Stop Me (34 page)

She cut the engine and started to get out when her cell phone rang. Caller ID

indicated it was the police.

Surprised, she shut herself back in the truck so the sound of her voice wouldn’t bring out any of the neighbors and punched the talk button. “Hello?”

“Ms. Stratford?”

“Yes?”

“This is Sergeant Kozlowski.”

The desk sergeant who’d told her about Pearson Black. The one who’d also helped with the initial search. “What can I do for you, Sergeant?”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“What kind of bad news?” she said, terrified that he was talking about Romain.

“A woman was murdered last night.”

Visions of that stranger coming through the window crowded Jasmine’s thoughts. She’d been expecting this, hadn’t she? And yet, the more hours that passed without confirmation, the more she’d managed to convince herself that it might’ve been a dream, after all.

“Who found the body?”

“The woman’s boyfriend. He kept calling, she didn’t answer. He went over to see what the hell was going on, and…”

“He found her body.” The news upset Jasmine, made her apprehensive, but not as apprehensive as the fact that Kozlowski had called her.

“That’s right.”

With a quick check of her watch, she decided to drive down Moreau’s street.

Anxious as she was about this call, she was even more terrified for Romain. She started the engine again. “What made you think to tell me, Sergeant?”

“Are you sitting down?”

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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?”

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“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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.”

208

“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!” 209

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

There was a moment of silence, of confusion. “But you’d tell me if you did hear something, right? You’d tell me if someone bothered you.” No answer.