Read Cold Heart for Free Online

it. She cleared her dishes to the kitchen when she was finished and put a kettle on the stove to make a cup of tea. Leaving the door ajar to the kitchen, so she could hear it when it whistled, she went into Uncle Max’s office to take a look. His desk was tidy, everything neatly in place. She started with the centre drawer and found just the usual items a stapler, some tape, paper clips, a few pens and a whole lot of keys all carefully labeled. Uncle Max was a man after her heart.
    Nothing there so Lexi moved on to the drawers on the right. The top drawer yielded nothing but a bunch of printer paper and the next was some telephone books. The bottom drawer had hanging files and all were carefully labeled and contained personal tax information, bills for Wildwood plus receipts for purchases he had made but nothing about selling the property and no clues to the identity of this mystery woman.
    The kettle whistled and Lexi hurried to make her cup of tea then brought it back with her to the office and tackled the drawers on the left. While she did find more hanging files with warranties and instruction booklets there was nothing else that would help. Disappointed, she went back out to the great room.
    Lexi had hauled Tucker’s bed in from the porch earlier and she found him lying on it but as soon as she entered the room he rose and headed for the door.
    “Want to go out buddy?” she asked. The wagging tail was her response.
    Lexi decided since it was still fairly light out she would take a walk outside and then see if maybe she could coax Tucker to come back in with her. She opened the door for him and followed him out. He headed straight for the barn and after relieving himself on his favourite fencepost he nudged the door and went inside. Lexi followed him in. She looked around the barn. There were several stalls but no indication that animals had inhabited them for a very long time. She could remember a couple of old horses, one she had ridden. She thought Uncle Max may have had goats at one time when she was really small.
    The stalls were certainly large enough to accommodate horses but she knew nothing about caring for them. Still it might be nice to offer trail rides and Carter apparently had horses maybe he could give her some instruction on how to care for them. No, put that thought out of your head Lexi, you don’t need to be involving Carter in your business. Still, he did seem willing to help and she was basing her assessment of him on the impressions of a smitten twelve year old girl.
    Lexi decided to have a look in the loft and climbed the ladder. There were some boxes in the corner of the loft. She should have a look in those one of these days. She walked to the edge and looked over. It was a long drop probably sixteen feet, onto a concrete floor. She could see why Max had been fatally injured. The railing seemed low and she wondered why he would have been so close to the edge. She decided to get down from there now. Tucker was waiting when she stepped off the last rung of the ladder and began wagging his tail.
    “It’s okay Tucker,” she said. “Were you worried about me? I sure wish you could talk cuz I bet you could tell me exactly what happened to Max, couldn’t you?” The dog just looked at her.
    “Well I think it’s bedtime for me Tucker, are you going to come in with me?” she asked.
    As she headed to the barn door Tucker lay down in his spot so when Lexi returned to the house she put his bed out on the porch again. She turned off all the lights, locked the door and headed upstairs. She wandered down the hall and into Uncle Max’s room. She looked around at the photos that covered the dresser and a shelf under the window. It seemed so sad that he would look at these everyday and yet never saw his family again for all those years, well except her and only for that brief visit. If only she had come up here like she planned to.
    Lexi switched off the lights and went to her room. It wasn’t that