Page 140 of Too Close To Home

She’d left the force not long after. Retrained. Started again. Now she sat on the other side of it. Working with survivors, yes, but also with officers. The ones who’d seen too much, carried too much, didn’t know where to put it anymore.

People like him.

“You’re grieving,” she said, as if that wasn’t bloody obvious. “Not just Chris, but everything that came with him. The life you thought you had. The version of yourself that only existed with him in it. And grief doesn’t behave, Harry. It doesn’t sit quietly and wait until it’s convenient. It spills. It confuses things. Makes you reach for connection in ways you wouldn’t have before.”

He let out a shaky breath. “He’s a witness. A fucking person of interest.”

“That’s…unfortunate. Is he guilty?”

“No. Of that, I’m positive.”

“Then at least you’re not compromising the case in that sense.”

“I’m still the SIO.”

“Not ideal.”

“And I…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I bloody broke down. On him. When he was—” He exhaled sharply. “Christ. When he had his hand on me.”

“Ah.”

“But… Christ, Nell, his hands weren’t like Chris’s. His mouth wasn’t like Chris’s. Nothing felt the same.” Harrison swallowed, staring through the windscreen. “But it still felt…”

He trailed off.

“Nice?”

Harrison laughed, because of course she’d pick that bloody word. “Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, remembering Jake’s against it. “Really fucking nice, actually.”

“Well, there you go.”

“I’m not sure there you go adequately covers the psychological crisis I’m currently having.”

“No. But it’s a start. And, honestly, this is sort of a good thing.”

He huffed. “How do you figure that?”

“I’m not saying it’s ideal. In fact, professionally, it’s a bit of a nightmare. We’ll circle back to that. But right now? I’m more interested in the fact you’re sat in your car sounding as if the world’s tilted off its axis.”

“It has.”

“No. It hasn’t. It’s… shifted. And you don’t like that because you’ve spent a long time holding everything very, very still. Chris was your constant. Your structure. Your safe place. Losing him didn’t just take a person from you; it took the framework you understood yourself within. So now something—or someone—comes along and makes you feel again, properly feel, and your brain panics.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“It’s the accurate way of putting it. You’re not betraying him by being alive, Harry. Or by wanting someone new. Or by responding when someone wants you back. And for the record, Chris loved you. But he also left you with this. With all of it. So you’re allowed to be angry about that too.”

Harrison’s chest tightened. “I am.” The admission came quietly. Then, before he could stop it, “I hate him sometimes.” Silence. Harrison closed his eyes. The guilt followed almost immediately. “Fuck. I don’t mean that.”

“Yes, you do.”

He swallowed.

“Sometimes,” Nigella added gently. “And so do I.”

Harrison said nothing.

“That doesn’t mean we stopped loving him. It means sometimes I’m furious with my brother for leaving us to live with what he did. And sometimes I remember how much pain he must have been in to believe that was his only way out. Both things can be true, Harry.”