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imagining how the call might go—the stiff formal reception, the underlying current that led her to believe her father would rather not hear from her, even during the holidays—she hung up before it could ring. Then she went to the library.
    29

    The New Orleans Public Library, located only a mile from Maison du Soleil, was too quiet. Like the call to Rayne Gulley, it reminded Jasmine that it was Christmastime and everyone else was out shopping, trimming trees, baking, celebrating. But at least the solitude meant she probably wouldn’t be interrupted.
    She sat on the third floor in the microfilm section, with only the male librarian at the desk for company, poring over past issues of the Times Picayune, New Orleans’ biggest paper. She was searching for anything that stood out or brought to mind the man who’d taken Kimberly. Mr. Cabanis didn’t recall hearing about any stranger abductions since the Fornier case, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been any. Hurricane Katrina had dominated the news for so long, a case involving a young girl or early teen found murdered could have turned into one more statistic, especially if there were no leads in the case, no parents screaming for action. If the man with the beard had begun targeting easier victims, victims whose absence wasn’t so quickly noticed, he could be here, indulging his sick impulses just as his note suggested.
    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.
    30

    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,