Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(36)
Author: Brenda Novak

She was about to bang on the trapdoor when she remembered the white fabric she’d noticed before she was imprisoned. She’d never figured out what it was, hadn’t thought of it since her focus had changed to escape. But she remembered it now. And she wondered whether it had something to do with the level of foreboding and despair that hung so thickly in the air.

Swallowing hard, she pointed the beam of her flashlight toward the far corner.

At first she couldn’t see anything except muddy earth but, against the dark backdrop, it didn’t take long to locate that snatch of white. It was over by the puddle.

Plop…plop…

As Jasmine inched closer, her chest grew tight with tension. She loathed this corner of the cellar even more than the rest. Cobwebs caught in her hair and on her hands, and the scratching of small rodents, scrambling to stay out of the spotlight, made her muscles ache with tension. No doubt the trash stacked on the other side of the wall attracted more rats than a normal cellar would, but now she was beginning to see a purpose behind all the garbage. Was someone trying to cover up the sickly-sweet stench that was becoming increasingly apparent?

The scent of wet wood, wet earth and garbage combined to help camouflage what she thought she detected, but she was sure that something or someone was buried down here. And if it was murder, the police needed to know. There was probably a family somewhere, searching for a loved one, just as she’d been searching.

Heart hammering erratically, she stopped a few inches from the white cloth, which stuck out of the ground as if attached to something bigger.

Brushing away a clingy web, she steeled her nerves to grab hold of the fabric.

It was wet and slimy to the touch, which made her shiver in disgust. She almost pulled back her hand. But she could see a button along the edge. It was a shirt.

The footsteps above fell silent. In some corner of her brain, Jasmine acknowledged and recorded that information, but she was so intent on what she was doing, she didn’t react to it. Her arms felt weak as she yanked on the fabric and, when it wouldn’t give way, even weaker as she began to dig.

But it took only minutes to discover what her heart already knew: it was a corpse.

Chapter 10

The body had been there for a while. Long enough to decompose completely.

Jasmine wasn’t going to dig the skeleton all the way out to make sure, but the cranium she’d exposed had only a small bit of leathery skin still attached to the scalp and a patch of sandy-colored hair. There were teeth in the skull but of course no eyes.

This wasn’t a child. But it was repulsive enough despite that. Shaking, more from shock and fear than cold, Jasmine scrambled away. What’d happened before this poor person was buried in the Moreaus’ cellar?

Her mind created a picture of a desperate struggle, but nothing more.

She had to get out. Before someone realized what she’d discovered. Before the man who’d locked her in here returned. Before she wound up rotting in a shallow grave like the corpse staring sightlessly back at her.

Once again cognizant of movement above her, she hurried toward the trapdoor, planning to beg for help, if need be. But halfway there, she stopped. She couldn’t leave the body exposed. If the person inside the house was the one who’d taken that life, and he or she knew Jasmine had found the remains, she’d be even less likely to survive the day.

She had to cover it up.

Struggling to collect her breath as well as her strength, she fought the dry heaves that made her body spasm and went back to the disturbed mud. She shook and shivered and gagged uncontrollably, but she managed to use her flashlight and her hands to begin the reburial. When she finished, no one would be able to tell she’d been digging. At least from the trapdoor. It was too dark.

Almost there…Nearly done…Keep at it….

Squeezing her eyes closed so she wouldn’t have to watch, she shoved the muddy earth over that white shirt and odd-looking torso, working her way toward the head. It was slow progress. She could barely make her arms obey the commands of her mind. She was too afraid her fingers might touch that flesh or bone or hair, didn’t want to think that this had once been a human being.

A slight swell remained in the earth when she was done. She patted it down the best she could and crawled to the trapdoor. She was getting muddier by the minute, but she couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk. Her legs wouldn’t support her weight.

It felt as if every bone in her body had turned to jelly. She’d seen some gruesome spectacles in her life, but generally in a designated “crime scene” setting with police officers in attendance. In those situations, she could maintain a certain detachment.

Evaluate on a cognitive level. Analyze. Hypothesize.

Now, it was her life in danger.

“Hello?” Her fists felt like twenty-pound weights as she lifted them to bang against the trapdoor. “H-help me! Please! I’m locked in. Will you help me?” She began to knock with the butt of her flashlight and, eventually, she heard the creak of footsteps drawing closer.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t the gentle face of the person who peered down at her.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked, blue eyes behind a pair of glasses widening in shock.

Jasmine nearly burst into tears. This woman wasn’t dangerous. With her soft white hair and the chain attached to her glasses, she reminded Jasmine of the average American grandmother.

“S-someone l-locked me in here,” Jasmine stammered.

“Who?” A second woman came into view, much younger than her counterpart and quite attractive.

“I d-don’t know.” It was difficult to quell the chattering of her teeth. “I d-didn’t see him.”

“I told you I heard something, Beverly!” the younger woman exclaimed.

So this was Mrs. Moreau. Jasmine had read her name in the papers as the witness that’d caused the case to be dropped.

“It’s fortunate you called me,” Beverly said, but there was a hint of resentment in her voice that made Jasmine pay particular attention. Especially since the second woman seemed so oblivious to the older woman’s true feelings.

“I hated to disturb you. I know you work at night and need your sleep during the day. But I didn’t want to intrude on your privacy by searching for the source of that noise without you.”

“No one likes a nosy neighbor,” she agreed. “Now, where’s that little ladder of mine?”

Jasmine hoped she could find it, and wasn’t disappointed. A moment later, both women handed the ladder down to her and, resisting a final glance at the grave in the corner, Jasmine climbed out.