Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(19)
Author: Brenda Novak

She wanted to do just that. But it was too reckless, too irresponsible to give in to that urge. “Tempting but not tempting enough.”

Releasing a dramatic sigh, he rubbed a hand over his stubble-covered jaw. “So we’re back to your sister, right?”

“Right.”

She knew he wasn’t really disappointed. He’d been testing her, using sex to create a diversion, at the least, an escape at the most.

“What is it you want to know?” he asked.

“Tell me about Moreau.”

“His house was a couple of miles from ours in the Garden District. He lived alone, kept to himself.” His monotone suggested he was attempting to distance himself from the subject. “He had a prior arrest record for molesting a little girl when he was about twenty and a young teen when he was twenty-five, but no convictions.

He was as twisted as they come and, although I’m the first to admit I was wrong for doing what I did, society should thank me for the favor. That’s it.”

“Any other suspects?”

“A few. But there was no physical proof that any of them had my daughter in his house.”

Jasmine sat on the bed. “Are you angry at Huff for bungling the search?”

“No. Huff took a calculated risk—and lost.”

“Which meant you lost, too.”

“Without the physical proof he discovered, there wouldn’t have been enough evidence to charge Moreau in the first place.”

“The cops couldn’t have got what they needed in the morning, after the judge signed the affidavit?”

“Moreau had seen Huff watching his place earlier in the day. He was already spooked and would’ve burned it or gotten rid of it somehow.” A muscle twitched in Fornier’s cheek. “It was the system that failed me, not Huff. A proven predator’s rights turned out to be more important to the state than an innocent child’s.”

She heard that sentiment often in her line of work. “Was anyone else privy to all the details of the case?”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. Someone who followed Huff’s progress, who acted as if he was trying to help. Someone who kept inserting himself into the investigation, maybe even confessed?”

“Because the media took hold of it, we had all kinds of crazies calling in. One guy wasn’t in New Orleans when she went missing, and there were at least half a dozen people who could prove it.”

“Anyone else stand out?”

“There was a guy Huff worked with on the force, a street cop who was trying to work his way up to detective. He wasn’t officially on the case but he took a real interest. Huff believed he might’ve been the one who tipped off the defense to the illegal search.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Huff and Black never got along, and he wanted Huff’s job.”

“The newspaper reported Moreau’s mother as the whistle-blower.”

“That was just the attorney trying to protect Pearson Black. Black’s the one who provided the information. Huff insists he didn’t see anyone besides Moreau at the house when he returned that morning, but Black had helped with the search so, of course, he knew what happened.”

“Do you have regular contact with either of them?”

“I don’t have regular contact with anyone. And I like it that way.”

“Yet you came here.”

He faced her again, doing exactly what she’d thought him incapable of doing

—revealing his most vulnerable self. “I want to believe you about the necklace.”

“It’s still missing, isn’t it?”

“Can you tell me where it is?”

“No. I only know that whoever took Adele kept it in his pocket so he could fondle it when he wanted to remember her.” Jasmine hadn’t realized she knew that detail.

Romain’s eyes grew watery, but he didn’t look weak, he looked dangerous. “If you’re lying, if you’re telling me this to manipulate me, thinking you’ll enlist my help…”

“I’m not lying.”

He stepped closer. “Then how do you know?”

She hated admitting she had psychic abilities. She preferred to hang her reputation on her profiling skills, which was what she played up with the media and the police departments she helped, even though it was really some of both. But she couldn’t say that in this instance. For one thing, she would’ve had no way of ascertaining the information. “I have certain…intuitive abilities.”

“Intuitive?” Skepticism etched deep grooves around his mouth. “Like the crazy old woman who lives a mile from me and claims to be a witch?”

“I don’t claim to be anything,” she said. “Occasionally I get…impressions.

Some are clear. Some are not. There’s no rhyme or reason to them. I can attempt to invite them by studying a particular case and touching something that belonged to the victim or the perpetrator. Once in a while I have an uncanny amount of success.

More often, I get random, fleeting, confusing signals, and I wonder if I’m losing my mind.”

Her honesty seemed to deflect the criticism she felt sure would’ve come in the absence of her own doubt. “But we’re talking about a crime that took place years ago,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter. I pick up on random fragments of actions, thoughts or feelings. They can be in the past, present and sometimes even the future.”

“How long have you had this…ability?”

“Since I was fifteen or sixteen, maybe earlier, but I didn’t have anything to compare it to. I chalked it up to coincidence or a good guess or whatever. I didn’t talk about it until I started getting involved in criminal investigations.” If she’d had the ability when Kimberly went missing, she hadn’t known it or known how to use it, but she’d often wondered if it would’ve made a difference. Maybe she would’ve been able to sense the danger that summer day. Or been more help with the search.

“And then?”

“Then I realized I was more intuitive than most people. Sometimes it went beyond that, and I could foretell what was going to happen. Or I could sense where someone had died, or what a particular perpetrator had been thinking. Once I began focusing on these feelings, I got better and better at separating outside input from my own thoughts. But it’s still a very rudimentary and inexact science. I just do what I can.”