Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(9)
Author: Brenda Novak

But Jasmine had already put in six hours and had yet to spot anything remotely useful.

Leaning back, she pressed her palms to her eyes to give them a much-needed rest. Her back ached and she was hungry. All she’d eaten for breakfast was a muffin, which she’d purchased on the walk from her hotel. But the library closed in another fifty minutes. She figured she might as well make good use of the remaining time. If she was careful, and lucky, she could come across something important, something that might seem at first glance to be unrelated but would make sense to her.

After stretching her neck and rolling her shoulders, Jasmine returned to the microfilm. She’d worked her way back to September 2005. Because that was immediately after the hurricane, the headlines resurrected the horror the entire nation had felt at seeing people stranded on rooftops or swimming for their lives. Jasmine doubted she’d find anything related to her search here—one child who’d mysteriously disappeared wasn’t going to make the news when thousands were dying—and began to skim faster: another day, week, month, year.

When she reached October 2004, the name she’d heard from Mr. Cabanis just that morning jumped out at her: Romain Fornier.

The article, which reported on Mr. Fornier’s sentencing, showed a picture of him. Somewhere in his early thirties, he had light-colored hair that fell across his forehead as if he’d forgotten about regular haircuts—which he probably had—high cheekbones that made the contours of his face more pronounced, a slight cleft at the chin. He wasn’t unhandsome. As a matter of fact, he would’ve been gorgeous, except for the furrow between his eyebrows, the determined set to his mouth and the stormy expression in his eyes.

Jasmine stared at him for several seconds. She could identify with the rage he carried in every line of his face….

In another section of the same paper, she saw a few letters to the editor. Some condemned what he’d done; others applauded. A Lee James said Moreau got what he deserved, that any father would do the same and rightfully so. A “Concerned Citizen” maintained that society cannot foster vigilantism, even in such a heartbreaking case.

What if victims took the law into their own hands and killed the wrong person? We can’t allow any tolerance for this kind of behavior regardless of the situation. We have laws, which must be upheld.

Jasmine didn’t want to consider the issue. She felt too sympathetic to Romain Fornier, although she understood the dangers, both legal and moral, involved in what he’d done.

Skipping farther back, she saw an article that gave more information on the shooting, which had occurred pretty much as Mr. Cabanis had described. As they were leaving the courthouse, Fornier had grabbed a gun from the hip holster of an accompanying detective—Alvin Huff. Fornier fired, then immediately dropped the gun.

From there, it was easy to find information on Fornier because the trial had been covered so extensively. The case made the front-page headlines the day it was dismissed. There was another picture with that article, this one in color, showing Fornier from the waist up.

A muscular, rugged-looking man dressed in a denim shirt, he had a golden tan and streaky blond hair. Although the accompanying article lacked some details Jasmine would’ve liked, it mentioned Alvin Huff as the detective who’d headed up the investigation into Fornier’s daughter’s disappearance and explained the reason the case had been dismissed. Apparently, an informant called Detective Huff late one night to say she saw Moreau, who was already a suspect because he’d been spotted at Adele’s school, carry something wrapped in a blanket into his house the night Adele was kidnapped. Understandably, Huff moved to get a search warrant as fast as possible. He called the judge and obtained verbal permission, but he had to wait until morning before he could get the affidavit signed and he didn’t do that.

Afraid the suspect would destroy any evidence that remained, Huff performed the search and, instead of leaving a copy of the warrant on the premises as he was supposed to do, he dropped it by later that morning. The suspect didn’t know there was anything wrong with the late receipt so it went unnoticed until his mother brought up the fact that the detective had returned to the house. Then the defense team demanded the evidence collected from the illegal search be thrown out, the prosecution didn’t have a strong enough case without it, and the judge was forced to dismiss.

There was also an article the day following the discovery of Adele’s body. The child was discovered by a picnicker nearly four weeks after her abduction. Prior to that article, there were several others that chronicled the search. In the earliest mention of Fornier, Jasmine learned he was originally from a town called Mamou, which she assumed was in Louisiana because the journalist didn’t specify another state. She also learned that he’d been a Reconnaissance Marine, and that he’d moved to New Orleans after being released from the military; he’d opened a custom motorcycle business where he built high-end machines by hand. As if his story wasn’t sad enough, he was a widower. He’d lost his wife, Pamela, to breast cancer only two years before his daughter went missing.

Considering Fornier’s extensive military training, Moreau was stupid to provoke him. But he probably hadn’t understood what kind of man he was dealing with. Sexual predators rarely thought beyond their own cravings. Chances were that Moreau had simply seen Adele, wanted her and didn’t think about anything other than fulfilling that desire. Jasmine knew most children who fell prey to a kidnapper had had some previous contact with their abductor, usually a brief visual observation that takes place while the perpetrator has a legitimate reason for being in the area.

In Kimberly’s case, their own father had most likely jotted their address on a business card and given it to the bearded man, telling him to stop by if he wanted work. Jasmine had seen Peter do that when they were out and about. In those days, her father had no concept of danger—from what Jasmine could tell, he’d never even considered the possibility—and he’d possessed a friendly, generous heart.

A heart that’d subsequently been broken and was now filled with guilt, bitterness and remorse.

The hushed voice of the librarian, speaking directly over her, made Jasmine jump. “We’re closing in ten minutes.”

Twisting around, she glanced up at him. With her thoughts so mired in death and evil, his narrow shoulders and pasty face reminded her of the vampire librarian in a novel she’d read, The Historian, which did nothing to calm her.