Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(5)
Author: Brenda Novak

As if she hadn’t done it a million times during the past sixteen years, she replayed those few moments yet again, resting her head on the back of the seat.

Jasmine hadn’t heard the knock. She’d been lying on the floor in the living room when a man’s slightly scratchy voice overrode the sound of her TV show.

Kimberly was talking to him. The comfortable, almost familiar way he behaved signaled that this was just another of her father’s workers or soon-to-be workers, so Jasmine hadn’t bothered to move.

Where’s your daddy?

At work.

When will he be back?

Not till later. Do you want me to call him?

No, I can call him from the car.

The fact that he’d acted as though he knew her father, as though he had Peter’s phone number, had fit with day-today life in the Stratford household, so Jasmine had thought nothing of it. But it’d played a major role in the subsequent investigation.

Her parents believed Peter had met the man somewhere, that he’d invited him into their sphere of existence. That was part of the reason her mother blamed her father so much. Prior to the incident, Gauri had often complained about so many people coming to the house, but Peter had always teased her out of her concern by calling her Chicken Little. He’d swing her around the kitchen, saying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” in a high-pitched voice as he laughed.

And then the sky fell….

Refusing to get caught up in unhappy memories of the arguments that occasionally bordered on violence, and the tears that followed, Jasmine directed her thoughts back to the bearded man at the door, speaking to Kimberly.

How old are you?

Eight.

You’re sure a pretty little girl.

Jealousy had momentarily flared inside Jasmine at the compliment. She wanted to be told she was pretty, too. Although their father was Caucasian, their mother was from India and both sisters had her thick black hair and golden-brown skin. But Jasmine had wide almond-shaped eyes, which were so startlingly blue that she normally attracted more attention than her younger sister. She would’ve gotten up to bask in the praise Kimberly was receiving, but Kevin Arnold was about to have his first kiss with Winnie in The Wonder Years, and she couldn’t pull herself away.

I can do a cartwheel. Want to watch? Her sister’s voice carried in from the entry hall.

“Not in the house,” Jasmine had yelled, and that was when the man leaned around the corner to take a look at her, and she’d seen his face.

You’re babysitting?

Yep.

Kimberly had peered into the room, too, but only long enough to stick out her tongue. “She’s being so bossy,” she said. Then she told the man she’d show him her cartwheel on the lawn, and they’d gone out. Pleased that she’d done her duty by making sure her sister didn’t kick over a lamp, Jasmine soon forgot all about the interruption and simply enjoyed the rest of her show. But when the episode ended, the front door was still standing open and Kimberly was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the man.

Jasmine knew that even if she lived to be a hundred, she’d never forget having to call her parents to tell them her little sister had gone missing.

On her watch.

“Your hotel is on St. Philip Street?” The taxi driver seemed to find that odd.

Jasmine met his eyes, with their caterpillar-like brows, in the rearview mirror.

“That’s what it said on the Web site.”

“And the name is Maison du Soleil?”

His accent was French, but not the kind of formal French Jasmine had heard on television. His r’s weren’t spoken in his throat; they were rolled. “That’s right.”

“Not Maison Dupuy on Bourbon Street.”

“No.”

Those bushy eyebrows met. “I have never heard of this hotel, but I am fairly new to the city. Are you certain of the address, my friend?”

“I’m positive.”

His gaze moved back to the road. “Mais we will find it then. No problem. No worries.”

No problem? Was he certain? Jasmine knew she hadn’t reserved a luxurious room. She didn’t know how long she’d be in town, and she had to be careful about the expenses she incurred. Her credit cards would bear only so much. But now she was afraid she might end up in a broom closet. The Internet hadn’t shown any pictures of the hotel itself, just the interior of a room. It was the location—“right in the heart of New Orleans where the city began”—and the reasonable price that had convinced her to stay there. She’d figured it couldn’t be too bad if it was in the Quarter.

Another Web site had warned her not to stay in the Vieux Carré unless she could tolerate the noise of constant revelry, but that strange feeling, that creepy sense of being inside the skin of whoever had written that note, spooked her so much she wanted to be around people. If she could open her window late at night, hear jazz playing in the street and see a crowd laughing, talking and enjoying the holiday season, she thought she’d feel safer.

“Will you be staying through Christmas?” the driver asked, his tone more conversational.

Christmas was just six days away. Could she accomplish what she needed to do in time to return to California? She doubted it. But maybe that was for the best.

She usually spent the major holidays with Skye. Sheridan had family in Wyoming and often went home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Skye’s only living family was a stepfather and two stepsisters, all of whom lived in L.A., which generally left her available. Until this year. Now she was married and had a family of her own, and Jasmine didn’t want to interfere with their first Christmas.

Which left her as alone in Sacramento as she’d be in New Orleans. “I’m staying through New Year’s.”

“Not Mardi Gras?”

“When does it start?”

“In February. I cannot say exactly when. It is always a different day, you know? On Fat Tuesday.” He said “Tuesday” like “Chooseday.” “Forty-six days before Easter,” he clarified.

She certainly hoped she wouldn’t be in New Orleans until February. “Probably not,” she said.

“Are you here on business peut-être?”

The question momentarily threw Jasmine. She was in town on a personal matter—as personal as a matter could get. And yet the work she’d be doing would be no different from the investigations she spearheaded while trying to help other victims of violent crime. Maybe it’d be easier if she considered the investigation that lay ahead in a more professional manner. Maybe that would counteract the disquiet that hugged her like a sweater.