Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(25)
Author: Brenda Novak

“No.”

“Exactly. And I didn’t forget today.” He nodded toward his truck. “Go ahead and get in. I’ll drive you and your groceries home,” he told her.

“What’d you get me?” Mem wanted to know.

“Eggs, butter, flour, sugar. The usual.”

She leaned heavily on a cane, her wrinkled face rapt with anticipation.

“Coffee?”

“Of course.” There were beignets, too, but she didn’t need to know everything.

“D’at’s a good boy. Your mamère, God rest her soul—” one arthritic hand moved in the sign of the cross “—would be proud of her T-Bone. He does not forget old Mem. No, he doesn’t. And for him I cast my most powerful spells.”

“It’s a fair trade,” he said to salvage her pride.

“D’at’s right.” She nodded her gray head. “I bring you d’is.” Thrusting one hand into a fold of her brown, sacklike dress, she withdrew a sachet filled with her special blend of herbs. She made him a new one almost every week. “It will give you power. Power to have anyt’ing you want.”

Nothing could bring Adele back. Or Pamela. But he forced himself to accept it. “I’m just happy we both have enough to eat,” he grumbled.

“You always find plenty of de shrimp and de crabs,” she said. “It’s magic. My magic.” He thought his shrimping and crabbing success had more to do with hard work than herbal sachets, but it didn’t hurt to let her think he saw value in what she did for him.

“I can tell,” he mumbled.

“D’ere was a car here last night,” she said, her voice rising suspiciously.

He grinned at her abrupt change of topic. No doubt she’d been dying to know about his visitor ever since she’d spotted Jasmine’s arrival. “Just another witch,” he teased.

He’d expected her to chuckle at his answer. But Mem’s eyes grew dark, her pupils shrinking to mere pinpricks. “She’s bad luck. Tell her to stay away.” She waved her arms in an adamant motion, then started toward his truck.

Romain hesitated before following. Mem was full of dire warnings. Don’t go out on de bayou, not today, T-Bone…Beware of de storm d’at’s brewing…It’ll be a hard, hard hurricane season, you mark my words…. To her, something as innocent and natural as a broken tree branch served as a harbinger of bad luck. Too superstitious for her own good, she was determined to look out for him whether he welcomed it or not. But today her words matched his own concerns too closely to disregard them.

“You worry too much,” he told her.

She stopped shuffling long enough to tap her temple with one crooked finger.

“Mem knows.”

And this time Romain wondered if she was right.

While waiting until it was late enough to visit Big Louie’s, Jasmine called every sheriff’s office and police department in Colorado, searching for Detective Huff. By the time she finished with those and started on the short list of marshals’

offices, she was beginning to realize that even if Huff had relocated to Colorado after leaving Louisiana, there was no guarantee he’d still be in the state.

At least focusing on these calls helped keep her mind off Romain Fornier, who’d become a recurrent theme. She wouldn’t have been so concerned if her preoccupation with him was limited to what he’d told her about Adele’s name on that bathroom wall—the strange capitals, the funny e—but it wasn’t just that. More often than not, she found herself staring at the bed in the corner of her hotel room, picturing him there, which said a lot about what he’d managed to do to her in the short time she’d known him.

“What’s gotten into me?” she asked herself, and was more than a little startled when she heard a response.

“Excuse me?”

Jasmine had forgotten she’d already dialed—and she certainly hadn’t realized that someone had picked up. “Is this the Bayfield marshals’ office?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Is there an Alvin Huff working there?”

“Alvin Huff, did you say?”

“Yes. H-u-f-f.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of anyone by that name.”

“Thank you.” With a sigh, Jasmine hung up and moved her finger down to the next office on the list. Most marshals’ offices served small communities of about 1600 people. She couldn’t see Detective Huff going from the Big Easy to a small Western town in the Rockies and figured she was probably wasting her time. But she had a few more minutes before she planned to leave and decided to call another one or two.

The Crystal Butte marshals’ office was next. Clearing her throat, she dialed and, once again, asked for Huff.

“Just a minute, please.”

“He’s there?” she nearly shouted, jumping out of her seat.

“I’m about to check,” the woman responded, obviously startled.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Jasmine paced the floor in her small room while she waited. “Be there,” she whispered. “Be there.”

The woman’s voice came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Deputy Marshal Huff’s left for the day. Can I give him a message when he returns tomorrow?”

“Yes. Please tell him Jasmine Stratford from The Last Stand, a victims’

nonprofit organization in California, needs to speak with him. It’s urgent.”

“Would you like me to call his cell to deliver this message, Ms. Stratford?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“No problem.”

“I appreciate your help.” Jasmine gave the woman her own cell number and disconnected, then paced some more. But when Huff called her back, he wasn’t particularly forthcoming.

“I was told you needed to speak with me.”

“Yes. I’m Jasmine Strat—”

“I know who you are.”

She stopped moving. “You do?”

“I looked you up online when I got your message. You run a victims’ charity in California. You sometimes work as a consultant for the FBI and other police agencies and have helped solved a few high-profile cases. You were on America’s Most Wanted November twenty-fourth, which led to the capture of a pedophile. Am I leaving anything out?”

Friendliness, for one… “The fact that my sister was kidnapped sixteen years ago, and I’m committed to finding out what happened to her. That’s why I’m calling you.”