Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(76)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Are you sitting down?”

Putting the transmission in Drive, she gave the truck some gas and rounded the corner. “Yes.” She told herself she was completely prepared for whatever he might say. But she wasn’t.

“The killer wrote your name on the wall. In blood.”

She stopped so fast she nearly hit her face on the steering wheel. She’d been right. The killer had wanted her. “The way he wrote Adele’s name on the bathroom wall? With that odd mix of capitals, the strange e?”

“I can’t tell you that. You understand,” Kozlowski responded.

She understood that was basically a yes. But she couldn’t concentrate on the implications of this right now. Romain was in Moreau’s house. Put off the impact; think about it later.

She started driving again.

“Jasmine? Are you still there?”

A light glimmered around the edges of the blinds in the living room, a light that hadn’t been on when she and Romain had driven past. Had he turned it on? If so, she feared Mrs. Moreau or Phillip would notice the moment they came home….

“Hello?” Sergeant Kozlowski prompted.

She slowed to a crawl. “Someone’s getting nervous about my presence in New Orleans,” she finally said.

“That’s what I thought, too. And there’s more.”

“What?” She didn’t bother going around the block again. She pulled to the curb to watch the house.

“I saw a picture of the deceased.”

“Who was she?”

“A young professional, living alone. Her name was Pudja Vats.”

The was brought a sharp pain to Jasmine’s chest. Last night Pudja had been as alive as she was. “That’s an Indian name.”

“I know. And…”

Jasmine nervously clicked her nails together. “What is it?”

“She looked a lot like you.”

Of course. This Pudja woman had been Jasmine’s replacement. He’d killed her because of the resemblance. God…

“Do you know anyone in New Orleans who’d like to do you harm?”

“It’s the man who took my sister,” she said.

“How do you know?”

She wanted to say I saw him. She had seen him, on the stage of her mind. But she knew where that would lead and couldn’t afford to arouse police skepticism. “He sent me a package. My sister’s bracelet,” she told him.

“When?”

“A little over a week ago. Anyway, I’m meeting with a sketch artist on Tuesday. I’ll bring his likeness by the station when we’re done.”

“Are you staying somewhere safe?” he asked.

Her eyes fastened once again on the house, her heart pounding at how deceptively quiet it seemed. Why hadn’t Romain come out? “Yes.”

“Where?”

“In Portsville,” she said absently.

“Good. I’m glad you’re out of town. You’d better stay there until we catch this guy.”

Come on, Romain. “Is there any chance you can talk the lead detective into letting me take a look at the crime scene?” she asked Kozlowski.

“No. He won’t let anyone but the forensics team go near it.”

“But I can help. I know this guy.”

He hesitated, seemed to work through the scenario in his head. “I guess I could talk to him. If you’re good enough for the FBI, you should be good enough for us, right?”

“I hope so.” Jasmine checked her watch again. Romain had been gone for sixteen minutes—an eternity. “I have to go. I’ll call you later,” she said and shoved her cell phone into her pocket as she got out of the truck.

Jasmine could hear the murmur of voices coming from the far bedroom. As she climbed the stairs inside Beverly Moreau’s house, she recognized Romain’s. The other one probably belonged to Dustin, because it certainly wasn’t Phillip’s. They were talking about some adoption center where Beverly apparently worked.

Relieved to know Romain wasn’t in immediate danger, Jasmine returned to the living room. She couldn’t believe the Moreaus had lived here for only a few years; it looked as if they’d spent a lifetime in this place, acquiring worthless knickknacks.

Some photographs lined an old, broken-down piano. One was a family picture, taken when the three Moreau sons were quite young. The boy who was obviously Phillip, judging by his lighter coloring, stood behind his seated mother, his hand on her shoulder. Francis, with his black hair and black eyes, stood by Phillip’s side. A much slimmer version of Beverly in a lime-green dress and cat’s-eye glasses held the hand of a short, stocky man with hair and eyes as black as Francis’s. And a toddler, presumably Dustin, sat on his father’s lap. They could’ve modeled for the all-American family.

So what’d gone wrong? What made Francis turn out as he did? When had Dustin gotten sick?

The sound of a car made Jasmine freeze. She held her breath, waiting to see if that vehicle would stop in front of the house. But it didn’t. The sound dimmed as the car passed by. She peeked through the blinds in time to see brake lights flash as it parked at a different house.

Close call. Breathing a sigh of relief, she decided to get Romain. They were pressing their luck by staying so long—but then she remembered her purse and her camera and wondered if she’d find them here. If so, she’d have more than her gut instinct to tell her that Mrs. Moreau was criminally involved with Phillip or whoever had stolen them. Maybe she’d even be able to verify a link to Pearson Black….

When she didn’t come up with anything on the ground floor, she went upstairs to the first room on the right, which she assumed was Phillip’s. It was far too utilitarian and messy to be Beverly’s—and it smelled like cheap cologne. A single mattress lay on the floor. The bedding was bunched up with his dirty clothes, as if he blithely walked over it all when he wasn’t sleeping.

He used a crate for a nightstand, which held a lamp with no shade and a cheap digital alarm clock. Except for the electricity, it could’ve been the cubbyhole of some homeless person camping out in the corner of an abandoned warehouse.

The closet stood open. Several boxes filled the shelves at the top; three shirts hung from the pole but no pants.

Jasmine pulled down a couple of the boxes and poked through them, but it was easy to tell they hadn’t been opened in years. One contained a bunch of loose pictures, the other leftover fabric and sewing patterns for little girls’ dresses.