60. Garrett
Chapter Sixty
GARRETT
T he pines crowded the car as he drove, making the stretch of woods darker than it should have been at this hour of the afternoon.
It was easy to imagine it at night, the moonlight fighting a losing battle to illuminate the dirt tract.
Garrett gripped the wheel of his rented Range Rover, wondering where exactly on this godforsaken road Emma had been run down.
“Asked and answered,” he growled to himself as he spotted Sheriff Warner’s 4x4 parked a few dozen yards ahead.
He slid his vehicle behind him, a short stretch with room for a shoulder on what was a wide single-lane track this deep in the woods.
The sheriff waved as he approached.
Jesse Warner had always dressed the part of local law enforcement, favoring jeans and plaids even in his off time when Garrett used to live here. But he’d leaned hard into the sheriff persona since, adding boots and a Stetson to his repertoire.
Garrett stuck out his hand to shake but the sheriff bypassed it, giving him one of those backslapping hugs peculiar to overcompensating men everywhere.
“Thank you for taking time out of your day to see me,” Garrett said, pulling away as soon as it was polite .
Jesse tipped the hat back a notch. “It’s not a problem. I had some time this afternoon.”
But his expression didn’t match the easy words. Or that hug.
“I haven’t been back here since college,” he said. “I appreciate you showing me the scene.”
“Of course.” Jesse shifted his weight, sticking his thumbs in the belt loops. “But before we start, I need to ask—is it true? What I’m hearing about you and Emma?”
If Phil heard, it made sense that Warner had too. The small-town grapevine worked at the speed of light.
Garrett nodded, unable to help the satisfaction from creeping into his expression.
“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t lead with that. I was waiting to tell my aunt before spreading it around town. Emma and I are married now. If it hadn’t been for her accident, we would have been married all this time. That’s why I’m so invested in learning everything I can about it.”
He explained to Jesse what Emma had been doing on this road that night, their fight, and how he’d made the mistake of his life leaving town the next day.
Jesse whistled, scratching his head. “That’s quite a story. But it’s good that you and Emma were able to work it out.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, although he felt that simple summation downplayed the hand of fate. Emma coming back into his life was nothing short of a miracle.
“Can you walk me through the accident?” he asked. “And what happened after?”
The other man jerked as if Garrett had interrupted some deep thought.
“Yeah, sure.”
Jesse moved to the middle of the road, his posture altering subtly as he shifted into sheriff mode. He gestured south, in the direction of the former Mendez home.
“The night of the accident, Mariana had gotten out of work around eleven to find Emma gone. She left a note, but midnight rolled around and Mariana still hadn’t heard from her. That was late for Emma, so Mariana started texting, offering to pick her up. They only had one car—that gray Corolla, remember?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Did Mariana still drive that old beater? There hadn’t been a vehicle in the driveway. He’d assumed the family car was in the standalone garage in the back, but he hadn’t checked what was in it.
Mental note, get grandma a reliable new car ASAP.
“When Emma didn’t text back, she started calling but Em didn’t pick up,” Jesse continued. “According to Mariana, that was pretty unusual. Mari always said Emma was the responsible one, and she was the flaky one…”
Jesse paused as if waiting to see if he would comment on the pet name.
Garrett wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t touching that situation with a ten-foot pole.
“Next, she called around to Emma’s friends, but none had heard from her. That was when Mariana called me. She asked me to start checking the roads between their place and town. We both assumed Emma was on foot and her phone battery had died. Without the flashlight on it, she would have had a hell of a time maneuvering through the woods.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
He remembered that about this place. Unless the moon was right overhead, it would have been pitch-dark, the only light sporadic patches where the moonlight was able to break through the trees.
“We thought everyone who could have given her a ride was accounted for.” Jesse stepped back, pivoting to face north and the direction of Garrett’s old cabin. “Truth be told, if I’d known about the two of you, you would have been a prime suspect—a poor but beautiful young girl with the richest guy in town…”
Garrett should have been offended, but he couldn’t blame the guy. “Fair enough. But for the record, it wasn’t me.”
Although in retrospect, the accusation would have been welcome. If one single fucking person had told him about the accident…
He sighed. Yeah, he really had to stop playing that game.
“I know. Mainly because dozens of witnesses put you at your cabin during the accident window.”
Jesse squatted for a second, picking up a rock. He turned it in his hands. “You hadn’t been home in a while, so the party was big news. I was going to check later. But at the time, I thought it more likely that Emma was walking home from somewhere else.”
Garrett nodded. “You said Mariana found her.”
“Yeah.” Jesse threw the rock past the tree line opposite the ridge. “I was searching the southern trail. It winds a bit more but lets out close to the library and café. But Mariana took this road and spotted some damage over here.”
Pivoting, Jesse walked a couple of yards, gesturing to a spot on a thick pine at the edge of the road some dozen yards from the shoulder.
“It’s healed over now, but there was some obvious splintering just here, white and fresh. It stood out in her headlights, so she got out to investigate, using the flashlight on her phone.”
Jesse crossed the road, stopping at the edge. Below them was a steep drop-off.
The trees were thinner along the slope but that hardly mattered. Emma only had to tumble into one of those. It would have been like hitting a concrete pillar.
“Mari found her near the bottom, bleeding from the head but breathing.”
Garrett’s imagination was far too good. In his mind, he saw Emma’s beautiful face, covered in blood, her body crumpled and broken.
His jaw was so tight it felt like it might shatter. With effort, he pushed the nightmare images away.
Yes, they had lost years, but Emma was safe now. Garrett was going to make damn sure she stayed that way.
Both his girls would be protected.
He cleared his throat. “Thank God for Mariana.”
Jesse grunted an assent, his eyes distant. “The EMTs went down with a stretcher and neck brace. Emma had a broken arm and some cracked ribs. But the head injury was the worst of it. Emma needed a specialist, so she got transferred to Denver. Mariana went with her.”
He kicked a small stone down the slope. They watched it fall, coming to a rest halfway down before he spoke again.
“She didn’t come back here. Mariana gave up her lease, using her savings and some donations to stay on in Denver until Emma was well enough to be left alone. I thought she was going to come back, maybe find a new place since their old place was occupied, but she moved one town over instead.”
His mouth tightened.
“With baby Stella,” he added, his voice noticeably rougher. “Once Emma got out of the hospital, she joined them. Which leads me to a rather uncomfortable question. But I gotta ask. About Stella…”
Garrett couldn’t help being surprised at the unasked question. He knew Jesse and Mariana had dated, but it must have fizzled out much earlier than he thought, or else the sheriff would have known the answer to the question he was asking.
“Stella is mine,” he said. “Mine and Emma’s. She was a few months pregnant at the time of the accident.”
Jesse’s face contorted.