Page 59 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

Dean grabbed his insulated mug and took a swig. “You and Deb are working from the same playbook.”

Garrett sipped his coffee and swallowed. “Just to be clear, it never crossed my mind that you’d broken into her house. I know you wouldn’t do something like that.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Just to be clear, I know she’s not her mother. Her father was a decent guy, and I have no doubt he raised her right.”

Garrett was thankful for the words, but Dean wasn’t finished.

“Problem is, mental illness runs in families. Maybe she’s fine, but it’s possible her kid could end up like her mother.”

“You can’t say that. You don’t know?—”

“That’s not a risk I’d be willing to take. That’s not the kind of life we want for you.”

“Who’s having children? I like her, yeah, but we’re not?—”

“Don’t go there with Aspen Kincaid. You have to trust me on this, son. Even if she’s sane… The world doesn’t need any more people like her mother.”

Garrett stood and dumped the contents of his coffee into the sink.

He wasn’t going to discuss his love life—it was barely that—with his uncle. That wasn’t what he came here for.

“Somebody broke into her house. I need to know who these people are who want to know what happened to Jane Kincaid.”

Dean studied him a long moment.

Then he returned to his table, picked up the sandpaper, and resumed his work.

“That’s it? You have nothing to say?”

“There’s the family of the woman who died.”

“Who?”

Dean glanced up. “The victim was Rachel Bradley. She was married to Norm Bradley, Bart’s son.”

Oh. That explained Bart’s vitriol the other day at the restaurant.

“Her parents moved away a long time ago, but her sister is still in town. Rhonda. It’s Patterson now, but the maiden name is Foley.”

There were a lot of Foleys in town. They were almost as common as Cotes.

“If Rachel was a Foley,” Garrett said, “then there’d be a lot of people in town who cared.”

Uncle Dean shrugged. “I think most of ’em have let it go. But Rhonda and Rachel were twins. I’m guessing Rhonda would be pretty motivated to find out what happened to the woman who killed her sister.”

Garrett had no siblings and couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to lose a twin—and in such a horrible way.

Dean continued. “After Rachel died, Norm lost custody of the kids to her parents. He was a drunk, used to beat up on Rachel pretty bad. Story was after she died, he started knocking around his son. So it was no tragedy that he lost custody. Tragedy was when he drank himself to death after that. Rachel’s folks took the kids out of state. Word is that Bart and Rhonda never saw them again.”

Garrett plopped back in a chair, the heaviness of the story weighing him down. “Anybody else?”

“I imagine the people who owned the lumber company wouldn’t mind seeing Jane Kincaid punished. Some of the stockholders are still in town. Her little stunt didn’t just knock down their building, it set a blaze that took out an acre or more. Cost them a pretty penny.”

“Anybody I know?”

“There were a few. The Sullivans.”

“James’s parents?” Surely James had nothing to do with any of this. He’d have been very young when all that happened. Did he even know about his connection?

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