Chapter Twenty
Rosalind’s file cabinet was a treasure chest, full of hundreds of adoption cases.
Thank God she’s Type A.
Unfortunately, Taylor still hadn’t found the gold she was looking for.
Hours ago, she’d started searching for the file on Baby Jarvis. Hours ago, she’d had hope.
More than hope. She’d been sure she’d find a red folder from all those years ago with a child’s stats inside that matched the ones she’d worked up for the Jarvis boy. A folder that held a fake birth certificate.
So far, she’d found plenty of blond-haired, blue-eyed male babies—they were the most popular it seemed. None of them from the correct time frame though. Regardless, Taylor had put Beck to work on a handful of them, running down the information on the natural parents and double-checking birth certificates. Every single one had come up legit.
The file has to be here.Hehas to be here!
Taylor sat on the floor of Ros’s office with folders scattered around her in a circle, the overhead light too bright for her tired eyes.
Meredith’s voice came from the doorway, interrupting her. “Glaw finally admitted to the murder.”
Taylor did a fist pump. “I knew it. Matt will be so happy. He’s the one who uncovered the truck sticker, and that’s what led us to Glaw.”
Mer folded her arms over her chest and leaned on the frame. “Glaw claims Rosalind and Dottie hired him to kidnap Felicity Jarvis, and later, after the Lamaze gal delivered the baby, they told him to kill her. He got cold feet; it wasn’t what he’d signed up for. He claims the only reason he kidnapped her in the first place was because he needed money for his brother, to help him pay for cancer treatments. Ros threatened him, told him she’d ruin him and he’d never work again, legitimately or otherwise and he could kiss his brother goodbye, so he caved and did the deed.”
“So Kristina was in on it too.” Taylor shook her head and yawned. “How do people with no heart at all end up running an adoption agency?”
“Why do most people go into crime?” Mer shrugged. “It’s lucrative. Any luck tracking down the Jarvis boy?”
Taylor closed the folder in her lap. “Ziltch. Honestly, most of the files I’ve had Beck look into are all legal adoptions. It doesn’t fit. Ros and Dottie only did black market ones on occasion, it seems. Why?”
At that moment, Grey walked in. “Because of the buyers.”
“Grey? What are you doing here?”
He rocked back on his heels and shot Meredith a steely look. “It’s still my case, as I recall, or do I need to call our mutual friend at the Justice Department?”
Meredith paled. “Don’t push your weight around with me, Greystone. It’s your case for the moment, but my people are currently doing the dirty work of getting confessions and lining up prosecution.”
The corner of Grey’s lips twitched in his signature non-smile. “Speaking of confessions, I just had a powwow with Dottie. Sounds like Ros occasionally attracted whales—big spenders—who provided incentive pay to find the perfect baby for them. If she couldn’t find what they wanted from her normal pool, she forced the issue. Found a set of parents with the right genes, IQ, or talents and did what she had to in order to get the baby she needed.”
Taylor’s stomach was empty, but it still churned at the injustice these women had perpetrated. Not only on people like Felicity and Walt, but on their children.
Meredith waved a hand. “Aside from the fact you must have booted Leo down the chain of command in order to talk to one of our suspects, did Dottie give up anything about the Jarvis kid?”
“We were interrupted by her lawyer before I got her full confession. And, by the way, Leo wasn’t even at the Bureau when I was there. Apparently, he had a dinner date that was more important. Crack team you got there, Meredith. Taylor aside, of course.”
Grey crouched near Taylor and eyed the files. “Would you like some help? I have Teeg on standby if we need him to dig deeper than Agent Pearson can for anything on the birth certificates and records.”
Maybe that was it. Maybe Teeg could create some Justice Team magic and find Baby Jarvis.
Matt should be here. He’d been the key to solving this. A part of Taylor wished she could turn the birth certificate search over to Grey so she could go back to the hospital.
At least Grey was willing to sit down on the floor with her and get his hands dirty. “I’ll take any help I can get. All the dates and stats are starting to blur.”
Mer pushed off the frame. “I can help, too. Why didn’t you say something?”
Competition—sometimes a healthy thing.
Taylor waited for each of them to settle on the floor, then divided a pile of folders from the last drawer of the cabinet between them. She reminded them of the physical profile she’d built for Baby Jarvis and the date range they were looking for.
