by Brenda Novak
“Leave it alone.”
She put the remote aside and stood up. “Tell me.”
“Of course I did it!” he snapped. “Who else would care that much?”
“Huff had access to that weapon, too.”
Romain’s hands were dripping. Grabbing a towel from the counter, he dried them. “I did it,” he said and stomped out.
Jasmine replayed the segment once more. She told herself what he might or might not have done was none of her business. She was trying not to get too involved with him. But she couldn’t keep herself from following him out.
He sat on a stool in a small screened-in porch attached to the back of the house, taking oysters out of one bucket and tossing them into two others.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He tapped the shell of the oyster he’d just picked up and threw it into the bucket to his right.
“Are we not speaking?”
With a glance in her direction, he scowled. “I’m separating the live ones from the dead ones.”
“Knocking on the shell tells you that?”
“If they’re alive, they close up. The dead ones can’t be eaten.”
She saw another stool near the periphery of the small lean-to and pulled it closer. The coat he’d lent her for the motorcycle ride was in the house, but she didn’t want to go back for it now. “What if the shell’s closed to begin with?” she asked, folding her arms against the cold.
“If it’s dead, it’ll be a clacker—it’ll make a different sound.”
They sat without further conversation, with only his tapping and the clunk of each oyster hitting its respective bucket to break the silence. Jasmine thought Romain might ignore her indefinitely, but after several minutes, he surprised her. “I don’t remember actually pulling the trigger, okay?”
She watched several more shells move through his capable hands. “Will you tell me what you do remember?”
Head down, he kept working. “I remember wanting to do it. I remember seeing Huff’s gun and realizing how easy it’d be. Then people started screaming and several men, including Huff, forced me to the ground.”
“Have you seen that tape?”
He looked up at her. “Of course I have. Susan insisted I watch it a few hundred times.”
“She was there. She saw it all.”
“She was there, but I can’t imagine she saw anything very clearly. There was so much noise and confusion, so many people. I can’t even describe it to you, not the way it really was.” He shook his head, the expression in his eyes troubled. “It was unreal.”
“If you don’t remember pulling the trigger, why did you plead guilty?”
Another shell hit the bucket. “Because I don’t remember not pulling the trigger. That day was mostly a painful blur. And I wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smile off Moreau’s face. Pam was gone so I didn’t have that to stop me. Adele was gone, too—because of him. I had nothing left to lose.”
“Have you taken that DVD to anyone who might be able to magnify it?”
Finished with the oysters in the original bucket, he opened the back door to dump out the remaining water. “No. I didn’t see any reason to put Huff at risk. Then or now. He had a family, I didn’t. And whether or not I was the one who shot Moreau is merely a technicality. I wanted him dead.”
“Wanting to do something and actually doing it aren’t the same thing, Romain,” she said.
He loomed over her and his voice fell. “When the desire is that great, it’s close enough.”
Jasmine stood. “No, it’s not.”
“He’s gone and the world is better off because of it,” he said. “It’s over.”
Jasmine wished he didn’t appeal to her the way he did, but it was all she could do not to touch his cheek, not to crave his kiss. Part of her didn’t care what he’d done, what he might do, whether or not she’d get hurt—and that made it a frightening compulsion. “But if Moreau was framed, Huff might’ve killed the wrong man…or caused you to do it. He might’ve been responsible for the real culprit going free.” She clutched his arm. “Let’s find out who did what, okay? Let me take this to a specialist and see if he can determine who fired that gun.”
His eyes dropped briefly to her hand. “Why?” he demanded. “So we learn it was Huff. That’s not going to tell us who really killed Adele. It’s not a good use of time or money.”
She felt the warmth of his skin through his long-sleeved T-shirt and it seemed to burn her cold fingers—and start fires in other places, too. But she refused to succumb to that desire. “Are you sure it’s time and money you’re worried about?”
He jerked away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m wondering if you’re afraid to know for sure, afraid to find out what you’re capable of.”
He glared at her. “Send it,” he said. Then he picked up one of the buckets and stalked past her. The outer door slammed shut behind him.
CHAPTER 16
It was miserably cold on the couch, but Jasmine couldn’t figure out why. She was still wrapped in the bedding Romain had given her, which had been warm enough when she’d fallen asleep. So why the sudden drop in temperature? Why the odd feeling that something was terribly wrong?
Turning onto her side, she tried to talk herself out of the foreboding that seeped beneath the blankets, chilling her to the bone. She was safe here. Few people even knew that Romain’s house existed, and those people were his friends. Besides, he wasn’t far away. He’d left his bedroom door open when he’d gone to bed—an obvious signal that she could join him if she wanted. As a matter of fact, she suspected he’d taken the bed hoping she would join him. But that was an invitation she made herself resist. She knew what would happen if she climbed in with him. They couldn’t sleep together without touching, and they couldn’t touch without stripping off their clothes and falling into the same frenzy they’d enjoyed this morning. Their attraction was too strong.
Just listen to him breathe. He’s right there. He’s—
Suddenly, her heart leapt into her throat. That wasn’t Romain she could hear. It was someone else. A stranger. Wait, not a complete stranger. The man who’d sent Kimberly’s bracelet.
How Jasmine knew it was him, she wasn’t sure, but in her mind’s eye she could see a window standing open, could see the curtains on either side stirring in the freezing night air. He’d cut the screen and crawled through. Now he was walking silently through the house. Familiarizing himself with the layout. Checking the exits. Looking for someone.
Looking for her!
The hair on the back of Jasmine’s neck rose as she sensed him coming up behind her. He hated her, wanted to destroy her. He thought he’d given too much away.
What have you given away? her mind screamed. But there was no answer. Just cold, hard purpose. And she couldn’t even yell….
Jasmine tried to keep perfectly still. She wished she could disappear, make him believe the thick blankets on top of her had simply been tossed there the way she used to fool Kimberly when they were playing hide-and-seek.
But there was no chance of that. He knew exactly where she was. He’d spotted her, followed her here.
There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but hold her breath and pray.
“You know me,” he murmured and her heart pumped with fear as she felt him rise up.
In an attempt to fend him off, Jasmine rolled over and lifted her hands to protect her upper body and face, but the knife was already on its way down. She cried out as it sank into her chest, so deep he couldn’t immediately pull it out. The pain was paralyzing, shocking, disabling. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He wasn’t satisfied with one thrust. He had to stab her again and again and again. She’d never sensed such ruthlessness, such raw savagery…ever.
Her blood ran warm, soaking her shirt. She curled up to block the blows and the knife glanced off the bone in her shoulder, landed in her neck and cut her windpipe, making it impossible to breathe
. When she heard a gurgle and realized that the odd sound came from her own throat, she knew the struggle was over, knew her life was over.
And then Romain was there. “Calm down.” Catching her wrists so she couldn’t hit him anymore, he used his weight to press her into the couch and stop her from thrashing around. “I’ve got you, Jasmine. You’re okay. It’s me. You just had a bad dream.”
Jasmine blinked and stared up at him. There was no open window. No other presence. She was in Romain’s shack in the bayou, as safe as ever.
But what she’d experienced hadn’t been a dream. “No!” Still terrified, she tried to push past him, to get up, but he cradled her against him and spoke to her as if he was gentling a spooked horse. “Relax. Shh…”
Shaking violently, she turned her face into the hollow beneath his collarbone and began to sob. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to believe the words he crooned to her. But she couldn’t get the images out of her mind. “He killed her,” she said, hiccoughing from her tears. “He thought she…was me and he…he hacked her to pieces.”
* * *
Romain didn’t know what to think. It was the middle of the night, and Jasmine was sitting at his kitchen table demanding he drive her to a phone so she could report a murder. But what good would that do? She couldn’t provide the identity of the person who was stabbed, where that person lived or the name of the man who’d wielded the knife.
“Jasmine, if you call in like this, you’ll lose all credibility.” Romain had witnessed her reaction and was still having difficulty accepting that she’d been privy to a murder while sleeping on his couch.
The shaking had subsided but her dilated pupils and clammy pallor testified to the very real terror she’d experienced. “I don’t care,” she said stubbornly. “I have to do what I can to help that poor woman.”
“What poor woman?” he said for the third time. “Can you come up with a name, even a first name? Initials? They’re going to need a little more to go on than ‘someone was killed tonight.’”
“I’ve never met her. I know that.”
“But the man with the knife—you think it was the guy who abducted your sister.”
“Yes.”
A man she hadn’t been able to find for sixteen years… “Where did he see her? Why did he choose her?”
Jasmine’s hand went to her chest as if she was reliving the memory of his vicious thrusts. “I don’t know where he saw her. All I know is that he wanted it to be me. He was trying to appease the rage he feels toward me by taking it out on someone else. A stranger. Someone who probably looks like me.”
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Romain said gently. “Are you sure it wasn’t a nightmare? People have nightmares all the time.”
“Occasionally I make mistakes,” she admitted. “Misinterpret something. Become too personally involved in a case and miss clues I should’ve picked up. But…” she shook her head and her voice fell to a whisper “…I’m not wrong about this.”
She’d been right when she’d told him about the tattoos on his body and the cut on his thigh. She’d been right about Adele’s necklace. And he knew she’d shared his fantasy that first night. He had enough experience with Jasmine to believe her, even if he didn’t want to. “But it’s already happened, hasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do to help the victim. She’s dead, Jaz.”
He watched the fight drain out of her as she covered her face with her hands.
“We have to find him before he does it again,” she said at last.
“When will that be?”
“Could be a few days, could be weeks. It’ll depend on the amount of frustration in his regular life. He’s hardened over the years,” she added, almost as an aside, “become more calculating. He’ll keep going until he finds me. Right now, I’m the one he wants and he can’t think of anything else.”
“Why you?”
“I’m a loose end. Someone who saw his face. I’m escalating my search for him by going on national television, talking about what he did, speculating on the kind of man he is. Chances are good he’s heard me swear I won’t give up, and he knows I’m amassing more resources and influence in the investigative world. Mostly, he knows I’ll stop at nothing.” She paused, absently combing her fingers through her hair.
“Maybe something you said on television triggered a close call,” Romain suggested, “made someone question him or suspect he was involved.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. That’s why he sent that note. He wanted to draw me to New Orleans.”
“Wouldn’t that put him at greater risk?”
Jasmine turned the cup of tea he’d made her around and around. “Not if he killed me.”
The possibility of losing someone else he cared about made Romain glad he’d kept this woman at arm’s length. He couldn’t invest his emotions in her, couldn’t let himself grow attached. “Then why didn’t he track you down in Sacramento?”
She frowned, finally calm enough to act more like herself. “My guess is he has trouble getting away. Maybe he’s married with kids, or he has a job that won’t allow it. Maybe he doesn’t have the money. Some practical reason that limits him or keeps him busy with other stuff.”
Romain thought of the bayou. Even when others couldn’t catch a thing, he came home laden with fish, shrimp, crabs. He understood its quirks and secrets, where to find what he was looking for, when to give up on a certain spot. “And knowing the area gives him an advantage.”
Her eyes met his. “Exactly.”
* * *
The bloodlust had exhausted him. Breathing hard, Gruber sneered at what was left of the woman in the bloody bed. Humans were so fragile….
Using the knife he’d removed from her kitchen drawer, he sawed off her hand and shoved it in his back pocket. He used to collect pieces of jewelry or clothing, even pictures, but this was so much more personal. Unfortunately, he didn’t know this woman the way he did the others, so the memento wouldn’t bring him much joy. He preferred to spend days, weeks, even months with his victims—although only one had lasted that long. Peccavi kept him so busy with the business they did together, he had little time to do his own hunting. It wasn’t as if he could keep any of the children destined for the transfer house. Peccavi would kill him if he tried. True, he’d been able to keep Kimberly for a while, but only because she’d been a windfall, an unexpected gift, a child Peccavi hadn’t realized he’d taken.
“Tonight didn’t have to end like this,” he told her. It was Jasmine’s fault. He wouldn’t have done this without provocation. Never before had he risked harming someone in an unsecured area. It was like those rules that Peccavi always harped on. A man had to have self-discipline in order to remain safe. But once Gruber had spotted the woman at that gas station, the frustration he felt at being unable to locate Romain’s house had taken over. No one in Portsville had been willing to talk to him; he was an outsider, an unknown, and they were fiercely protective of Fornier.
But he’d find Jasmine eventually, he promised himself. She was searching for him. She wouldn’t go far.
Somehow, that thought made him feel better. Wiping the knife with a dish towel to get rid of any prints, he stabbed it back into the woman’s dead body and walked through the front door. She lived away from the city with at least half a mile between her and the closest neighbor. He wasn’t worried that anyone had heard her screams, or that anyone would see him. Which was good, since he didn’t have a lot of time. He had to get home as soon as possible. His sister had called earlier to say she was coming to see him first thing in the morning. She claimed she had some information about their mother he’d want to know.
He found that highly implausible, but planned to be there when she arrived, just in case she went in and started snooping around. The door to his bunker was in the master closet—not someplace she was likely to go, but it could be seen when he didn’t cover it well, and he’d been lazy of late. No one ever
came to his place; he’d had no reason to worry.
The theme song from Gilligan’s Island came to mind. He whistled it softly as he got into his car. He’d have to do something about the blood on his hands and face and in his hair. Stabbing was a dirty business. But cleaning up wouldn’t be hard. He’d burn his clothes in the fireplace. And while the fire warmed the house, he’d take a nice hot shower.
* * *
They ended up driving to New Orleans rather than going back to bed. Jasmine couldn’t sleep. She didn’t dare close her eyes after what she’d experienced. And she couldn’t seek the comfort she craved from Romain or she’d invite even more confusion and risk. She needed to stay focused, to find Kimberly—or learn what had happened to her—and get out of New Orleans. Anything else threatened the calm she’d established, the routine, the sense of balance and control she’d so painstakingly created.
“There you are!” Mr. Cabanis’s daughter exclaimed when Jasmine entered the lobby of Maison du Soleil with Romain at her elbow. “We’ve been worried about you.”
She didn’t seem to recognize Romain despite all the media coverage surrounding Adele’s disappearance and Moreau’s trial. She was probably too young when Adele went missing to follow the story as closely as her parents.
“Have there been any murders reported on the news?” Jasmine asked.
The girl straightened in surprise. “Murders?”
“Have you heard anything about a woman being stabbed to death last night?”
Her eyes widened. “Here at the hotel?”
“Anywhere in New Orleans.”
“N-no,” she said. “But we were afraid something had happened to you. When the maid went in to clean your room yesterday, she found it torn apart. My mom tried to call you at the cell phone number we have on file, but you weren’t picking up and no one had seen you. We thought you might’ve been attacked.”
“Did you call the police?” Romain asked.
She smiled at him. “We did. They tried to tell us it was too soon to report Ms. Stratford missing, that she could be sightseeing or visiting friends. We would’ve figured that,” she said defensively. “I mean, most people don’t hang out in a hotel room on Christmas Day. But the mess…” She turned back to Jasmine. “It didn’t look like anything you’d done. It looked like someone ransacked the place.”