Stop Me (Last Stand 2)

“Pulled you aside to say that, did he? When he’s been undressing you with his eyes since he met you?”

She toyed with the yarn hair on top of a toilet plunger dressed to resemble a blond bombshell with huge red lips—obviously some sort of gag gift. “He’s got issues, I agree with that. Serious issues. I don’t know if Susan and Tom will be able to save their marriage.”

“Susan won’t give up. Not while the boys are at home.”

“I guessed that’s why she’s stayed with him.”

“She’ll soldier on for the kids’ sake.”

Jasmine thought of Tom’s assertion that Romain hadn’t fought the charges against him because he knew he’d get a much lighter sentence than Huff. “Reminds me of someone else I know.”

“She’s tougher than I am.” Here was proof of the respect he felt for his sister.

If only Susan had been there to hear it.

“If it makes you feel better, what Tom said had nothing to do with coming on to me.”

“He didn’t gush about your pretty eyes?”

The sarcasm in his voice revealed that he hadn’t liked Tom’s compliment, but she was sure it had more to do with the protectiveness he felt toward his sister than any possessiveness he felt toward her. “No.”

“Then what did he want?”

Jasmine pulled the note from her pocket and walked over to give it to him. A flicker of apprehension crossed his face when he saw it, but by the time he took the paper from its envelope and read it he had his emotions in check.

“Tom gave you this?” he asked, his expression stony.

“I found it in the trash can inside your father’s study. Tom walked in and caught me with it.”

“Why was he following you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you know how long ago this came?”

She hadn’t given him the envelope. It wouldn’t have made any difference, anyway. The postmark was too faint to read. “According to Tom, yesterday. They didn’t tell you because they don’t want you thrust back into all of this.”

“What’s the other option? Ignore it? If Moreau wasn’t Adele’s killer, someone else could be out there, doing God knows what!”

“I’ve talked to the police in New Orleans. They don’t act as if they’ve been facing a rash of child abductions.” But she understood his fear; she shared it.

“Have you ever looked at the missing children notices inside a post office?

Children go missing all the time—with little or no upheaval in everyone else’s lives.”

“I’m going to find him,” she said stubbornly. “I have to.”

Cursing under his breath, he closed his eyes and shook his head. But when he opened them again, she saw resolution staring back at her. “So do I.”

Bev didn’t want to work on Christmas night but, thanks to Peccavi, she didn’t have a choice. He’d accepted a baby—obviously a drug user’s underweight and colicky child, not fit for most of their clients. And he’d gotten into a haggling war over the only other child they had right now, so Billy, which was what she called him because they never used real names, hadn’t gone to his new family as planned.

Instead of no kids, she had two.

A noise in the next room told her that Billy had just knocked down the tower of blocks he’d spent the past thirty minutes building. At least she agreed with Peccavi that the boy was worth more than the sixty grand they’d initially agreed to.

He was better than any of the children they’d had so far. He had the brown hair and green eyes the rich couple in Boston had ordered, as well as a perfect bill of health.

And he was bright. Bev had seen that for herself. At only three years old, he could say his ABCs.

What bothered her about this kid was the way he kept asking for his mama.

He’d been in the transfer house nearly a month, but the little guy wouldn’t forget, wouldn’t give up, like most of them did. Bev didn’t mind taking care of the younger children. They adjusted quickly. After a few weeks, they quit crying and begging for their parents, and she enjoyed babysitting them. She treated them well, gave them what they needed and chose to believe they went to a safe place—a place where they’d be just as loved and cherished as they were in the homes they’d lost.

In some cases, she knew they were actually better off than they’d been. Like the crack baby who’d finally stopped crying and fallen asleep in the nursery.

Although the adoptive parents’ various lawyers referred to Peccavi generally stipulated no prostitute or crack addict’s child, and no family history of mental disorders, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, alcoholism, etc.—no imperfections at all—Peccavi cheated where he could. Children ordered to specification, like the ones they tried to provide, weren’t easy to come by.

Four-year-old Mary Jane had come from a mother with an inheritable deafness trait. She could hear, but the syndrome could appear in her children—the adoptive parents’ grandchildren. Still, it was a rare enough trait that the parents hadn’t thought of having her tested for it, and last week she’d gone to a producer in Beverly Hills.

He’d paid a hundred thousand to have a child who resembled his wife, an aspiring actress who didn’t want to risk her figure by giving birth to a child of her own.

“What a way to spend Christmas.” Bev sulked, flipping through channels on television.

Billy must’ve heard the word Christmas because he came out of the playroom where he also slept and pointed at the fireplace. “Santa!” he said. “Santa Quaz!”

Santa Claus was supposed to come last night, but Billy was still waiting. Bev would’ve bought him something, but she’d expected him to go to his new family today. Roger, someone Peccavi had brought in to help them when Jack decided he wanted out, was supposed to handle the transfer. But Peccavi had gotten a hot tip on a prospective buyer in Houston, who’d requested two children, and had Roger fly off to meet them. Peccavi would’ve had Phillip step in and take Billy to Boston. Phillip usually handled the less important deliveries and some of the pickups, as well, if they weren’t too far away. But with Jack’s body being discovered, Peccavi was too short-tempered and preoccupied to finish arranging the details.

Meanwhile, Bev had to take care of the kid on Christmas Day, knowing that the mother he asked for almost constantly was someone he’d never see again.