When a Lover Calls: A Romantic Suspense Novella (A TURQUOISE BEACH MYSTERY Book 1)

by Jane Preston

  Add that to the fact that there’d been a forced entry into Maureen Beckley’s home after a pool party, reported to the police in Hawaii in the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, this has Sterling’s finger prints all over it, he thought grimly.

  Instead of feeling a sense of triumph that the handsome young man would soon be in handcuffs, Capt. Lewis experienced a profound sadness, as he often did at the tragedies and carnage he had seen in his years as a police officer.

  Still, regardless of the circumstances, he always held fast to his sworn duty to help provide safety for his community.

  Something else troubled him, though. A Jim Coleman, apparently a new acquaintance of Maureen Beckley’s, had been discovered by her just outside her bedroom door in the middle of the night, shortly before she learned about the intruder.

  Could Coleman be involved in any of this? he asked himself, as he stared unseeingly out his office window. Certainly, the police would need to question him a lot more and in-depth, Capt. Lewis thought, as he grabbed the desk phone receiver to dial out.

  ***

  Picking up the morning newspaper from the door mat just outside his hotel room, Sterling Matthews, still in his robe, couldn’t stop obsessing about Maureen Beckley. True, the two of them were not officially an item. But she was well aware of his strong feelings for her. And, the last time they saw each other, late at night in the community swimming pool, Maureen had demonstrated she felt the same way about him.

  Sterling figured he just had to get past her defenses.

  Unfortunately, he thought sourly, the lanky gentleman at last night’s pool party had done just that. Sterling’s stomach wretched and he walked to the breakfast table to sit down and reach for his ubiquitous glass of orange juice. Visions of wringing Maureen Beckley’s neck traipsed through his head.

  Feeling an ulcer coming on, Sterling cracked open the paper and began scanning the headlines on page one. Five minutes later, sipping his juice, he instantly perked up. On page three, there was a short blurb about a break-in at a well-known romance novelist’s vacation home in Kailua. It had taken place around 12:23 a.m.

  No one was injured and no suspect had been arrested.

  Well, they can’t pin that one on me, Sterling smirked. I was nowhere near her home. He knew it wasn’t the truth, but how would anyone know?

  Sterling Matthews was suddenly reminded of just how paranoid he’d become since Lucy Troppe’s body was found washed up on the shore. His handsome face creased into a frown while his thoughts darkened.

  Even from the grave, Lucy Troppe was trying to ruin his life.

  And, now, Maureen looked just as threatening, capable of doing the same.

  I simply won’t allow that to happen, Sterling told himself resolutely, and, heading towards the bathroom, he whisked off his robe and stormed into the shower stall.

  ***

  Within the hour, Sterling Matthews was in handcuffs, being led out of the five-star hotel in Waikiki Beach and into the waiting police car, which was surrounded by four other police department cars. The deputies on hand, besides the arresting officers, ensured that the small crowd, which had gathered outside the resort within minutes, remained far enough away to stay safe.

  Red-faced and loudly protesting that he had absolutely nothing to do with Lucy Troppe’s death or the break-in at Maureen Beckley’s home, Sterling felt humiliated, outraged and petrified with fear, all at the same time.

  Visions of Maureen’s face haunted his thoughts as the car edged slowly away from the hotel and cruised out onto the main roadways to escort Sterling to the Honolulu City Jail.

  Quietly sobbing in the back seat, during the worst ride of his life, the hell ride to being arraigned, Sterling mumbled, “Maureen, Maureen! I swear I didn’t do it.”

  ***

  News late that evening that his son had been arrested in connection with Lucy Troppe’s murder and a break-in at Maureen Beckley’s vacation rental in Kailua did not come as a complete surprise to Sterling Matthews’s father, Milton. In fact, as the elder Matthews confessed to Capt. Lewis when the officer called, he knew that his son was planning on visiting the romance novelist’s vacation home the night of the break-in. Sterling had revealed his intentions during an earlier phone call with his father.

  Milton Matthews was aware of his son’s obsession with Maureen. He’d simply hoped it would be a passing fancy.

  But, now, with his son behind bars, tragically, it wasn’t.

  Slowly hanging up the phone and putting a consoling arm around his wife, Milton couldn’t help but think: Maureen Beckley is going to be the woman Sterling never forgets.

  Not like all the others.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A distraught, tearful Leslie was back in true form, sitting at Maureen’s breakfast table, her hysterical crying jags interspersed with muffled recriminations, only pausing for a few moments to occasionally blow her nose into a tattered Kleenex.

  It turned out that Tim Keller wasn’t such a great guy after all.

  Getting up from her kitchen chair to put on the soothing tea kettle, Maureen realized she needed a jolly, good boost of caffeine herself. She’d flown back to California from her disastrous vacation in Hawaii late last night, arriving to thankfully sleep in her own bed.

  She never thought it would feel so good to be home.

  Then Leslie had come pounding on her door the very next morning.

  “H-he told me he’s still in love with a woman he met while he was in Europe,” Leslie managed to get out between spurts of gut-wrenching sobs: “Anastasia’s her name. I-I think she’s from Sweden.”

  Maureen put a reassuring hand on her neighbor’s. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Leslie.” Boy, what the two women friends had been through in the past several months. Feeling this was not the time, Maureen Beckley refrained from saying a single word about what she’d survived in the past 72 hours; it would come to Leslie's attention soon enough.

  Right now, she simply wanted to focus on her beloved friend's broken heart as she tended to the welcome song of the kettle.

  Leslie needs to see Dr. Brice.

  The thought spurred the romance novelist to mentally revisit her sessions with the kindly psychologist. She’d been making progress. Then Hawaii happened. The novelist still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Sterling Matthews was in jail on suspicion of Lucy’s murder and the break-in at her Kailua vacation home; he was shortly to be extradited to California.

  Come to think of it, I could use a visit to the good doctor myself.

  Two hours later, after Leslie had been calmed and repeatedly reassured that she would eventually find Mr. Right – she simply had to! – Maureen speed-dialed Dr. Brice’s office number.

  The answering machine picked up and she left a message.

  “Dr. Brice, it’s Maureen Beckley. I need to see you as soon as you can arrange an appointment with me.”

  She paused for a moment, then added. “I’m back from my vacation in Hawaii, Doctor. And, boy, what a vacation it was.”

  ***

  That night, Maureen dreamed she was back in the community pool. Under the star-filled night sky, she saw Sterling Matthews swimming towards her. As he drew closer, she realized that his gorgeous face was distorted by pain.

  Just when they were about to touch, Sterling sputtered, water suddenly flooding into his mouth. Choking, he began to sink.

  Completely helpless, Maureen watched him struggle, then sink in slow-motion to the bottom of the pool, her heart wrenching every bit of the way.

  It doesn’t have to be like this, she kept telling herself in the dream.

  Then, she awoke with a start.

  Her hands flew to cover her face in the impenetrable dark. Her only thought was: Something’s not right but I don’t know what it is.

  It was three full hours before Maureen was able to go back to sleep that night.

  EPILOGUE

  The water was especially gorgeous today as 54-year-old
Milton Matthews strolled along the beach behind his son’s elegant mansion in Liberty Heights in Southern California. Turquoise blues blended seamlessly with teal greens, creating watery colors only the ocean was capable of making. The sun blazed overhead as though sporting a smile. Mother Nature was definitely on her best behavior today, Milton thought, as he dug his toes into the cohesive coolness of the grainy, wet sand.

  A smile on his face matched the one overhead. Pausing, Milton turned around to take in the massive and mighty ocean, with a way all its own. No one had ever tamed the ocean, he thought with satisfaction.

  Just as no one has ever tamed me.

  Or Sterling.

  Two days ago, just nine months after being arrested, his son had been convicted of both Lucy Troppe’s murder, following a jury sequestering of five interminably long days.

  Milton was afraid they wouldn’t return the guilty verdict. But he needn’t have worried.

  Both beautiful women, Milton thought now, as the ocean sent up another liquid tendril to lick at his lower legs and feet. It tickled delightfully, and he couldn’t keep from laughing out loud.

  Looking up, however, he suddenly frowned as he spotted a stray dark cloud on the horizon.

  Sterling had always had his way with women and it had galled Milton to no end. To say that Milton Matthews was jealous of his son was a huge understatement.

  In fact, he had obsessively followed Sterling’s love life and the upsetting way his son’s incredibly good looks had made the most beautiful, desirable women fall at his feet. Yet Sterling had had the temerity and bad manners to complain about each and every one of them to his long-suffering father.

  Milton knew all of Sterling's easy conquests, almost intimately, as a result of his son’s stories.

  He would have given anything to have been with those women. And, in a way, he had been with them.

  Three of them, anyway.

  He’d patiently waited at least two years after Sterling had carelessly ditched them - Stacy, Belinda and Joan - to begin quietly stalking them, finding out where they lived and worked, in addition to their schedules. When did they get home? Who did they date? What night spots did they frequent?

  Because his wife was not the questioning type – as long as he kept her in trendy clothes, beautiful jewelry and antique furniture, she was content to lead her own life – he could always use the excuse of a business trip to get away from the house in order to pursue his sideline interests, which had resulted in three unsolved murder cases.

  This time, making the arrangements to be in Hawaii at the time his son was there, without him ever knowing, turned out to be a piece of cake. He was back home on the East Coast by the time the detective called him late in the evening of the day of Sterling’s arrest.

  Laughing softly to himself - after all, no one could hear him now, or would even care if they did - Milton Matthews fancied that he would have made a great detective. He’d even made certain that Lucy Troppe’s plastic-laminated driver’s license was in the pocket of her fully-clothed body so she would be readily identified by police.

  No doubt about it: he was classy in his pursuits, taking great pains to remain unobtrusive, unseen in the background, always non-threatening. He didn’t even try to get to know his victims, as some serial killers did.

  No, he’d just follow them. And follow them. And follow them.

  Obsessively.

  Silly girls, Milton thought now, as he continued his solitary stroll down the beach. They never even realized they were being stalked.

  Until, of course, it was too late.

  One big disappointment, however, still dug at his gut.

  Janice Wilson. Definitely his type. He thought she was the most beautiful one of them all with her jet black hair luminescent against her milky white complexion. He would have loved to put his hands around her tender throat and watch her expression as her eyes grew wide with fright.

  But someone else had gotten to her first.

  Milton tilted his head as he slowly walked the final stretch of the beach which ended abruptly in an outcropping of rugged rocks. I never figured out who killed her. He’d been stalking her, just like the others, and, one time in the dark of the night, even noticed that another man, kind of tall and lanky, had been hanging around her house, too. But he figured him to be just another one of her many boyfriends.

  Oh, well, I guess I’ll never know. He shrugged.

  Content with the way things had worked out, Milton Matthews slowed his walk on the beach and turned around to head back to his son’s ludicrous, over-the-top mini-mansion. While he kept a steady pace, the wet sands a soothing balm to his feet, he was reminded of the reason he’d been forced to break his usual two-year waiting period to track down Maureen Beckley.

  Sterling was simply getting too serious about her too fast.

  Milton knew he’d have to take action before she became his daughter-in-law. He couldn't let his son have that kind of happiness. Unfortunately, his late-night forced entry into her Kailua vacation rental had to be aborted because the new lover-boy on the scene had gotten too nosy and entirely too protective. The break-in remained an open case.

  Milton shrugged again. The sun was beating down pleasantly on his broad, well-muscled shoulders. Now, looking up into the skies, he noticed several rapidly-encroaching dark clouds. It would soon be time to go inside.

  His inner dialogue continued.

  And, Lucy Troppe, well, she’d just been in the way. A ridiculous, loud-mouthed, overbearing woman who Milton decided needed taking care of, tout de suite.

  Shortly after twilight, Milton Matthews sat alone before the fireplace while he poured himself a stiff scotch, just as his son had done so many times in this very same house.

  Smirking, he raised a toast. “To you, Sterling, my dear son. May you rest in peace.”

  ***

  Hours later on that very same night, with a thunderstorm raging outside her modest home, Maureen’s dreams were more disturbing than ever.

  After his conviction two days ago, Sterling had placed a call to her from jail, swearing that he'd never killed Lucy Troppe or broken into Maureen’s Kailua vacation home. He’d made that kind of desperate call to her three times before the trial, too. But she hadn’t believed him. Of course he’d say he was innocent. Who wouldn’t, if they were looking down the barrel of a gun called life in prison?

  Besides, she had every reason to get on with her own life now. Her emotional work with Dr. Brice had instilled in her, for the very first time, a new self-confidence, an ongoing and vibrant self-esteem.

  It was during a therapy session, shortly after returning from her disastrous vacation in Hawaii, that Maureen heard the good doctor say the deep emotional work had probably served to steer her away from an emotionally dangerous man, Sterling Matthews, and into the arms of a truly nice man.

  Maureen knew the psychologist was referring to Jim Coleman. The man who saved my life, she thought that day while sitting in Dr. Brice's office.

  Maureen felt good about dating this modest new man, who lived only 45 minutes from her in Southern California. Even if he didn’t end up being Mr. Right, she knew she’d be fine because she’d found an inner peace within her own mind and heart.

  In addition, she was more in touch with her intuition and her dreams, which sometimes informed her writing. A definite plus for a romance novelist.

  But now, as she tossed and turned, her body becoming more twisted in the sweaty bed sheets, Maureen’s restless mind transported her into a nightmare singular in its extreme vividness and intensity.

  Maureen Beckley dreamed she was back at the community swimming pool. The evening was cooler than usual, silent and cloudy, with only a few stars twinkling. Sterling Matthews was swimming vigorously towards her, his beautiful hazel eyes intent on her.

  But, as his strokes brought him closer, Maureen noticed that another man was in the pool, following closely behind him. It was Sterling’s father. Maureen recalled in the dream that St
erling had once showed her a picture of his dad, describing their unfortunate relationship as difficult and competitive.

  Now, Maureen couldn’t help but notice the intense hatred on Milton Matthew’s face, as he tried to get to his son.

  “I did it!” Milton Matthews spat out between his labored breaths while he clawed at the water, a habitat he was all-but-lost in. “You never listened to me, you fool. You deserved what I did. I had to show you who’s boss!” Maureen was shocked by the words.

  But she was even more startled when Sterling unexpectedly suffered a strong cramp, pain registering on his handsome face. His body helplessly drifted into the silky blue depths of the pool and its airless, lifeless embrace.