Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(66)
Author: Brenda Novak

He jerked away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m wondering if you’re afraid to know for sure, afraid to find out what you’re capable of.”

He glared at her. “Send it,” he said. Then he picked up one of the buckets and stalked past her. The outer door slammed shut behind him.

Chapter 16

It was miserably cold on the couch, but Jasmine couldn’t figure out why. She was still wrapped in the bedding Romain had given her, which had been warm enough when she’d fallen asleep. So why the sudden drop in temperature? Why the odd feeling that something was terribly wrong?

Turning onto her side, she tried to talk herself out of the foreboding that seeped beneath the blankets, chilling her to the bone. She was safe here. Few people even knew that Romain’s house existed, and those people were his friends. Besides, he wasn’t far away. He’d left his bedroom door open when he’d gone to bed—an obvious signal that she could join him if she wanted. As a matter of fact, she suspected he’d taken the bed hoping she would join him. But that was an invitation she made herself resist. She knew what would happen if she climbed in with him.

They couldn’t sleep together without touching, and they couldn’t touch without stripping off their clothes and falling into the same frenzy they’d enjoyed this morning. Their attraction was too strong.

Just listen to him breathe. He’s right there. He’s—

Suddenly, her heart leapt into her throat. That wasn’t Romain she could hear.

It was someone else. A stranger. Wait, not a complete stranger. The man who’d sent Kimberly’s bracelet.

How Jasmine knew it was him, she wasn’t sure, but in her mind’s eye she could see a window standing open, could see the curtains on either side stirring in the freezing night air. He’d cut the screen and crawled through. Now he was walking silently through the house. Familiarizing himself with the layout. Checking the exits.

Looking for someone.

Looking for her!

The hair on the back of Jasmine’s neck rose as she sensed him coming up behind her. He hated her, wanted to destroy her. He thought he’d given too much away.

What have you given away? her mind screamed. But there was no answer. Just cold, hard purpose. And she couldn’t even yell….

Jasmine tried to keep perfectly still. She wished she could disappear, make him believe the thick blankets on top of her had simply been tossed there the way she used to fool Kimberly when they were playing hide-and-seek.

But there was no chance of that. He knew exactly where she was. He’d spotted her, followed her here.

There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but hold her breath and pray.

“You know me,” he murmured and her heart pumped with fear as she felt him rise up.

In an attempt to fend him off, Jasmine rolled over and lifted her hands to protect her upper body and face, but the knife was already on its way down. She cried out as it sank into her chest, so deep he couldn’t immediately pull it out. The pain was paralyzing, shocking, disabling. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He wasn’t satisfied with one thrust. He had to stab her again and again and again. She’d never sensed such ruthlessness, such raw savagery…ever.

Her blood ran warm, soaking her shirt. She curled up to block the blows and the knife glanced off the bone in her shoulder, landed in her neck and cut her windpipe, making it impossible to breathe. When she heard a gurgle and realized that the odd sound came from her own throat, she knew the struggle was over, knew her life was over.

And then Romain was there. “Calm down.” Catching her wrists so she couldn’t hit him anymore, he used his weight to press her into the couch and stop her from thrashing around. “I’ve got you, Jasmine. You’re okay. It’s me. You just had a bad dream.”

Jasmine blinked and stared up at him. There was no open window. No other presence. She was in Romain’s shack in the bayou, as safe as ever.

But what she’d experienced hadn’t been a dream. “No!” Still terrified, she tried to push past him, to get up, but he cradled her against him and spoke to her as if he was gentling a spooked horse. “Relax. Shh…”

Shaking violently, she turned her face into the hollow beneath his collarbone and began to sob. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to believe the words he crooned to her. But she couldn’t get the images out of her mind. “He killed her,” she said, hiccoughing from her tears. “He thought she…was me and he…he hacked her to pieces.”

Romain didn’t know what to think. It was the middle of the night, and Jasmine was sitting at his kitchen table demanding he drive her to a phone so she could report a murder. But what good would that do? She couldn’t provide the identity of the person who was stabbed, where that person lived or the name of the man who’d wielded the knife.

“Jasmine, if you call in like this, you’ll lose all credibility.” Romain had witnessed her reaction and was still having difficulty accepting that she’d been privy to a murder while sleeping on his couch.

The shaking had subsided but her dilated pupils and clammy pallor testified to the very real terror she’d experienced. “I don’t care,” she said stubbornly. “I have to do what I can to help that poor woman.”

“What poor woman?” he said for the third time. “Can you come up with a name, even a first name? Initials? They’re going to need a little more to go on than

‘someone was killed tonight.’”

“I’ve never met her. I know that.”

“But the man with the knife—you think it was the guy who abducted your sister.”

“Yes.”

A man she hadn’t been able to find for sixteen years…“Where did he see her?

Why did he choose her?”

Jasmine’s hand went to her chest as if she was reliving the memory of his vicious thrusts. “I don’t know where he saw her. All I know is that he wanted it to be me. He was trying to appease the rage he feels toward me by taking it out on someone else. A stranger. Someone who probably looks like me.”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Romain said gently. “Are you sure it wasn’t a nightmare? People have nightmares all the time.”

“Occasionally I make mistakes,” she admitted. “Misinterpret something.

Become too personally involved in a case and miss clues I should’ve picked up.

But…” she shook her head and her voice fell to a whisper “…I’m not wrong about this.”