Stop Me (Last Stand 2)

A glance up and down the street confirmed that no one was out, which gave her the nerve to move toward the garage, skirt around the old Buick sitting in the drive and head to the backyard. As uninterested in visitors as these people seemed to be, she expected a gate, but there was only a chain-link fence, with nothing separating the front yard from the back.

Careful to muffle her footsteps—she was positive they’d announce her presence to the world—she slipped between the house and the garage, where the first thing she saw was a pile of at least thirty garbage bags full of trash. Jasmine couldn’t understand why anyone would create a dump like that, but the sheer number of bags, and the dilapidated state of those at the bottom, indicated that the Moreaus hadn’t taken their garbage to the curb for quite some time.

“Strange.” She shook her head as she stared at the mound, but was almost instantly distracted by the cellar door. Too warped to close properly, it stood open by an inch or so. The gusty wind snapping the tops of those plastic bags and whipping at Jasmine’s long hair had no effect on it.

She pushed her long bangs out of her eyes as she neared the three steps leading down to the cellar—and noticed a couple of soggy cigarette butts on the cement landing. She knew Moreau’s mother and brother could be smokers, but the sight of those butts made her think of Black.

Had he come here last night after his shift was over? She couldn’t imagine Moreau’s brother or mother having any business that would entail waiting at the cellar entrance in the dead of winter. Especially considering the stench of all that garbage. There were no chairs, no barbecue and no garden. And these butts looked recent.

Removing her digital camera from her purse, Jasmine snapped a picture of them and of the garbage pile—she didn’t know why, except she found it so weird.

Then she located the Baggies she kept in her purse and carefully lifted the cigarette butts into one. Black had already admitted he was friends with Moreau’s brother, which gave him a reason to come to the house. But she’d been involved in enough police investigations to be vigilant about every detail, and these gave her the impression Black had stopped by last night or earlier this morning.

Did her investigation threaten him in some way? Had he visited the Moreaus to warn them that she’d be coming?

She wished she could get more of a feel for the person she’d sensed in her mind, the one who seemed almost desperate to be normal, and yet knew he never would be. But that encounter had frightened her too much. She couldn’t convince her mind to accept another contact like that, couldn’t seem to get anything these days—except the brief snatch of Fornier’s dream when she was in Portsville.

Moving closer to the cellar, she examined several marks on the panel and the lintel. Sure enough, someone had used a crowbar to open this door. She just didn’t know when. Or why.

After taking two more pictures, she put a hand on the damp wood and shoved.

The door didn’t budge at first, but with continued pressure she finally got it open.

The smell of damp earth greeted her. Water dripped somewhere in the far corner; it sounded as if she was standing at the entrance to a cave. The Moreaus obviously had a drainage problem or a leak. But if they didn’t mind thirty bags of garbage right outside their back door, they most likely didn’t care about puddles and mold in the cellar.

So where had Huff found Moreau’s blood-smeared pants, that tape and Adele’s barrettes? Black had said they’d been tossed near the entrance….

She took out the flashlight she’d bought on the way over and used it to scrutinize the muddy, undulating ground. Farther away, boxes and bags sat on a wooden pallet—storage, it appeared. Jasmine was curious to see what the Moreaus were storing, but she didn’t want to leave the safety of the exit. The closer she drew to the cellar, the worse she felt about this place. Bad things had happened here. She wasn’t sure whether it was Adele’s experiences she felt or someone else’s, but there was suffering.

Her beam revealed something that struck her as odd because it was over by the dripping water, in a corner that didn’t seem to have good access or any storage. What was it? A white rag?

Nervously hitching her purse higher on her shoulder, Jasmine bent to clear the low doorway so she could get a better look. She had no plans to go farther. The negative energy coming from the house and the cellar was like a hand, pressing her back. But she just needed a few seconds, a chance to change the angle of her flashlight—

Movement behind her made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. But she didn’t have even a split second to turn around. Someone yanked her purse away and pushed her hard at the same time, sending her flashlight and camera flying as she pitched forward.

She landed in the mud. Then the screech of wood scraping rocky cement echoed in the damp air, followed only by the rattle of a chain, the snap of a lock and her own cries for help.

The cellar stank of decomposition. Or maybe it was her sixth sense. She didn’t know if she was actually feeling something or merely reacting to her own fear, but she kept envisioning dead bodies rotting in shallow graves around her—thanks to the work of a psychopath she’d helped catch last year—which made it difficult to keep panic at bay. She’d seen too much in her years with The Last Stand—too many crime scenes, too many grisly pictures—not to recall the worst of them now, when she was locked in a place that literally resonated with evil. No one even knew where she was.

Actually, there was one man who knew exactly where she was—the man who’d locked her in here. She was pretty sure it was a man. Only a very strong woman would be able to pull that stubborn door closed so quickly.

A crack between the door and its frame allowed Jasmine a narrow glimpse of where she’d stood a few seconds before. But she couldn’t see anyone, couldn’t hear anything.

Where had he gone? What did he hope to achieve by locking her in? And was he coming back?

“Hello?” She banged on the door, trying to attract attention or break the lock, or both. “Can you help me? Please! I’m down in the cellar, in the Moreaus’ cellar.

Help me, please! Hello? Is anybody there?”

She went on like that for what seemed forever—until both shoulders were bruised and aching, and her throat felt too hoarse to yell anymore. She would’ve continued banging despite her exhaustion if she’d thought it would help. But her efforts seemed futile. If the neighbors were home, they were inside and couldn’t hear her. Or, more likely in this working-class neighborhood, they were away until dinnertime.