Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(77)
Author: Brenda Novak

Who’d made these? Mrs. Moreau had no girls, but maybe she had nieces. Or maybe the patterns had been given to her by someone else.

After putting back the boxes, Jasmine turned off the light and crossed the hall to an office. It was overloaded with furniture—a desk, a twin bed that held a sleeping cat, a dresser with a mirror and a side table covered with more photographs.

There was only a narrow path for walking. Jasmine used it to get to the desk and went through the papers she found there, encountering insurance forms, prescriptions for medicines she’d never heard of, bills that showed the Moreaus were behind on their utilities and were paying $1400/month for the house.

An old, inexpensive computer sat to one side. Jasmine fired it up and let it work through its booting sequence while she searched the drawers. Pencils, pens, tape, loose postal stamps and an address book. Along with everything else, Jasmine almost passed over the address book, then thought better of it. Shoving it into the waistband of her jeans, she returned to the computer and checked its Internet history.

Someone, probably Phillip, frequented an Internet gaming site. There was also a Web site featuring doctors and other experts giving medical advice. The rest of the Web sites on the list dealt with craft ideas for children—how to make modeling clay, spider cupcakes, princess “glitter” shoes. Was this for Mrs. Moreau’s work?

The voices in the next room remained low. Jasmine couldn’t grasp much, just a few words out of every sentence, but it sounded as if Romain was asking what Francis had been like as a child, if Dustin had known he was dangerous.

Then a car door slammed outside and Jasmine’s skin prickled with heightened anxiety. Someone was home.

Romain must’ve heard it, too. The talking stopped. Only a creak in the hall broke the sudden silence.

He was leaving, getting out.

Good. Jasmine wanted to say something, to let him know she was in the house, too, but she didn’t dare make a sound. He’d see the truck, she told herself. She’d slip out and meet him there.

Forgetting about her search, she reached over to turn off the light, and that was when she saw it.

Chapter 19

It was him. The man who’d taken her sister.

Jasmine couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move as she stared at the picture sitting with so many other pictures on Mrs. Moreau’s cluttered side table. Kimberly’s kidnapper was standing next to Mr. Moreau, the same man Jasmine had seen in the family photo downstairs, both of them years younger than they’d be right now and wearing fishing hats. Dark eyes, deceptively benign, stared back at her as Kimberly’s kidnapper smiled for the camera—just as he’d smiled at her that day in their living room. He had a nice smile, chilling in its ability to mislead, and one arm slung around the shorter, stockier Mr. Moreau.

Were they related? Uncle and nephew? Brothers?

Someone entering the house finally galvanized Jasmine into action. Grabbing that photograph, she snapped off the light and pressed herself against the inside wall.

But she’d waited too long to get out. The only exits were downstairs in the kitchen and the front door.

Sacks crinkled as whoever it was came through the living room and went into the kitchen.

Opening the office door barely an inch, Jasmine kept her eye on the hall.

Could she reach the front door? Slip through it? She had to do something before Phillip or Mrs. Moreau noticed the damage done to the back door and came looking for her….

“Mom?” Dustin called from the next room.

“It’s me.”

Phillip, not Beverly.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Where do you think? At work,” came the reply. “She’ll be home in a few hours.”

“I thought they weren’t going to have any kids over Christmas.”

“Didn’t turn out that way.”

“All the kids were supposed to have a home. What about Santa Claus?”

“There’s no such thing as Santa Claus, Dusty. You know that.”

“But they don’t. Where’d you go?”

“Out.”

“Would you come up here? It’s hard to yell.”

“In a minute. I bought you some of that pie you like. You want it now?”

“Could I get some painkiller first?”

“I gave you a shot before I left.”

“I need more.”

There was a long pause and the answer, when it came, sounded hopeless, as if Phillip was thinking, Please, God, not again. “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wait.”

“Come on, Phil…”

The pleading set Jasmine’s teeth on edge. She couldn’t imagine being in the position of constantly having to deny someone in terrible pain the medication he was begging for. She knew Phillip might be the one who’d locked her in the cellar, but she had to pity him. “We go through this every night, Dusty. You know what Mom said.”

“Help me out, man!”

“Turn on the television. Distract yourself. I’ll bring you your pie.”

Jasmine wondered if Romain had seen the truck. What was his reaction to finding her gone? She had to reach him before he panicked and called the police or came to the door. She wanted to get out without alerting the Moreaus that she had the picture and the address book. The slightest threat could send Kimberly’s kidnapper into a rage against another woman whose only crime was a resemblance to her.

But she couldn’t do anything until Phillip left the downstairs part of the house.

“Dustin?”

Jasmine’s blood curdled at the change in Phillip’s voice.

“What?”

They were yelling over the sound of the television now, which Dustin had turned on as Phillip suggested.

“Was there someone here?”

Jasmine’s heart, already pounding hard, seemed to reverberate all the way to her fingertips.

The television went off, but Dustin didn’t answer.

“Dustin, I asked you a question.”

There was movement in the kitchen, then a loud curse and something fell.

Jasmine covered her mouth to avoid a startled yelp and edged away from where she’d been peeking out of the office as Phillip came charging up the stairs.

“Someone broke the back door!” he said, charging into Dustin’s room. “Did you hear anything? See who it was?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“They broke the glass for crying out loud! You must’ve heard something!”

Dustin groaned, as if the pain was too much for him. “Right now, someone could cut off my head and I wouldn’t notice.”