Page 3 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

It was too late.

Three days later, after he’d been airlifted to the trauma center in Honolulu, her father slipped into eternity. In his last moments, unconscious, the tube no longer down his throat, a smile graced his lips. She imagined him in that thin spacebetween this life and the next, getting his first glimpse of the Savior he’d loved and trusted as long as she could remember.

As awful as her grief was, Aspen knew her daddy was at rest.

She feared she never would be again.

CHAPTER TWO

ONE YEAR LATER.

Aspen’s phone rang, and she hit the button on her steering wheel to answer it.

“I meant to call earlier.” Jaslynn Matsomuto’s voice was the only thing that felt familiar in this unfamiliar landscape, and Aspen’s eyes stung at the sound of it. “I take it you got there all right?”

“I’m about an hour from Coventry now,” Aspen said.

“Are you going to the house tonight?”

“It’ll be dark by the time I get there, so I got a room in town. I may end up staying there, depending on what I find when I see the place. I’m meeting the contractor tomorrow morning.”

“How was the flight?”

Aspen had kept her best friend informed about her plans in the months since she’d made the decision. It didn’t matter that Jaslynn and her husband had moved to Kathmandu, where they served as missionaries. Now that Dad was gone, her best friend was the only person who cared enough about her to check in. She had other friends, of course, but over the years, most of them had married and had families. A few had moved away. Aspenhad socialized with people she worked with, but since she’d left her job, she hadn’t kept up with them.

She wasn’t sure how, but despite being surrounded by friendly faces all her life, she’d somehow become incredibly alone.

“The flight was long,” she said. “I don’t know how you manage that all the time.”

“You get used to it. You know me—I love traveling.”

“You know me. I love staying home.”

Jaslynn laughed. “The car’s all right?”

Aspen had bought a used four-wheel drive SUV online a couple of days before. “Just as advertised. I didn’t even have to stay in Boston, thanks to the overnight flight.”

“But are you awake enough for the drive? What is it, two hours?”

“Close to three, but I’m fine. I slept a little on the plane.” Very little, but she’d be in town by dinnertime. Between her anxiety about what she was going to find and the multitude of caffeinated drinks, she wouldn’t fall asleep behind the wheel.

“What’s it like in New Hampshire?”

“Cold.”

“That, I guessed already. It’s January. What else?”

Aspen gazed around at the tall pines and naked trees, at the snow-topped mountains reaching to gray skies. “You know Mud Lane up in Waimea? All those tall trees? It’s sort of like that, times a million and with snow.”

“I bet it’s pretty.”

Aspen shrugged. “I’m just glad the roads are clear. It’s getting dark already, even though it’s only”—she glanced at the clock on the dash—“three fifteen. If there’s a sunset somewhere, I can’t see it, and the skies are cloudy and…” Her voice hitched. She stopped talking before she revealed too much of what was swirling in her thoughts.

“Oh, honey.” Jaslynn always saw through her. “How are you? Really?”

She swallowed a sob. “I can’t believe he’s been gone a year. It feels like a blink. And it feels like a lifetime since I talked to him. I miss him so much.”

“I wish I could be there with you.”

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