. “Any chance I could get a cup of coffee?” she said to Gerard.

  “Sure, Mitch’ll get you one.”

  Mitch’s response was a rude gesture. To Taylor, he pointed at his T-shirt. “Look! I got this after visiting the Smith with you.”

  The white letters on the black shirt read, “Black is my happy color!”

  Taylor couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Well, aren’t you a ray of black?”

  Grey, refilling his cup with some coffee at a counter across the room, shook his head.

  Caroline stopped typing and glanced back at her. “You’re responsible for that shirt?”

  “Not really, but sort of,” Taylor admitted. “We studied a Nevelson sculpture at the Smithsonian the other day that was all black. Mitch needed a reason for the color choice.”

  “Black equals greatness,” Mitch told Caroline, pointing to himself, “and we all know how great I am. A natural match.”

  Caroline huffed out a patient sigh and stood to shake Taylor’s hand. “I wish I could say I remember you from my time at the Bureau, but I don’t think we ever met.”

  Taylor shook her hand as Matt and Tony headed for the coffee maker, Gre
y saying something to Matt too soft for Taylor to hear. “I was a lowly field agent at that time,” she said to Caroline. “Just getting started. I was lucky enough to work with Grey a couple of times. I knew all about you, though. Crack sniper, SWAT team, manager. You were—are—Wonder Woman.”

  Caroline smiled. “I hear you’re filling that role now.”

  “Not even close I’m afraid.” She lowered her voice and said to Mitch, “How is it that you’re now buddies with Matt? I thought I wasn’t supposed to trust him, and here he is with inside intel into the Justice Team’s hiding place.”

  Mitch gave her a look that suggested she was stupid. “Moose and Grey think he’s all that. Not me.”

  “Matt is a good guy.” Caroline shooed Mitch off her desk. “Tony saved Grey’s life and Matt is a friend of Tony’s. Grey trusts him because he trusts Tony.”

  “Sinclair,” Matt called to her from across the room. He was holding up a donut in one hand and bagel in the other. “Breakfast?”

  God, he was handsome, his hair ruffled and his shirt untucked on one side. He seemed totally at ease in this abandoned armory with a bunch of renegade FBI agents and a former Supreme Court officer. Normally when working a case, she had little appetite. This morning, she was starving.

  Maybe it was all that exercise last night. “Bagel.”

  Grey waved her over to the tech center and Matt met her there with the bagel and coffee.

  “Matt explain why I called him?” Grey asked her.

  “My phone died.” She shot Matt a scolding glance, but he seemed completely clueless about why. “I apologize for being unreachable.”

  “No apology necessary. I was worried you might be bugged, so this may have worked out for the best anyway.”

  Yeah, maybe.

  Matt’s hand was on her back again as he downed a long john and mumbled a hello to the tech guy who lifted a finger in return greeting.

  The professional in Taylor wanted to scoot away from Matt’s possessive hand, not let the others see that there was anything personal going on. Yet, it was apparently obvious they’d already figured it out from the way they’d all looked at her when she’d walked in.