Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(101)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Something Bev asked me to give you.” He handed it to her, and she saw her name written in a small flowing script. Inside, she found a letter.

Kimberly Lauren Stratford was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph William Glen of Charlottesville, Virginia, fifteen years ago, after six months in the transfer house. I cared for her myself. She was a good girl, a mild-mannered child who was told she’d been brought to an orphanage because her original family had been killed in a car accident. She asked about you often, insisted you couldn’t have been in the car, but with repetition, she began to believe it was true. At such a young age, she knew nothing but what adults told her, and we remained consistent in this regard so she’d be happy in her new situation. I don’t pretend to be proud of my actions. I don’t excuse them, either. It’s time you knew. As far as I’m aware, she’s still very much alive.

Alive! Tears filled Jasmine’s eyes at this last line. Gruber hadn’t killed her sister as he had Adele. Kimberly had been adopted into another family, a family in Virginia. She’d be twenty-four years old now. Had she graduated from college?

Married and started a family?

Would she want to know that her old family still existed?

A movement in the bed drew Jasmine’s attention, and she watched, breathless, as Romain opened his eyes. “There you are,” he whispered, his voice weak but clear.

Jasmine set the letter aside. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been shot.” A half smile curved his lips.

“You’ll be okay,” she told him and squeezed his hand.

“I will be now that I know you’re safe.”

His eyelids drifted closed again, and Jasmine turned to Pearson Black, who stood at the foot of the bed. “Thank you for bringing me this,” she said, gesturing to the letter.

“Are you going to look her up? Your sister, I mean?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to—but I don’t want to bother her if she’d be happier as she is.”

“A lot’s happened. A lot of time has gone by. I don’t envy you the decision.”

He patted her shoulder. “Good luck,” he said and left.

As the door closed behind him, Jasmine glanced at the television hanging over Romain’s bed. The volume was on low, but now that Pearson was gone, it was so quiet in the room she could hear a news announcer giving the top stories of the day.

Gruber Coen’s picture flashed across the screen, and Jasmine listened more intently.

“…house contained a freezer, in which police discovered frozen body parts from at least four different victims. Not all of these victims have been identified, but Valerie Stabula, the suspect’s sister, was found dead in a concrete room beneath the master bedroom. This cell contained a television and a portable toilet. Although the police don’t yet know how many victims Gruber Coen tortured and murdered, it’s clear that he wasn’t the man his neighbors knew as quiet and harmless…”

“Quiet and harmless,” Jasmine murmured and suddenly felt an irrational urge to laugh.

Epilogue

“Are you going up?” Romain parked the truck and gave Jasmine’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze. In the three weeks he’d been out of the hospital, the color had returned to his face. The doctors said he should suffer no lasting effects from the shooting. They credited a strong constitution, but Jasmine knew his recovery had more to do with the fact that he was finally at peace with himself. The man who’d murdered Adele was dead; Romain had killed him in order to save Jasmine. But he hadn’t killed Moreau. On the basis of the news footage, Jasmine’s contact at the FBI had confirmed what Romain’s sister had always believed. Huff was the one who’d shot Moreau. Jasmine didn’t know for sure—no one did since Huff wasn’t around to explain—but she thought he’d done it to put an end to the questions and probing that Moreau’s shocking release would generate. The attention threatened his adoption ring. Getting rid of Moreau also satisfied Romain, who wasn’t likely to give up until he’d obtained justice. Huff had put closure—false closure—on something that was far from over, and Romain had taken the blame. It was perfect and it would’ve worked, if not for that package Gruber Coen had sent Jasmine.

“Jaz?” Romain prompted when she didn’t reach for the door handle. “Aren’t you going to the door?”

“I don’t know.” According to Beverly Moreau, Kimberly’s new name was Lisa Marie Glen. Armed with this information, Jasmine had been able to locate Lisa in Virginia, where her adoptive parents lived in a five-million-dollar mansion.

Kimberly no longer lived there, but her own place was pretty impressive, Jasmine thought as she took in the Bostonian flavor of her sister’s small cottage. Ralph Lauren could’ve designed this house. Blue and white and nautical, it peeked out from behind an arched trellis flanked by rose bushes.

“This is the moment you’ve been waiting for,” Romain said.

But now that she’d found Kimberly, she couldn’t decide whether or not to ring the bell. She was plagued by too many questions, the most disturbing of which always began with why. Why had her sister apparently accepted the story she’d been told? Why had she let go and never looked back? She’d known Jasmine was home when Gruber Coen came to the house. How could she have allowed Peccavi and the others to convince her that her real family was dead, to create a whole new identity for her?

“Come on,” Romain coaxed. “At least say hello. You tossed and turned all night. I know you won’t be satisfied until you see her.”

A flagstone path bisected a garden that was beautiful even in February and led to the arched wooden door of the house—tempting and yet, in its own way, daunting.

“Maybe she’d rather not hear from me.”

“Or maybe you’re hurt and angry because she’s been living what appears to be a relatively normal life and never made any effort to contact you.”

He’d said what Jasmine had been trying not to face, but it was true. She knew it was small-minded, that she had no right to feel rejected. But she’d always imagined this meeting as some kind of rescue. She’d prayed and worked tirelessly, held on to hope even after most people would’ve given up. All because she was sure Kimberly needed someone to help her escape a man like Gruber Coen. Never did she consider that her sister could be happy. Or better off without her original family.