Page 40 of Missing Justice
“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 investigatoryouare, 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.Knewit.
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.”
