Excerpt of When a Stranger Calls by Kathleen Long

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.

She sat perpendicular to him, her gaze focused on an open folder and a stack of photos. She fingered one as she talked. When she crossed her legs, several inches of creamy, smooth thigh peeked from beneath the hem of her black skirt.

Matt swallowed, more than enjoying the view. Heat warmed his neck, and he reached to loosen his tie, but caught himself, lowering his hand to his side. When Lindsey's slender fingers tugged at the hem of her skirt, he lifted his gaze to hers.

Ice-blue daggers made it clear his appreciation hadn't been welcomed. She hung up the phone and stood. Tall. Slender. Mesmerizing.

"Was there something I could help you with?"

Her palpable annoyance snapped Matt's attention from his inappropriate focus on Lindsey Tarlington, the woman, to Lindsey Tarlington, the daughter.

"I'm Matt Alessandro. Tony's son."

With just those few words, all color drained from her cheeks. She sank back onto her chair. "Did you send me the copy?"

"No." Matt entered the cubicle, stepping so close he could feel her body heat as she stared up at him, wide- eyed. "But I'd like to help you find out who did."

THE MAN MAY AS WELL have sucked the air out of Lind-sey's lungs.

He bore a shocking resemblance to his father — the unkempt mahogany hair, the clean-shaven, angular jaw, the hazel eyes more brown than green.

She blinked, willing him to disappear like an unwanted apparition, but he remained. In the flesh. In her office.

"You have no business here." Anxious trembling built inside her. She fought to remain still, to hide the raw emotion that had threatened to smother her since her discovery the night before.

"My father didn't kill your mother."

His words reignited the familiar, aching loss. Memories assailed her. News vans covering every inch of the curb in front of her home. Reporters stalking her at school. Her father shoving her onto a plane to stay with family far away.

Her mother. Missing. Vanished as if she'd never existed at all.