Stealing Justice (The Justice Team) (31 page)

Taking a healthy drag of coffee, he handed her the cup and lifted the box. It was heavy but not overly so. “What’s in it?”

“Work. I’m not getting enough done at the shelter, so I have to bring stuff home.”

“My fault. I’ll make it up to you.”

She smiled and his heart thudded. “I’ll hold you to that.”

They kissed over the box, lingering in the doorway, just a random couple facing the day ahead. Again, more than he could hope for.

Twenty minutes later, he’d fought morning traffic to deposit her at Fresh Start. “I’ll carry that box in for you if it won’t upset your clients.”

“Clients. I like that.” Syd undid her seatbelt, thought about it. “Bring the box. It’s time the women got used to you.”

Did that mean he was going to be allowed to hang around once the mission was over? “I won’t stay long and if any of them get freaked, just say the word and I’m out of there, okay?”

Another kiss, this one across the gearshift, longer and deeper than the one in her house. “Word’s out about you, and Annie gave you a thumbs-up. I don’t think any of the women will be surprised to see you.”

She got out and he followed her, box in tow, through the back door.

The clatter of breakfast dishes and women’s voices filled the air as they made their way to Syd’s office. One or two women gave Grey curious glances when they passed, but they seemed to take him in stride when he nodded to them and offered a cheery good morning.

Syd’s desk was as piled and cluttered as the first time he’d seen it through his Burris scope. He held up the box. “Where do you want this?”

She rubbed her forehead as she looked around for an empty spot. She moved her wastebasket out of the way and tapped a foot next to her desk. “Here will do.”

In the distance, Grey heard sirens. He set down the box just as Annie burst in. “There you are.” She gave Grey an accepting nod and held out a plate of pastries. “Thought you might like some breakfast. I saved these for you from the ones Ian sent over this morning.”

“Thank you.” Syd took the plate but frowned at the mention of Ian. “Everything status quo today?”

Annie, in normal housemother mode, gave her two thumbs up. “The night was uneventful.”

“Excellent. I’ll get through the paperwork for the new admissions today.”

“We only have one bed left,” Annie said. “I hope we don’t have any more admits the rest of the week.”

“You and me both.”

The sirens drew closer. Annie skirted the desk to look out Syd’s window. She worried a ring on her right hand. “Are those police sirens?”

Syd’s forehead creased and she shot him a look. “Maybe there was an accident on our street.”

Grey followed them to the window. His stomach dropped as two squad cars and a brown Crown Vic stopped in front of the shelter. Donaldson stepped out of the Vic as uniforms stormed the building. “That lousy piece of shit,” he said under his breath.

Sydney’s head snapped around to look at him. “Get out of here, Gr…
Jason
. Just go.”

Smart woman. She didn’t even question if the police were there for one of the women she was hiding.

But running was the coward’s way out. He’d been a lot of things in his life, but never a coward. He could fix this. Donaldson, the asshole, would have to bail him out once he heard about the safe and the veils.

Annie drew back from Grey, her brows lowering in a fierce scowl. “Who are you? What have you done?”

He’d brought a hailstorm down on the shelter and for that he’d forever be sorry. Leaning forward, he gave Syd a quick kiss on her forehead. “Whatever happens, do not leave here without Monroe. I should be back in time to pick you up at five, okay? No worries. I’ll handle this.”

The uniforms busted into Syd’s office and Grey raised his hands above his head.

“Jason Black, you are under arrest for assaulting a Lebanese diplomat,” Officer One said while Officer Two took out his handcuffs and shoved Grey against the wall face-first.

Syd’s eyes were huge in her face. Annie’s as well. Grey forced himself to smile at them as he was cuffed and read his rights.

Donaldson waited in the hall, his lips a hard, thin line. “What were you thinking?” he murmured to Grey as the uniforms paraded him toward the front door. Every woman in the place stared at him, her eyes cold, hardened and yes, fearful.

She’s mine. That’s what I was thinking.
He met Donaldson’s glare. “I was thinking it was time someone stepped up and did the right thing.”

“Well,” his former boss said. “I hope that self-righteous attitude comforts you while your ass rots in jail.”

Chapter Twenty-six

A knock on her front door pulled Syd from her study of the new birth certificates for Marissa George—now Elizabeth Stow—and her children. Another woman would be saved from battering hands.

She glanced at her phone. 10:02 p.m. Grey had called thirty minutes earlier to say he’d been bailed out and would run by after making a quick stop regarding the case.

Monroe had paced her living room floor for hours, wanting to stake out The Lion rather than play bodyguard. As soon as Grey had called to say he was en route, she’d dismissed Monroe, sending him in search of The Lion. He’d argued for a solid five minutes, telling her Grey would have his ass, but she’d insisted she’d be okay. To prove it, she showed him her .22 and demonstrated her favorite chokehold on him. After that, he’d looked at her with a touch of awe, told her Grey was in love with her, and left.

Whether he was kidding or not, she couldn’t be sure, but by taking a swing at The Lion to defend her honor, Grey—
bless his heart
—had almost blown the case. Not that The Lion—son of a bitch that he was—didn’t deserve a whooping, and not that Syd didn’t find the whole thing a tad inspiring, but it was a mistake that could cost Grey everything.

The man had to be torturing himself over it. Maybe she’d help him work through the torture. Naked. With cupcakes.

Never an inconvenience.

The knock sounded again. Harder this time. And with thoughts of Grey smothered in cupcake frosting distracting her, she strode to the door, grabbed the knob, and paused. Only stupid women opened their doors late at night. Stupid, she wasn’t. She checked the peephole.

On the doorstep stood Nabil.

She leaped back from the door, her breath coming fast and hard.

How the hell?

The first thing that registered was the chaos storming her mind. The second thing was how Nabil Khourey, who knew her as Cindy, knew where she lived.

The third thing? The mother of all things? Why was he here?

Zipping sensations shot down her spine. She pushed her shoulders back. She simply would not answer the door.

“Cindy?” He called. “I’m sorry to come uninvited. Please, open the door. I’m here to help. My father...he’s...in a rage. You’re in danger.”

Nabil knew something.

“Cindy, I know you’re home. Please. I beg of you, open the door. We can talk outside.”

She thought about it a second. This was Nabil. Quiet, charming Nabil. She’d been alone with him several times and he’d never made an inappropriate gesture. In fact, he’d been the perfect gentleman who’d rescued her from over-attentive males.

Plus, Grey would be arriving at any time so she wouldn’t be alone with him for long.

Decision made, she opened the door a few inches.

He threw his hands over his head. “Such a relief!”

“Nabil, what is it? How did you know where I live?”

He rushed in, pushing by her into the living room and waving his hands. “Ian gave me your address. I stressed that it was an emergency. We must get out of here. My father is very angry. I’m fearful he is on his way.”

“
Ian
gave you my address?”

She’d murder the louse.

“Yes. I felt awful about the scene at the house last night. My father acted inappropriately. Nothing new I’m afraid, but I know he disrespected you. And then the bodyguard hit him. Now he’s been released and my father is enraged over the injustice. He holds
you
responsible. I’m so sorry. We must go.”

Syd closed and locked the door behind her. She wasn’t going anywhere. With Grey on the way, they’d just wait on him and be ready for The Lion when he arrived.

She waved Nabil to the sofa. This poor kid. How many times had he been forced to apologize for his father?

“Nabil, please calm down. You shouldn’t be the one apologizing.”

“I hope his actions don’t reflect on me.”

“You’ve been nothing but kind. I would never hold you responsible.”

He glanced up at her, his lips sliding into a slow smile. “I’m glad to hear that,
Sydney
.”

For Grey, there was a tipping point with every mission. When you reached that point, things happened fast.

Donaldson had spent the entire day fighting red tape, pulling in favors and avoiding land mines. Strike number one, Grey had sat in the downtown precinct’s holding tank far longer than he’d expected. Pacing hadn’t helped. Banging his head on a wall hadn’t helped. Planning hadn’t helped. All he could do was wait.

So he’d continued pacing and planning and worrying. Grey’s fingerprints matched his cover name, but that combination only existed in the FBI’s files. According to the D.C. police, there were three other Jason Black’s on file, none of them with Grey’s fingerprints.

The fact that he’d assaulted a diplomat was strike number two, causing a host of issues about jurisdiction.

Strike number three, his bail hearing wasn’t scheduled until three o’clock tomorrow.

At six that evening, he’d been escorted to Judge Tracy Lanier’s chambers where Donaldson sat drinking a soda. Up until then, he’d been convinced Donaldson had been leaving him to sweat in order to make him pay for Grey bloodying his nose and training a loaded weapon on him. But Judge Lanier had been FBI for ten years before running for district judge. She understood undercover missions and Grey knew he could tell her the basic facts of the case without endangering it. He and Donaldson had given her enough information to rile her about The Lion and then asked for her help. She’d agreed.

To keep up appearances, Grey’s bail hearing—or rather, Jason’s—had been moved to that evening. Donaldson couldn’t, or wouldn’t, post bail, but Monroe had sent Teeg in with a cashier’s check an hour later and now he was free.

First stop wasn’t Syd’s or Ahmed’s. First stop was the OCME.

Even though it was late, Dr. Smith waited for him in her office. She’d left a message on his phone while he’d been locked up that she wanted to speak to him as soon as possible. All of Grey’s cells buzzed. She wanted to tell him something important. Something she didn’t want to say on a message.

Something she hadn’t told Donaldson.

The night guard escorted him into the building, called Dr. Smith on the building’s phone line. A minute later, the doctor met Grey at the receptionist’s desk and walked him to a row of offices on the south side of the first floor.

She didn’t speak until they were inside her corner office with the door shut. She motioned him into a chair as she took hers. “I requested a priority analysis from our lab on the DNA retrieved from your last victim’s body. I happen to be friends—close friends—with the forensic lab chief where Special Agent Donaldson submitted the cup and cigarette butt you provided.”

Which meant his evidence had been fast-tracked. Grey hung his jacket on the back of his chair and sat. He wasn’t the only one losing sleep over this case. “I owe you a cup of coffee.”

“You owe me more than that.” She withdrew four glossy pages from a file and laid them on the top of her desk. “I’ll accept your word that no one outside this room, not even your boss, knows I used my considerable influence to do you a favor.”

Grey held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

Satisfied, she pointed at the first glossy page. Grey’s attention scanned over the identification numbers and medical jargon in the upper right corner, landing on a set of small red boxes bookended by similar black boxes.

“This is the raw STR data of your vic. Her STR allele repeats five times.”

Her finger moved to the next page. “This is the raw data from the cup. A male. His STR allele repeats four times. And this one,”—she pointed to the third page lined up like a soldier with the rest—“is the raw data from the cigarette. Another male whose allele repeats three times.”

Grey didn’t ask what an allele was. He didn’t want to interrupt. Not yet. He sat forward in his chair, his focus drawn to the last page. “And this one?”

“As you can see here,” Dr. Smith said, also scooting forward as she placed a well-manicured finger on the final set of boxes. “The DNA retrieved from the body cavity of your victim has a set of five and three, both.”

Five and three. Kristin’s DNA and the DNA from the cigarette.
Nabil’s
.

Shit. Grey tapped the page with Ahmed’s DNA. “So this guy isn’t the killer?”

“He’s not the man who had sex with her that night. That’s the most I can confirm.”

Which meant Nabil had.

Grey’s mind flashed back to the brownstone. The veils. The double safes.

Shit, shit, shit.

Grabbing his coat off the chair, he stood and headed for the door. “Thank you, doctor. You may have just saved another woman’s life.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Syd backed away. Did she hear him right? His accent, combined with her fatigue, might have thrown her, but she’d swear he’d called her Sydney. Couldn’t be. Could it?

The hammering inside her skull wasn’t a good sign.

She shook her head to clear the fog. “Did you call me Sydney?”

“That is your name isn’t it? Sydney?”

“I don’t understand.”

He shrugged. “What’s to understand? I know your real name. I’ve been studying you.” He dragged his gaze down her jean-clad body. “I know you,
Sydney
.”

“Pardon?”

“I’ve seen you. With that bodyguard? I watched in the window that night he came here.” Nabil leaned his upper body toward her and focused on her mouth. “The way he drove himself into you. The way he
fucked
you. You like it hard, don’t you,
Sydney
?”