Stealing Justice (The Justice Team) (7 page)

She leaned over and hugged her mother. “I love you.”

Mom patted her back. “Oh, my sweet girl, I love you too.”

And Syd squeezed her eyes shut. Just for a minute. One. Small. Minute. That’s all she needed. Then she’d finish the visit and go back to life as Sydney Banfield, the woman with no family.

Only now, Syd Banfield would help Fed Boy lock up a predator. A predator just like the one who’d put her mother in this condition.

Chapter Seven

Grey rubbed a thumb on the leather steering wheel of his Challenger, seeing the steel gate and brick façade of Edwin Hospital even though his mind was inside with Sydney. What was she doing here?

Visiting a patient. That was the only answer. But who? And why?

Was it one of the women who’d been at Fresh Start? God knew some of those women had mental as well as emotional problems after what they’d been through, but Edwin? This place was for extreme psychotic disorders.

Something niggled Grey’s brain. An unanswered question. He punched a button on the car’s integrated smartphone, continuing to stare at the gated mental hospital. After a couple of rings, a man answered. “What now?”

“That background check I had you run. You noted the subject’s mother fell off the grid seven years ago. Did you uncover anything more about what happened to her?”

“Man, I told you. I gave you every piece of info I found on that chick. There was nothing about her mother after that point. Lady just vanished.”

“Dig a little deeper. Look at Edwin Hospital. See how many admits they had that year and if any of them match our missing woman.”

“Shit, Grey. You gonna treat me like your techie bitch forever?”

“You can be my techie bitch and continue living in your mother’s basement or you can bend over for Luigie DeMarco in federal prison, Teeg. Up to you.”

There was some unintelligible grumbling. “See what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

Renee Banfield. When Grey had read Teeg’s report on Sydney, Renee’s disappearance had left a question mark in his mind. But when he’d purposely mentioned her mother the other day to see if he could get a rise out of her, Sydney had claimed Renee was dead. Grey had chalked up the error to Teeg’s lazy-ass, if usually accurate, methods of running background checks from his computer cave. Not all cities, towns and municipalities were good at keeping online records accurate and updated. Some were backlogged for years. And sometimes you needed a man with his feet on the ground in the outside world—not sitting at a desk lost in Mortal Combat 3—to uncover the truth.

David Teeg was damn good at ferreting out info, though, as long as he didn’t have to move his ass away from a computer. A good resource for Grey to use in exchange for keeping the computer hacker out of prison.

Calling up the info on Renee on his tablet computer, Grey scanned the facts again. Ten years ago she went to work as a secretary to a foreign ambassador. By all accounts, she stayed in that job until she fell off the earth seven years ago.

That was it. Not much to go on. Nothing that suggested she’d headed to Edwin when Sydney was a teenager. At the time of her mother’s vanishing act, Sydney would have been just shy of her eighteenth birthday and old enough to avoid foster care. Which meant, if she wanted to make her mother disappear, or perhaps protect a secret, it would have been easy to do.

For the next hour, Grey ran possible scenarios as he played with his scope and camera, trying to catch signs of life inside Edwin. Nurses and orderlies came into view here and there, but never anyone who resembled his new partner.

Sydney was hiding some kind of secret behind those iron bars. A secret that might jeopardize his mission.

When her car finally came into view, stopping at the security guard’s house for a minute before bouncing out of the gate and onto the street, Grey set his camera on the passenger seat and debated whether or not to confront her. If her mother had experienced a psychotic break and Sydney wanted to claim she was dead, it really wasn’t any of his business.

But the agent in him had to know.

Everyone had secrets. But all trained agents knew that secrets could get you killed if your mind was in the wrong place at the wrong time or you took an assignment for the wrong reason because your motivation was misplaced.

As Sydney’s tail lights flickered red at the stop sign a block away, Grey turned the key in the ignition and started the car.

Tailing was an art form if you didn’t want your mark to realize they were being tailed. Sydney was smart and always on alert. Exactly how she’d busted him that night in farm country. Normally, she’d spot the sleek black Challenger easily enough, but if she had just visited her psychotic mother, she was no doubt stressed out and emotionally compromised. And if she
did
see him and got pissed, she’d be all over his ass. But it would give him the opportunity to raise the questions plaguing him about the visit.

She wasn’t one to live in denial. Either there was a simple explanation for the visit—he wasn’t tossing out the idea that it was one of the women from the shelter—or she was having a hell of a time coming to terms with her mother’s mental state.

He followed Sydney for a handful of blocks until he was sure she was headed home. Then he took an alternate route. Not to keep her from seeing him, but to clear his head. She was a private person. Showing up on her doorstep while she was possibly upset and stressed out wasn’t a smart move, even if he was going to use the excuse of prepping her to talk to Ian about the escort service.

Smart only went so far in the field. Being prepared wasn’t just for Boy Scouts, and gut instinct often carried you. Right now, his gut was telling him that Sydney needed a friend.

And he was the only friend she had.

She’s screwed if I’m the best she’s got.

From the report Teeg had provided, Sydney didn’t have friends. Not long-term anyway. The women at the shelter came and went by the day or week, making it impossible for her to establish any real kind of friendship with them. She had no sisters or brothers, no one from childhood.

His gut twinged. She did have him. Whatever the fuck that was worth when they barely trusted each other.

Heading back to her place, he passed a bakery. She had attacked the scone the other night over coffee, and his younger sister always said she had to have a cupcake when she was stressed. Might be a strategic move to pick up something sweet before he knocked on her door.

A few minutes later, he was back in the car with a box of fancy cupcakes in several flavors since he didn’t know whether Sydney preferred chocolate, vanilla or cherry. Funny how he knew so much about her, but not that. Or what had really happened to her mother.

Her duplex was a narrow three story built in the 1950’s if his guess was right. From the looks of the exterior, not much had changed in sixty years. Suddenly feeling stupid that he was carrying a pink bakery box, he jammed an impatient thumb into the buzzer for her place.

“Yes?” A disembodied voice said from the speaker a moment later, suspicion evident.

She didn’t get many visitors. Understandable she’d be wondering who was at her door.

“It’s me. Grey. Thought we could talk about our...project.”

There was a long pause. So long, in fact, he was sure she’d blown him off. He was about to ring the buzzer again—two could play the bullheaded game—when the buzzer made a low drone and the door popped open.

She stood in the doorway, her face tight, lips thinned. The blue of her eyes was stormy gray. She started to smart off to him—he could see it in her body language—and then her attention fell on the pink box. “There’d better be chocolate in there.”

Yes. Payoff.

He handed her the box and followed her inside. The place was respectable, although small. Clean, neat; a touch of Syd’s personality showing up in the colorful pillows and stacks of self-improvement books on her coffee table.

She led him to the kitchen, lifted an overly-frosted cupcake from the box, peeled one side of the wrapper down and sunk her teeth into it. Her eyelids fluttered closed. “Damn.” She leaned back against the kitchen counter and made a couple of low moans that sent Grey’s mind into fantasyland. What would it be like to be that cupcake, making her moan like that? “That’s heavenly.”

Grey pointed at the coffee pot and turned his back to her so she wouldn’t see his expanding crotch. “Mind if I make a pot?”

One shoulder shrugged. “Be my guest. Coffee’s in the upper cabinet. And while you’re at it, you can tell me why you were following me earlier.”

Yep, she’d seen him. He wasn’t surprised. But had she seen him when she left the hospital or later in traffic? “I wanted to give you some ideas for getting Ian to open up about the escort service and ways you can get him to recruit you. I also need to share an update with you on The Lion and the scope of our mission.”

She narrowed her eyes while he scooped coffee grounds into the filter. “So you went into stalker mode again? Could have just picked up the phone.”

“The new info is confidential. I don’t share that sort of thing over an open phone line.”

Her eye roll was barely contained. “So what is it?”

Grey pushed the start button on the old Mr. Coffee machine. His partner needed an upgrade in the appliance department. “A little wrinkle on our killer. Remember, I told you he hides behind diplomatic immunity? Well, his country may listen to waiving that if I can produce evidence that he also killed Mariam Rashid.”

“Why do I know that name?”

“She was a candidate for Prime Minister in Lebanon six months ago. One of the few Muslim women in the Lebanese parliament. Her husband was Prime Minister ten years ago and was assassinated. Mariam was brutally raped and murdered two days before the election. Her killer or killers got away. They believe she knew her killer.”

Syd snapped her fingers. “Yes. There’s been all kinds of international women’s organizations protesting and calling for justice.”

“The whole international community has been calling for justice, putting a lot of pressure on the Lebanese government. Our boy has been traveling back and forth from D.C. to Lebanon since 2009. He happened to be in Lebanon for the elections when the murder happened.”

“So we have to prove he committed that murder too?”

Grey took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Or fabricate evidence.”

“Fabricate? As in lie?”

Funny how the thought of coloring outside the lines, as Syd called it, didn’t bother him when it came to taking down The Lion. But this latest addition, falsifying evidence, did, especially when he knew the real stuff was there. “He’s a likely suspect, there’s no getting around that. We’ll see what real evidence turns up and then I’ll decide how to handle the rest.” Time to get back to his reason for visiting. “Did you run errands this morning? You weren’t here or at the shelter when I checked.”

Turning away, she set down the lopsided cupcake. Played with the paper wrapper. “Were you checking up on me?”

“Watching your back is all.”

“Bullshit. But now you know where I went.”

“Want to talk about it?”

She eyeballed him. “If I wanted to talk about it, I would. I want to see just how good you are,
partner
. My guess is you saw me at Edwin, but don’t know why I was there.”

Testing him? Sure, but he had to play this right. “You were at Edwin Hospital, visiting a patient, I assume.”

“I was indeed.”

The smell of coffee filled the tiny galley kitchen. Grey helped himself to a mug and filled one for Sydney too. “We all have secrets,” he said, handing her the cup. “I don’t need details, but if this patient or your relationship to him or her can jeopardize our mission, I need to know.”

She took the cup, her fingertips brushing his. “At this point, no. It won’t jeopardize the mission, but if we get to the point where it does, I’ll tell you about it. I’m just not willing to do that right now.”

Good enough. For now. Didn’t help their trust issues, but he’d deal with it. “We
will
talk about it, Syd. Maybe not today, but soon. Your emotions affect the mission, whether you admit it or not. And I can’t have you endanger yourself because of those emotions. You feel me?” He took a sip of coffee, saw her defenses once more lock into place. “Tell me what you need to feel comfortable opening up to me.”

She took a step closer, let her gaze sweep over him. “Oh, honey, what I need has nothing to do with talking. Not right now anyway.”

Her fail safe. Always throwing up that tough, sexy girl persona. Not that he minded. Hell, no. It might be fun to see how far she’d run with it. “What are you talking about?” he asked innocently.

She smiled—enjoying the game—and inched even closer. “If you need to ask, you’re not the man I thought you were.”

“Don’t push me, Syd. You might not like the man you get.”

“Who’s to say you’d like the woman
you’d
get? Maybe we’re a match made in heaven. Maybe we’ll make each other crazy. Maybe not. But we’d sure relieve some stress. Don’t you think?”

There was no thinking involved. It was a slam-dunk. He brushed hair from her face, tucked it behind her ear. If only he could get past that tough girl look in her eyes and reach the real Sydney. “You already make me crazy.”

“Then I haven’t lost my touch. What do you say, Fed Boy? Want to show me how good you are?”

Yowza, did he ever. But not here…not like this. He wanted her to want him...really want him, not just throwing sex out there to divert his attention. “I’ll show you as soon as you start trusting me and stop trying to get me off the subject of Edwin Hospital. Don’t use sex to play me.”

She stepped back and he stared at her a minute while her mind went to work.
Atta, girl, Syd.
“You’re suddenly quiet, Sydney. Having trouble dealing with how good I am?”

“Wow. You can be a bastard.”

“You bet I can. But I’m here for you anytime you want to talk. About Edwin. About your mother.”

Her breath hitched. He waited to see if she’d take the bait.