Kathleen Long - When a Stranger Calls

As the woman shook hands with Matt, Lindsey stepped into the kitchen, but froze at the sight of an ornament hanging in the window over the sink. An angel. Handmade.

Her heart stuttered to a momentary stop before it began to race.

The last time she’d seen the angel it had been hanging from the rearview mirror of her mother’s station wagon.

An icy chill built inside Lindsey, spreading to her arms and hands. Mickle appeared at her side, reaching for the cups, her expression full of concern. “Let me get those for you.”

“You okay?” Lindsey sensed Matt’s nearness behind her. His hand brushed against her shoulder, the sudden warmth a steadying force in the small, spinning room.

She handed the cups to Lorraine without taking her eyes from the ornament. “That was my mother’s.”

Mickle pivoted, following the direction of Lindsey’s gaze. “I’m sure there must be a million like it. You must be mistaken.”

Lindsey crossed to the sink, stepping free of Matt’s touch. She fingered the object, the sequins faded after all these years. She could still remember meticulously applying every single one—for her mother.

“I made it.” The words escaped her in barely more than a whisper.

She lifted her focus to Mickle, who now stood next to her at the sink. The woman bobbled one coffee cup as she set it in the sink, the loud clatter filling the otherwise silent space. She nodded suddenly then tapped one finger to her chin. “You know that’s right. I remember now. She gave it to me one day at work.” Mickle shook her head, a sympathetic expression plastered across her face. “You take it, honey. She’d want you to have it.”

Lindsey didn’t hesitate. She plucked the ornament from its hanger, nodding her thanks to Mickle as she beelined for the front door.

“Thanks again for your time.” Matt’s words cut through the frenzied thoughts crowding Lindsey’s mind. He cupped her elbow as they hurried toward his truck, steering her as if she were a lost child.

“My mother loved this. She would have never given it away.” Her voice was unrecognizable with pent-up anger and frustration. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure.” Matt whirled Lindsey to face him, confidence flashing in his eyes. “But, we’re going to find out.”

“Her story was almost too smooth.”

“Practiced.” Matt nodded.

Or was it? Part of Lindsey believed Matt was right. If Mickle had been coached, there was a chance Tony Alessandro had been falsely accused. She’d clung to his guilt as gospel for the past seventeen years. Was she ready to consider another possibility?

The nagging questions at the base of her brain hammered relentlessly. Was Mickle lying? Or was she merely reciting the truth as she’d seen it seventeen years earlier? And who had left the photocopy—and the ring? And why?

Lindsey looked at Matt as his dark gaze bore into hers. Was his the determination of a killer’s son, intent on clearing the family name no matter what the evidence showed? Or was his the face of a good man, secure in the knowledge of his father’s innocence?

She swallowed down her growing turmoil. Only time would tell.

Matt sat in front of what had once been his family’s floral shop and sipped on a cup of stale coffee. He’d dropped Lindsey back at her office, having agreed to meet her later that evening to pore through the case file together.

While he’d wanted some time to analyze their conversation with Lorraine Mickle, he’d also wanted some time apart from Lindsey. When she’d first spotted her mother’s ornament hanging from the kitchen window, his instinct had been to offer comfort. He’d had to hold himself back from pulling the woman into his arms—as if she’d let him.

Hell, the woman had spent the majority of her life certain his father had murdered her mother. Of all the women to inspire a sense of protectiveness, why her? Why now?

He didn’t need a distraction, and he certainly didn’t need one as lovely as Lindsey Tarlington. Maybe he should go forward alone, working through each piece of the puzzle, from Mickle’s words to the old evidence. Checking and rechecking.

Certainty eased through him. A certainty that he needed Lindsey’s help. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew she was the key to unlocking the truth about what had happened that night. Whoever had reached out to her with the photocopy of her mother’s license had done so for a reason. Someone wanted the truth known, and had chosen Lindsey as the starting point.

Perhaps whoever had left the clue was someone with a bone to pick with Frank Bell.

Matt laughed, unable to hold in his sudden burst of breath. Who didn’t have a bone to pick with Frank Bell? The man hadn’t made many friends on his way from the D.A.’s office to the mayor’s office. He’d never hesitated to step over or on top of anyone who got in his way.

Bell also seemed to be the master of putting people in the position of owing him a favor, and he never hesitated to call in those favors when he needed something done.

Matt gave a quick shake of his head then took another sip of coffee.

He needed to soften his obsession with Bell, no matter what his gut told him. If he’d learned nothing else during his time at the public defender’s office, he’d learned to approach each case with an open mind and clean slate. Preconceived notions achieved nothing more than muddying the waters.

All he needed to do now was step back and look at Camille Tarlington’s murder with a fresh perspective. He needed to start over.

From scratch.

With Lindsey’s help.

Even though he’d been certain for seventeen years that Bell had played the leading role in railroading his father, he’d be wise to open his mind to the possibility of a different scenario. As long as he cleared his father’s name, he didn’t care who took the blame.

Matt drained the last of his coffee and peered again at the building that had once housed his father’s pride and joy. His father’s beautiful shop had become a pizza parlor, as if there wasn’t already a pizza shop on every corner in this neck of South Jersey.

He checked the side mirror then eased his SUV away from the curb. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, but suddenly he’d lost his appetite.

LINDSEY WATCHED FOR MATT to pull out of the lot before she turned away from her office door and climbed into her car. She had no plan to wait until she and Matt reviewed the evidence together. She needed a face-to-face with her uncle now.

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