Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(73)
Author: Brenda Novak

Not until it’s all over. And then, sometimes, he needs to talk. I’m sure he can tell you more. Do you have a pen?”

“Just a sec.” Romain returned to the café to ask for a pen and a napkin to write on. Jasmine was exactly where he’d left her, but she was no longer working. She was staring at her screen with such intensity he could see lines of concentration on her forehead. She’d found something interesting; Romain could tell. But he had to get this number before he could ask her what it was.

“Go ahead,” he said into the phone, still watching Jasmine. As Marcie rattled off the number, he wrote it down, then hung up as soon as possible and strode over.

“What is it?” he asked. He expected her to say that the news had finally broken about a woman being murdered, as she’d dreamed last night.

But that wasn’t it.

She pointed to her screen. “I got this message from Pearson Black. He sent it yesterday, to the general ‘contact us’ box at the Web site for The Last Stand. Skye forwarded it to my personal e-mail.”

It was a short message. Did you find what you were looking for?

Coming from anyone else, Romain figured that could be a sincere question.

Coming from the man he’d met during his daughter’s investigation, those words could just as easily constitute a taunt. “He knows something.”

“I agree.”

“See if you can tempt him into telling you what it is.”

Jasmine clicked on the Instant Message button. Black was online. Who was the dead man?

They waited a few minutes, during which Jasmine spoke with a private investigator named Jonathan in California. She asked him to dig up what he could on each of the Moreaus and on Pearson Black and, when she clicked back, Pearson had already responded.

“The beauty of the Internet,” Romain muttered as Jasmine opened his message.

“There you are. Where’ve you been?” she read aloud. “I thought maybe I’d see you again.”

“Where’s his surprise over your reference to a dead man?” Romain asked.

“Wouldn’t most people say, ‘What dead guy?’”

“You’d think so.” Jasmine started typing again. Are you the one who locked me in that cellar?

CopBedTimeStories: My feelings are hurt. Why would you accuse me?

JazzStratford: You’re the only one who knew I was going there.

CopBedTimeStories: You’re not exactly invisible.

JazzStratford: You didn’t answer my question.

CopBedTimeStories: What question?

JazzStratford: Who was the dead man?

There was a pause. Romain was afraid they’d lost him, that he wasn’t going to answer. But just as he was about to suggest they pack up, Jasmine grabbed his arm.

“Look at this!”

CopBedTimeStories: Jack Lewis. D.O.B. 12/8/54; Last known whereabouts: Longsford Community Center. He drove a van that shuttled kids from school to a center for after-hours care.

JazzStratford: How do you know?

Black’s reply consisted of only one line and it didn’t answer the question: Don’t say I never did anything for you.

Who killed him? she wrote and sent off the message.

That’s anyone’s guess, came the reply. And that was it; he wouldn’t respond again.

“What do you think?” Jasmine asked Romain, slumping against the back of her chair as if the sudden flow of adrenaline had left her drained.

Romain was dialing the number Huff’s wife had given him. “I think Huff’s in New Orleans, and we need to get his help with this.”

She stood up so fast she almost knocked over her chair. “What’s he doing here?”

“Apparently, he’s on business and he’s been trying to get a hold of me,”Romain said.

But Huff didn’t answer. After several rings, the phone transferred Romain’s call to voice mail.

“This is Alvin Huff. I’m not available to take your call right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“It’s Romain. Call me,” he said and left Jasmine’s number.

They waited until dark to drive over to the Moreaus’. The house looked no different from the pictures Romain had seen of it in court almost four years ago.

Same drab appearance from the curb. Same peeling paint. Same feeling of neglect and isolation.

The fact that his daughter had been to this house under very different circumstances brought the memories flooding back. The call he’d received from the after-school babysitter, telling him Adele was no longer at her friend’s house but hadn’t come home, either. The surreal, frantic days that followed, when he’d slept only in short snatches and spent every waking moment sending out flyers, canvassing the neighborhood, working with police, appealing to the media. Detective Huff at his door four weeks later with the news that Adele’s body had been found. The call about the neighbor who’d come forward to give them a suspect—Francis Moreau.

The conversation where Huff explained all the evidence he’d uncovered in Moreau’s house. Seeing Moreau for the first time in court. All of it. The emotions triggered by these memories were almost more than Romain could take. Gritting his teeth, he had to stop before they reached the front door.

He expected Jasmine to ask if he was okay, but she didn’t. Instead, she put her hand on his back in a silent gesture of empathy and support. “I pulled the trigger,” he managed to say. “I could do it again. This minute.”

“That remains to be seen,” she said calmly. “Would you rather wait in the truck?”

Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. “No. I want to see this place for myself.”

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”

She’d already mentioned that the car she’d seen Phillip driving earlier was gone and so was the old Buick that’d been sitting in the drive when Beverly helped her out of the cellar.

“What does Francis’s mother do for a living?” Romain murmured.

“I don’t know,” Jasmine said. “The neighbor told me she works nights, but she didn’t say where. However, my investigator called while you were getting our pizza.

She apparently got a nursing degree years ago, so maybe she’s still in the medical profession.”

They’d parked two streets over and walked so they wouldn’t attract attention from the neighbors who, after all the police involvement, had to be especially interested in any activity at the Moreau residence. Romain imagined that, by now, the place had quite a reputation. Raw eggs were splattered around one window, suggesting that kids in the neighborhood had decided to use the house for target practice.