Page 86 of Missing Justice

Chapter Sixteen

At the office, Matt printed the photos and they now stood in front of Charlie’s desk as she studied the birth certificate.

“If I had the original,” she said, “we’d be able to tell from the intaglio and seal if this was an official document. The watermarks are there though.” She looked up at Taylor. “Do you remember what the paper looked like? If they’d used the intaglio technique, there’d be an almost grooved surface. The printing plates have depressions. When the birth certificates are printed, depressions are made and they hold the ink. The grooves are almost unidentifiable unless you know what you’re looking for. They could be fractions of a millimeter.”

Taylor shook her head. “I didn’t touch it, but the surface looked smooth. I remember the seal though. It was flat.”

That got Charlie’s attention. Her head snapped up from her study of the documents. “It wasn’t embossed?”

“No. Should it have been?”

“All states do it differently, but yes, this particular one, if the document was the original and not a copy, should be raised.”

“Well, unless it was a color copy, it looked like an original. It had the steel engraved borders and everything.”

“Look, guys, without seeing what you saw, it’s hard to tell. Complicating this are the adoption papers. Typically, when an adoption is finalized the birth certificate is amended. The biological parents are removed and the adoptive parents are added. Then the records are closed. Now, that’s not always the case. In some states, the biological parents can request that the information remain open.”

Matt walked around the desk and compared the names on the birth certificate with the adoption papers. “The parents’ names are different.”

“Which,” Taylor said, “indicates this could be the original birth certificate.”

“Yes.”

Taylor shook her head. “I don’t understand what this woman is doing. Even if it were an open adoption, she should have an amended birth certificate.”

Matt leaned against the wall and rested his head back. They needed to research the adoptions Rosalind had handled. And that whole comment she’d made about the baby’s parents being good stock? What the hell was that about?”

From her spot near the desk, Taylor eyed him. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking Teeg better get moving on intel for Hearts of Love. I don’t care how positive the reviews are. Something, somewhere is screwed.”

Taylor whipped out her phone. “I’ll call him. Besides, he owes us an update on the list of people who own silver trucks.”

Ha. Good luck there. Even if nerd boy had that list, there could be thousands of people on it. It would take a small army to check each one. “Don’t bet the farm on that list. It’ll take us a month to run it down.”

“Don’t be so negative. Turns out Grey’s little wonder kid is developing software that will help.”

Now this sounded promising. “What software?”

“I don’t know the exact deets, but it’s basically an eye in the sky that lets agents zoom in on addresses.”

“Like a street view?”

“Yes. Grey mentioned it the other day, then I asked Teeg about it when we were at the armory earlier. The way he explained it, he can upload a giant list of addresses and a street view for each will pop up on the screen. Initially, he was hoping to track specific people. Now, he’s testing parameters to figure out if there are things that could be entered and searched for.”

“Like stickers on the back of silver trucks?”

She waggled her finger. “Now you’re getting it.”

“If we could use that software, it’d speed things up. In the meantime, I’m gonna take another run at Walt, see if he remembers this sticker.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Oh, right. That’d be brilliant. The suspended FBI agent sitting in on a meeting with a senator who Matt had signed a confidentiality agreement with. He glanced at Charlie, whose gaze ping-ponged between them.

His boss wasn’t stupid. By now, if she hadn’t already figured it out, she at least suspected Matt and Taylor were actively swapping bodily fluids. He jerked his head to the door.

“Let’s finish this in my office.”