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When a Stranger Calls
Kathleen Long
THE PHONE RINGS…He was the last person she vowed to go to for help, but the only person who believed she was being stalked. The late-night phone calls, the mysterious packages, the blow to the head all had Lindsey Tarlington fearing for her life. How could she not accept Matt Alessandro's help–even if it was his father who murdered her mother seventeen years ago?Matt knew his father died an innocent man, and he suspected Lindsey held the key to why. But spending time with the stubborn beauty made Matt wish their shared past wasn't clouded by tragedy. Would the truths they were slowly uncovering make a shared future just as unlikely?
For the briefest of moments, Lindsey wondered what it would be like to let Matt Alessandro under her skin—into her life and into her heart.
He leaned toward her and she held her breath, releasing it sharply when the tea kettle squealed.
Suddenly, reality scattered her idiotic thoughts as she shut off the burner. Matt Alessandro’s father was responsible for her mother’s murder, her father’s depression and death, and her shattered life. And here she stood, inches away from touching his son. Kissing his son. Or worse. What in the hell was wrong with her?
“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Matt asked.
Did she? “No.” Lindsey stepped away then. “I’ll be fine.”
“What if you get another threatening call?”
“I’ll call you.” She caught herself. “Or I’ll call my uncle.”
Suddenly she needed Matt out of her house, before her resolve crumbled. “You know, I’m exhausted suddenly….”
“Okay, I’ll go. Remember to lock up.”
“Always,” Lindsey said, relieved when he stepped outside and shut the door behind him.
But just as Matt’s taillights disappeared, the phone rang….
When a Stranger Calls
Kathleen Long
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Mom,
the most important heroine in my life.
I love you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After a career spent spinning words for clients ranging from corporate CEOs to talking fruits and vegetables, Kathleen Long now finds great joy spinning a world of fictional characters, places and plots. She shares her life with her husband and their neurotic Sheltie, dividing her time between suburban Philadelphia and the New Jersey seashore, where she can often be found—hands on keyboard, bare toes in the sand—spinning tales. After all, life doesn’t get much better than that.
Please visit www.kathleenlong.com for the latest contests, appearances and upcoming releases.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Lindsey Tarlington—Daughter of Camille Tarlington and partner in Polaris, an agency dedicated to uncovering facts. When her mother’s long lost identification appears, she begins an investigation into the past.
Matt Alessandro—Public defender and son of Tony Alessandro. He’s vowed to prove his father’s innocence and clear the family name. He convinces Lindsey to help him reopen her mother’s case.
Frank Bell—Mayor of Haddontowne and Lindsey’s uncle. He’s on the fast track for the governor’s mansion and doesn’t want Matt revisiting the case that made his career.
Priscilla Bell—Mentally unstable and a recluse, she’s Camille Tarlington’s surviving sister and Lindsey’s aunt. Does she know something about the night Camille vanished?
Doug Tarlington—Lindsey’s father. He died in a suspicious one-car accident several years after Camille’s disappearance. Was his death the result of a broken heart…or did he know the truth behind Camille’s murder?
Lorraine Mickle—A former employee at Tony Alessandro’s flower shop. She was the star witness for the prosecution of Matt’s father, but was she telling the truth then? How about now?
Jimmy Freeman—A local handyman. He appears in Lindsey’s neighborhood at the same time Camille’s personal belongings begin to appear. Does he have a connection to the case?
Camille Tarlington—Lindsey’s mother. She disappeared seventeen years earlier after an alleged lover’s quarrel with Matt’s father. Was her murder the result of an affair gone wrong? Or was the motive something altogether different?
Tony Alessandro—Matt’s father. Prosecuted for the murder of Camille Tarlington, he died in jail six months later. Did he die an innocent man? Or was he guilty all along?
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Raindrops slapped the small glass panes of the bedroom’s French doors, and lightning illuminated the room, splashing against the plaster walls like an unexpected searchlight.
Lindsey Tarlington pulled the quilt up over her ears, her heart dancing against her ribs. The move was a futile attempt to block the inevitable thunder—the thunder she’d hated for the past seventeen years. Irrationally. Childlike.
The loud rumbling followed. A series of booming, rolling explosions that set her teeth on edge. The storm was moving closer. Too close for her liking.
She rolled over onto her back and tossed off the quilt, staring up at the lazy rotation of the rattan ceiling fan. The smell of damp, spring rain eased around the windows and doors, finding its way into the old house.
Another flash. Lindsey squeezed her eyes shut but then snapped them open. She was twenty-nine years old. It was long past time to get over her fear of storms.
Thunder crashed again, and she fisted the sheet tightly in both hands. Longer. The time between the flash and the boom had taken longer. Perhaps the core of the storm would miss her—miss the house she’d lived in all her life.
Another bang sounded and she narrowed her eyes at the ceiling. A car door?
Moments later, a familiar squeak filled her mind’s eye with the image of the screen door hinge she kept forgetting to oil. A sliver of fear shimmied down her spine, and her breath caught. Who could be at her front door in the middle of the night? In the middle of a raging storm?
Lindsey tossed off the covers and moved to the French doors, trying to peer over the balcony. Rain sheeted the old, thick glass, but even so, she could make out the silhouette of a car, its headlights slashing through the storm as it idled out front.
Flashes of another night seventeen years earlier played through her mind. It had been a storm just like this one. There had been a steady stream of people in and out of the same screen door that night. Family. Friends. Police.
The sounds of running footsteps jarred her from the unwanted memories, but the rain had intensified, obscuring her view. A door slammed and the headlights eased away from the curb.
What if someone had left information on one of her cases?
Lindsey plucked her robe from the back of the rocker and shrugged it on as she headed for the hallway, the wide pine planks cool and reassuring beneath her feet.
She stopped a few steps from the bottom of the staircase. No light glowed through the leaded windows on either side of the front door and her pulse kicked up a notch. Hadn’t she just changed that bulb?
A low, anxious trembling hummed to life in her belly, and she concentrated for a moment. Concentrated on controlling the irrational fear—the quickening breaths.
She drew air in through her nose, holding her breath for several beats then releasing it slowly through tense lips.
“Get a grip, Tarlington.”
Lightning flashed again as she reached for the doorknob. Thunder crashed at the precise moment she snapped open the inner door. She started, adrenaline zinging through her body.
Lord, she hated storms.
A second flash of lightning caught the small, white envelope tucked inside the storm door. She knelt quickly, pulling it free before it got soaking wet.
She slipped a finger beneath the flap as she turned, pushing the wooden door closed with her backside, glad to have its heavy thickness between her and the elements.
A single sheet of paper lay folded inside. Lindsey reached for the hall light switch, flipping it on with one hand as she shook open the sheet of paper with the other.
Her focus dropped instantly to the face centered on the paper. A face she hadn’t seen in seventeen years and thought she’d never see again.
Sudden panic filled her. She sank to her knees, her gaze riveted to the photocopy.
The police had never found a purse—had never found personal effects. No clothing. No jewelry. No identification. Yet here Lindsey sat, staring into the face on a photocopied driver’s license. The driver’s license that had gone missing seventeen years before on a stormy night just like this one.
Tears welled in her eyes as the pain, the shock, the unfairness of it all came rushing back. The familiar crush of grief wrapped its fingers around her heart and squeezed.
She stared into the photocopy of her mother’s face and let the tears fall. Blood evidence found in her mother’s abandoned car and at the floral shop where she’d worked had been enough to prove her death and convict her killer. Unfortunately, the clues hadn’t been enough to locate her mother’s body, still missing after all these years.
She’d never doubted her mother had been murdered, but she’d always feared the horror of her mother’s final moments might resurface someday.
Lindsey dropped the paper and hugged herself.
It appeared someday had just arrived.
MATT ALESSANDRO STARED AT the sign anchored to the cinder block wall. Polaris Group. He remembered reading a newspaper article that had spelled out the history behind the organization. The group of friends had all experienced some sort of loss in their lives. Each had vowed to help others in similar situations find the truth—whatever that might be.
He’d read news of Lindsey Tarlington’s work countless times, but the thought of seeing her in person had kicked his state of alert to a frenzy. He usually experienced this sort of hyperawareness during the first day of court, not at the mere thought of meeting someone.
Of course, it wasn’t every day you met the daughter of the woman your father had been convicted of murdering. Falsely convicted—but convicted just the same.
Old bitterness welled from deep inside Matt’s gut. He swallowed it down, straightening as he jerked open the entry door.
A petite blonde sat just inside, her desk facing the door. “Can I help you?”
Matt’s lips curved into a warm smile, the move belying the cold determination he felt inside. “Lindsey Tarlington, please.” He forced his voice past the sudden tightness in his throat. He had to handle this visit carefully. Lindsey Tarlington might very well be the key to what had really happened all those years ago. He hadn’t been able to turn up any additional information, hadn’t uncovered a single new clue, not until her late night delivery.
The blonde frowned, obviously picking up on his hesitation. “Is she expecting you?”
Matt shook his head. “No. This will only take a minute.” Truth was, he hoped it would take far longer. He hoped what he’d come to say would pique Lindsey Tarlington’s interest enough to talk. Perhaps enough to share information.
Word of the photocopied license had buzzed quickly from the local police precinct to the public defender’s office. After all, everyone knew he’d vowed to clear his dad’s name—even after his old man had been killed on the inside.
His father might never have the chance to be set free, but his name did. Matt had dreamed of little else since his sixteenth birthday. The day they’d buried his father.
“May I tell her what it’s about? She’s on the phone.” The blonde’s pale brows arched, her green eyes widening.
Matt flashed his ID so fast she’d never be able to catch his name. “I’m with the Public Defender’s office. It’s in reference to a client of mine.” A half-truth…sort of. “I thought she might be interested in the case.”
Her expression morphed from suspicious to interested in the blink of an eye.
“Why don’t you have a seat over there.” She jerked her thumb toward the corner cubicle and a row of uncomfortable-looking chairs. “You can wait outside her door.”
Matt glanced in the direction she’d indicated. The space consisted of three cubicles bordering a small central area. Pale grays and pinks adorned the walls and carpeting, no doubt chosen to soothe agency clients searching for answers, loved ones, closure. Simplistic artwork graced the outside of each cubicle.
Apparently the tenants were more focused on their work than on presenting a stylish image. He had to give them credit for that. He crossed the open area in four strides, stopping short when his gaze landed on the woman inside the corner office.
A lot had changed in seventeen years.
Her father may have kept her out of the courtroom, but Matt remembered the newspaper articles and the photos. Back then, Lindsey Tarlington had been a striking child.
She’d become a breathtaking woman.
Long, black hair draped loosely around her slender shoulders, falling like a waterfall of night sky. Her profile hinted at strong features, an aristocratic nose and full lips.
