Free Deadly Intent by Christiane Heggan Page A

know what was. He had been concerned that Abbie would know he was lying and call his bluff, but all that bravado on her part had been a bunch of bullshit. The girl was scared, much more so than he had expected. And now he knew why.
    The lunch hour at Campagne was almost over and the kitchen activity starting to slow to a more manageable pace when the call came. Abbie was standing a few feet from the wall phone when it rang. After making certain the staff was too busy to eavesdrop, she picked up the receiver.
    “You have a collect call from Earl Kramer at Stateville Prison,” a nasal feminine voice recited. “Do you accept the charges?”
    Abbie turned to face the window, aware that her throat had suddenly gone dry. “Yes.” She swallowed. “Yes, I do.”
    “Abbie DiAngelo?” The voice at the other end was rough and uneducated. “That you?”
    “Yes.” She cleared her voice. “But I’ll have to take this in my office. I’ll only be a few seconds.”
    The man laughed. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
    As Brady passed by, she handed him the phone. “Brady, would you mind hanging up when I tell you to?”
    “Sure.”
    Aware his curious gaze was following her, Abbie hurried to her office, locked the door behind her and went to pick up the extension on her desk. Her heart pounded in her chest, but not from the short sprint. “I’ve got it, Brady. Thanks.”
    “No problem.”

“Mr. Kramer?”
    “Yeah.”
    Holding the phone, she circled her desk and sat down. “Do you know why Ian asked you to contact me?”
    ‘ ‘Sure I do. You want to know if what I told him about your mother is true.” He paused. “It’s true.”
    She closed her eyes and forced herself to count until five. “You know it’s not. Why are you doing this? Did Ian offer you money?” Stupid question. Did she actually expect him to admit it if he had?
    “Money ain’t much use where I am, missie. Besides, Earl Kramer ain’t for sale.”
    That she didn’t believe. “Why are you coming forward
    now? Why didn’t you tell your story to Ian after you were convicted?”
    “Because I still had a chance to beat the death sentence on appeal. Now, after two tries, they tell me that’s it, I’m done, so I might as well confess to all my sins, not just those that got me on death row.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’ve been blessed with God’s forgiveness, Miss DiAngelo,” he said with a reverence that sounded as phony as the rest of his claims. “And confessing to all my crimes is my way of repaying His kindness.”
    Abbie fell back against her chair. Who was she talking to? A religious convert? Or a shrewd con man? “Ian said you’d be able to convince me, so go ahead. Convince me.”
    “How do I do that?”
    “What did my mother look like twenty-eight years ago?”
    “She was a looker. Great ass.”
    “Stick to her facial features, please.”
    “All right, let’s see.” He was silent for a moment. “She had dark hair, shoulder-length, wavy. And light-colored eyes. Gray or green.” He paused. “And she had a beauty mark above her upper lip.”
    All true, but Abbie still wasn’t convinced. Ian could have given him a description of Irene. “What about the house?”
    “It was on El Camino Lane—half a mile or so from the center of town. A big house with a basement and an attic.”
    That, too, he could have found out from Ian. She had to ask some pertinent questions, something not everyone knew. But what? She wasn’t exactly an expert when it came to interrogating hard-core murderers. “How did you get into the house?”
    “Your mother left the back door open. She told me which room your stepfather slept in, so I went up and made
    sure McGregor was sleeping soundly. There was an empty bottle of bourbon on the nightstand and the place reeked of booze, so I knew there wasn’t much chance he’d wake up.”
    “Didn’t it bother you that three children were also asleep in that house?”
    “Your mother was awake. She wasn’t