Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(26)
Author: Brenda Novak

“If I remember right, your sister was taken from your family’s home in Cleveland.”

Remembered right? Jasmine was fairly sure he was sitting in front of his computer, reading all the information he’d pulled up about her. “That’s true. But the box I just received with my sister’s bracelet in it was mailed from New Orleans. And the note that came with the bracelet was written in blood—using the same strange mix of capital letters and the odd e that you attributed to Moreau when he wrote Adele Fornier’s name on the wall of the public bathroom.”

“Attributed?” he echoed.

“That’s what I said.”

“Moreau murdered that little girl. I’m sure of it.”

There was no mistaking the passion in his voice. “If that’s true, Moreau must still be alive. Because whoever sent me that package did so only a week ago. And I can’t imagine two men with such a unique signature, can you?”

“Moreau’s dead.”

“Then how do you explain the coincidence?”

“I’m not explaining anything. I’m simply telling you there was far too much evidence in Moreau’s house for it to have been anyone else. There was a pair of pants with her blood on it, a video of him sexually torturing her, and one of her barrettes.”

“There has to be an explanation.”

“If there is, I don’t have it. That case nearly ruined my career. And it cost Romain Fornier, a man I greatly respect, far more than it cost me. I don’t want anything to do with what happened in New Orleans.”

Jasmine had thought he’d be more intrigued by current developments.

Obviously, she was wrong. He’d been too badly burned. “What about Pearson Black?” she asked.

There was a moment’s pause, as if the change of subject took him aback.

“What about him?”

“Fornier said he kept inserting himself into the investigation, that he had more than a passing interest.”

“Black was dirty. He’d sell his soul for a couple hundred bucks.”

“You think someone bribed him to blow your case?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“Who would’ve put up the money?”

“Moreau’s mother or brother. When a cop’s willing to sell his integrity that cheaply, almost anyone can buy him. It’s even possible Moreau himself promised to pay. Black visited him in jail plenty of times, claiming he was doing research on the criminal mind, that he was planning to write a book.”

“I don’t think he’s gotten around to the book, but I hear he wrote a blog for a while.”

“I wouldn’t recommend reading it—unless you have a cast-iron stomach.”

Her second warning. Jasmine could barely imagine what kind of stuff she’d find there…“I don’t have a cast-iron stomach, Deputy Huff.” Pretty much the opposite, in fact. “But I am determined to find out why this case appears to be so closely related to my sister’s. Do you know how I can access his blog?”

“I’m telling you, it’s not related. It can’t be.”

“It has to be.”

It was his turn to sigh. “Thanks to Black’s twisted sense of humor, it’s easy enough to remember. Go to www.CopsBedtimeStoriesByBlack.com.”

She jotted the URL on the page of police departments she’d printed out in the lobby downstairs. “How do you like working for the marshals’ office?”

“I love it. Can’t you tell?” he said and hung up.

Jasmine frowned as she put down the phone. Huff hadn’t given her as much as she’d hoped. She wished the lab would get back to her on what the evidence revealed. But the technicians had said it’d be at least three weeks.

With everyone she knew far away from Louisiana, and Christmas on the horizon, three weeks seemed like an eternity. It’d be the middle of January by the time she heard from the lab.

Briefly, she thought of Romain—again. Would he spend Christmas out on the bayou? How did he survive in such isolation day after day?

Forget Fornier. She had things to do.

Taking her room key from the desktop, Jasmine went down to the lobby. It was 9:30 p.m., late enough to make it likely she’d find a security guard at Big Louie’s. But first she wanted to take a look at Black’s online journal. She thought it might be smart to know a bit more about the ex-cop before confronting him in a dark parking lot on the seedy side of town.

It wasn’t the amount of violence in the blog that surprised Jasmine. She’d been prepared for that. It was the contemptuous tone. Black’s comments, even on an average traffic stop, painted him as the only rational, “normal” individual involved.

He claimed he was growing jaded. Bemoaned it again and again. But Jasmine got the impression that he loved the power that went with the uniform. His complaints about what he encountered every day were merely an excuse to speak freely and express more disrespect and cynicism toward the average citizen than she could endure.

She wondered if he realized that those “stupid ass**les” he belittled for infractions as minor as a tardy car registration were the very people who paid his salary. If so, he didn’t understand the term “civil servant.” Especially the “civil” part…

“You’re a piece of work, Mr. Black,” she muttered as she skimmed the grim details he’d recorded about a serial killer in Colombia. As with the previous entries, he focused most heavily on the perpetrator’s sicker obsessions, relishing everything that was disgusting and inhumane, and offering his own hypotheses. But Jasmine was already familiar with Pedro Alonso Lopez’s crimes and didn’t respect Black enough to concern herself with his verbose and self-important analysis, so she skipped most of it. She was more interested in Black’s handling of the everyday than his fascination with a psychopath who had over three hundred deaths to his credit.

Jumping a little farther down, she read an entry titled “Dumb Blonde” dated fourteen months ago. According to Kozlowski, that would’ve been shortly before Black was fired.

Never fails. If a woman thinks she’s got a chance of avoiding a ticket, she’ll do just about anything.

So I pull this woman over today, right? We’ll call her Lola since I can’t use her real name. I walk up, she rolls down her window and I find myself staring in at a woman with every beauty aid—Botox lips, silicon cle**age down to her knees, long blond hair, probably from a bottle, fake red nails, lots of makeup. She looks like some kind of  p**n  star, you know? The kind of woman who makes you roll your eyes—and adjust yourself at the same time. She also had a lead foot, which is why I wanted to have a chat with her. “What did I do, Officer?” she says to me, all wide-eyed—the very picture of innocence.