Page 18 of The Familiar Stranger

“Huh, good question. Given Almond didn’t mention it, I’m guessing there wasn’t a weapon found.”

“Or itwasfound, and the police aren’t saying anything about it.”

Maddie’s cell phone rang.

“Is it Iggy?” I asked.

She shook her head and answered the call. “Hey, Almond. You okay?”

I waved my hand to get her attention in the hopes she’d put the call on speaker, and she did.

“I’m okay,” Almond said. “I remembered two more things you should know about. Could be important or mean nothing at all. I don’t know.”

She had my attention.

From experience, I’d learned people often believed they didn’t remember anything at all—yet once they started talking, even in a roundabout way, forgotten memories tended to surface. It looked like this was one of those moments.

“You’re on speaker,” Maddie said. “I’m here with Sloane.”

“Hi, Almond,” I said. “What did you remember?”

“Okay, first off, the note smelled weird, like cologne.”

Maddie and I exchanged wide-eyed glances.

“Continue,” I said.

“It wasn’t a fragrance either of us use. In fact, I don’t use any at all, except deodorant. I’m kind of allergic. Harmony has all sorts of scents she uses at the spa, but she always washes up for my benefit, but even if she didn’t, this wasn’t one of those massage-y smells. It was more musky maybe?”

“Maybe it was leather?”

A moment of silence, then, “Maybe. It reminded me of like when you go into those New Age shops, and they have incense burning and stuff.”

“Patchouli!” Maddie said.

“Could be,” Almond said. “All I know was it was a strong smell. I mean, it had to be to stick to a note like thataftergetting wet. I figured it might be a clue?”

I wanted to high-five her over the phone. “It’s a clue, all right. Good job.”

“Thanks. I can’t believe I hadn’t remembered it earlier.”

“It’s not unusual,” I said. “What’s the second thing?”

“I think someone was watching us the day of the attack. After we’d visited with you, we went to get something to eat, went shopping for groceries, the usual stuff. But I kept looking back at this guy. He just seemed to be everywhere we were. Long black coat, a fancy wooden cane, high collar.”

“Like a priest?” Maddie asked.

“Mmm, more like a black turtleneck. I even glared at him at one point, and he was unfazed. I didn’t think anything of it until just a few minutes ago. I feel so stupid!”

“You’re not.” I said. “It could be something or nothing, as you said, but itisinformation we didn’t have before, which is a good thing. We’ll see if anything comes of it. And hey, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you find the weapon used to attack Harmony?”

“Nope. I even checked every object in the yard that could have been used to see if it had blood on it. Nothing did.”

Another dead end.

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