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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T he sun was barely brightening the winter sky when Garrett parked, but a light was shining through the bottom floor window of his uncle’s house. As long as Garrett could remember, Uncle Dean had gotten up between five and five thirty and started work. Today, it seemed, was no exception.

Rather than ring the bell and wake Deborah, Garrett used his key to let himself in, went down the half flight of stairs, and knocked on the wall leading to the shop.

Dean was leaning over his workbench sanding a table leg. He looked up, his eyes widening when he saw Garrett. “What are you doing here so early?”

Garrett stepped inside. The space looked just as it always had. The pieces off to the side had changed over the years—tables, chairs, cabinets, rocking horses, chests. His uncle was a talented carpenter, well-known all over the state for his workmanship. But though the pieces were always changing, the shop looked just as it had when Garrett was a teen. A couple of workbenches, shelves holding the tools of his trade. Though it was quiet now, often the sound of one of his power tools would carry up through the floorboards, weirdly comforting. A fine layer of sawdust covered everything and filled the air with the scents of cedar and pine and oak.

His uncle gave him an appraising look, and his eyebrows lifted. “Did something happen? You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

Garrett stepped closer, thankful for the gum he’d found in his truck. He winced at the thought that he’d kissed Aspen with morning breath.

She hadn’t seemed to mind.

“Coffee?” Dean nodded to the one-cup maker on the small counter beside the sink, and Garrett started it brewing.

Dean went back to his task.

It’d always been this way with them. How many hours had Garrett sat in this workshop, watching his uncle work? It made it easier, somehow, to open up when Dean wasn’t watching, just listening silently, bent over some project.

This man meant everything to him. Everything.

Which made this so much harder.

“Somebody was watching Aspen’s house the other night.”

Dean’s hand stilled, but only for a moment before he resumed the tedious task of rubbing sandpaper against the wood, the sound rhythmic and familiar.

“It freaked her out enough that she bought an alarm system. I installed it for her last weekend.”

“Good idea,” Dean said.

“It went off last night.”

Dean looked up at that. Waiting. The room, usually so peaceful, suddenly filled with tension. There was nothing Garrett could do about that.

“She wasn’t home,” he said. “Somebody broke in. Went through her stuff. Stole her laptop. I’m guessing it’s somebody who wants to know what she knows about her mother.”

Dean’s eyebrows lowered.

“Do you know anything about that?”

Carefully, Dean set the sandpaper on his table and straightened. “Are you asking me if I broke into her house?”

“I’m asking you?—”

“Are you really standing in my workshop at the crack of dawn to accuse me of going through that girl’s things and stealing her laptop?”

Suddenly, Garrett was a fourteen-year-old kid again, desperate to stay on his uncle’s good side, knowing that if Uncle Dean didn’t want him, nobody would. Garrett’s father would send him off to a faraway boarding school. He’d be all alone in the world.

Later, he’d tried to stay on Dean’s good side because he craved his love so badly. Because he’d never had his father’s, and he’d needed to know he mattered. That he was worth the trouble.

Garrett’s hands got clammy, and more than anything, he wanted to laugh the whole thing off. Because Dean had given him…everything.

But Garrett had Aspen to consider.

“I’m not accusing you of anything.” He kept his voice level. “I’m asking if you know something about it.”

“I know I’m not the only person who wants to figure out what happened to Jane Kincaid.”

“Okay.” Garrett hoped Dean would say more. His coffee had finished brewing, and he added a little creamer and took a sip.

Dean asked, “Did you hear the story yet?”

“Aspen heard it last night from Marion Eaton. A total stranger. If I’d known it was so… If you’d told me, I could have told her myself. It would have been easier for her.”

“And you’re sure she didn’t already know?”

The image of Aspen weeping on her couch, overwhelmed and distraught at what she’d learned… “She had no idea. She was shocked. And when she told me, so was I.”

Dean nodded but didn’t seem convinced. Then his eyes narrowed. “What were you doing over…?” His voice trailed, and he gave Garrett another long look. “Is that why you look like you just woke up? Is that where you spent the night?”

“Not like that. She was nervous after the break-in. I slept on her couch.” He didn’t add that she’d been on the couch with him, that she’d slept in his arms. That would only muddy the already mucked-up waters.

“Why you? I mean… Good grief. Don’t tell me you’re falling for that girl.”

“First, stop calling her that girl . She’s a grown woman, and she has a name.”

Dean flicked off the words, but Garrett wasn’t finished.

“And second, so what if I am? She’s beautiful and kind and?—”

“All alone and wounded, and you’re just the person to save her. Except she’s not that bird you hit with the truck when you were learning to drive. You can’t stick her in a box and nurse her back to health.”

Garrett set his cup down hard, sloshing some coffee over the side. “It’s not like that.”

But Dean continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I get that there’s something attractive about a woman who needs help, but people like Jane Kincaid?—”

“Aspen is not Jane.”

“—crush people. They draw them in and squeeze the life out of them and use them up. I know you think she’s different, but what if she’s not? What if she’s just like her mother?”

“She’s nothing like her mother.”

“How would you know?” Dean tossed the words out. “You didn’t know Jane, and you barely know her daughter.”

“Jane Kincaid was mentally ill, and Aspen is perfectly sane.”

“We thought that about Jane, and we knew her a lot longer than you’ve known Aspen.”

Garrett glared at his uncle. Dean didn’t understand.

He rounded the bench to where Garrett had perched on a stool and sat on the one beside him. He took a long, deep breath and blew it out.

“You’re still going to the doctor today, right?” Garrett asked.

“Been trying to come up with a way to get out of it, but short of death, I think your aunt’s determined.”

“Those episodes you’re having aren’t normal. Better to figure out what’s going on and deal with it than let it fester and get worse.”

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?

“’Course they’re dead ’n gone,” Dean said. “There’s the Christiansens.”

“Seriously? Jeff’s her lawyer.” It was like a giant web that Garrett had known nothing about. “He was her father’s attorney.”

“Huh. Interesting. The major stockholders were out-of-towners. Don’t know their names, but they’re not around anymore.”

“They could be interested.”

Dean shrugged. “Point is, there’re people who care.”

That all made sense, but Garrett still didn’t understand something. “Why do you , though? Why do you care what happened to Jane Kincaid?”

Dean turned the table leg over and rubbed the sandpaper along the opposite side.

A minute passed, two, and still he said nothing.

“Uncle?”

Dean looked up and met his eyes. “We were friends. What Jane Kincaid did, it hurt all of us, your aunt most of all. Jane blew up more than just that building. She destroyed a lot of lives, and then she vanished. So yeah, I want to know what happened to her. Your aunt wants to know.”

“Don’t put this on Deborah. You’re the one?—”

“For her sake, son. I want to know what happened to Jane for Deborah’s sake.”

The look in Dean’s eyes, the way he lowered his gaze back to his work, sent a jolt of suspicion through Garrett. For the first time in his life, he had the strong feeling his uncle wasn’t telling him the truth.