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CHAPTER TWO

O NE 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. Aspen had 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.”

“Fly over. How far could it be?”

“Don’t think I didn’t consider it. It’s only about a twenty-four-hour flight.”

Aspen groaned at the thought. “And probably a million dollars.”

“Not quite that bad. If you stay there, Danny and I will come visit for sure.”

“That would be…” The very thought of her best friend making a trip to see her choked her up again. But she wouldn’t be staying. She didn’t know a soul within a thousand miles of New Hampshire.

“Once you get a good night’s sleep, everything will seem brighter. You have a plan, of course.”

Aspen always had a plan. She had a notebook, where she’d lined out exactly what she’d be doing when she got to New Hampshire, beginning with meeting the contractor and getting the renovations going. Then she’d search the house and figure out why her dad had bought it. Then she’d…

Well, it got a little murky after that. Somehow, she’d find her mother and do right by her. Whatever that meant. If only Dad had given her a few more details.

It didn’t matter. The to-dos would fill themselves in.

“This is going to be good for you.” Jaslynn’s voice took on the confident tone she used whenever she talked about the Savior she trusted so well. “God loves you, and He has good plans for you. I have a strong feeling that this trip is a big part of those plans.”

“I hope you’re right.” Her life couldn’t go forward until she unlocked the secret her father had tried to share.

“I’ll be praying for you, my friend. Keep in touch.”

Aspen ended the call and swiped at her tears. Thoughts of her father gave way to thoughts of his final words, and then to the reading of the will in Kona.

Her father had owned a house, one he’d purchased a couple of years before his death. He hadn’t traveled to New Hampshire in that time, which meant he must’ve bought the place sight unseen.

In Coventry, New Hampshire, the town he had grown up in. The town where Aspen had spent the first year of her life.

The last place Aspen’s mother had been seen alive.

Dad must have known something about her mother’s disappearance, but he’d kept that information from Aspen.

As hard as this was going to be, she was going to figure out why.