Page 38 of Missing Justice
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, Grey 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.
