Page 111 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know enough. I only want the best for you, son.”

“I’m not your son.” The words slipped out, words he’d never said to this man. He’d always wished he was.

Dean straightened his shoulders, eyes wide.

Garrett couldn’t unsay that. And he wasn’t about to back down because he’d hurt Dean’s feelings. “I love you, Uncle. I do. But Aspen means something to me. I won’t let you poison me against her because you didn’t like her mother. She has every right to ask questions about what happened back then. She’s lost both her parents. It’s logical she wants to know what happened.”

Dean crossed his arms across his broad chest. “So you’re not going to keep your distance from her?”

“No. I’m not.”

Dean nodded slowly. Silence stretched between themuntil Garrett feared something was about to snap.

And then it did. “If that’s your choice, I guess you’ll be keeping your distance from me.”

If Dean had struck him, it couldn’t have hurt Garrett more. He could think of nothing to say.

So he turned and walked out.

He climbed the steps to the landing and stood there a long time, staring down at the tile beneath his feet. The tile he and Uncle Dean had laid together. Garrett had been an angry fourteen-year-old, fresh from his parents’ house. Dean had taught Garrett how to spread the mortar, how to set the tiles, even how to use the wet saw. Garrett had broken more tiles than he’d laid, but Dean had never once shouted at him. He’d never shown a hint of disappointment.

In that gentle way of his, he’d come alongside and taught Garrett how to lay tile. Then how to grout it. How to build things. How to design things.

He’d taught Garrett what it meant to be a treasured child. He’d taught him how to be a man.

Was their relationship so fragile that it could crumble the first time Garrett defied him?

Maybe his uncle had never loved him at all.

He trudged up to the second floor, only then realizing he was hearing no happy chatter between Deborah and Aspen. As horribly as Dean had behaved, Deborah had been nothing but kind. Why wasn’t she making conversation?

He found her at the sink, washing dishes. He looked around, but Deborah was alone. “Where’s Aspen?”

Deborah turned to him. “She’s not with you? She went to the powder room right after you two walked out. I figured she went to see the workshop.”

“She didn’t come down.”

But even as he said the words, fear churned in his gut.

Had she gone down?

If so, what had she heard?

He peered down the hallway, but the bathroom door was wide open, the light off. He walked that direction, just in case, but Aspen wasn’t there.

He took the half flight back to the coat tree, knowing what he was going to find.

Her coat was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Aspen could hardly see. It was dark. Ridiculously dark. What kind of desolate world was this? No streetlights, no cars. The houses were set so far off the road that the lights from their windows were like pinpricks in the blackness.

She tripped over a chunk of ice, and it skidded into the snowbank. She swiped angry tears, which weren’t helping. It was her own fault. Her own stupid fault for going to Dean and Deborah Finley’s house in the first place.

She’d known when Dean called Garrett away that he’d wanted to talk to his nephew alone, and Aspen had needed to know why.

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