Page 103 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“I need more than just coffee. You go ahead.” After he paid, she ordered a caramel macchiato from Josie, the woman who’d been there before. “I need to bring dessert to dinner tonight.”

The thought of sitting at a table with Dean and Deborah after hearing all of this made Aspen’s heart race, but she wanted to meet Dean. She wanted to get to know him and Deborah better, to form her own opinions. They were Garrett’s family, the people who’d taken him in and raised him. How could she suspect them of anything?

But Cote obviously did.

“How many will there be?” Josie asked.

“Four. What do you recommend?”

“The fruit tarts are good for dessert. And everybody loves the chocolate tortes.” Aspen asked her to box up two of each and paid for them. She joined Cote in the room where she’d sat withBrent a few days earlier. Cote had chosen a small table by the window. A fire had flickered when she and Brent were there. Now the little warmth that came from the fireplace emanated from a few burning coals.

Aspen set her box down, slipped off her jacket, and sat. “So maybe Mom acted alone, or maybe?—”

“She didn’t act alone. We covered that.”

“But I mean, the night of the bombing.”

“Maybe.”

“Are you saying…? Do you think Deborah, Dean, and Brent were in on it, even if they weren’t there? Or one of them? Or a couple of them?”

“Do you want to hear what Iknow, or what Ibelieve?”

“Both.”

“You know what I know. Your mother, Dean, Deborah, and Brent were good friends who were all involved in the same club on campus. We suspected one or more of them helped her with the bombing, but they all have alibis. Your mother wasn’t capable of building a bomb. From here on out, I’m speculating, and I could be wrong. If I’m right, then the people who worked with your mother are accomplices in a murder, not to mention destruction of property and a whole host of other crimes. They’re terrorists, and they need to be brought to justice. So what I’m telling you needs to stay between us. Okay?”

She nodded.

He leaned across the small table and lowered his voice. “You read about the witnesses who saw your mother driving away from the bombing that night. What we didn’t release…”

His voice trailed, and a moment later the brunette set their coffees on the table between them. “You need anything else?”

“We’re good, Josie,” Cote said. “Thanks.” He waited until she walked away. “What we didn’t release to the papers is that somebody saw the car headed uptothe lumber company aswell. To get to the headquarters, you had to drive through a neighborhood on the edge of town. One of the residents was having a party that night. It turns out that, when your mother passed, a woman had just arrived. She looked inside the car thinking it was a friend pulling up and saw two people. The witness thought it was a man and a woman.”

Oh. “So one of them was there. Brent or Dean. But you said you had no evidence.”

“We believe there was a man with your mother. Witnesses have been known to get things wrong. It could have been a woman with short hair or hair pulled back. But definitely two people went in.”

“But Deborah and Dean were back at the college, and Brent was in Boston.”

“Deborah’s alibi is rock solid.MaybeDean was at the college. Maybe his roommate was mistaken or lied. The roommate was also involved in the club, so it’s possible.”

“A woman was dead. Surely the roommate would have told the truth.”

“You’d be surprised what people will do.”

She really didn’t want Garrett’s uncle to have been an accomplice. “It could have been Brent, right? You said nobody could corroborate the story that he was in Boston that night.”

“It’s possible.”

“Or…could it have been somebody else from the club? Or do you have another suspect?”

Cote’s expression turned tender, as if he hated what he had to say. “I told you earlier we looked at thefourclosest people to your mother. We’ve talked about three. The other is…”

The answer was obvious, and ridiculous. “Myfather?” She’d said the word too loud and forced a quieter volume. “You think my father helped her? That’s crazy.”

“I agree.”

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