Page 68 of Too Close To Home

But the muted sounds through the ceiling and the faint, steady scent of another man nearby loosened him. The tension he’d been carrying all evening eased, and he drifted.

His eyes closed of their own accord.

And when he woke, the house had gone quiet again. Proper quiet. The kind he knew too well. But something had changed. The damp smell had gone. The slow, persistent drip had stopped. The air felt… lighter. Held together. And in the kitchen, two mugs sat washed and drained on the side.

But the strangest thing?

The blanket draped over him.

Soft. Carefully laid. Tucked in enough around his shoulders to keep the warmth in without trapping him there.

Harrison stilled beneath it.

It was that same steady presence, even in absence.

As if someone had come into his life, set something right, then left before he could ask them to stay.

CHapter ten

Soundcheck

Jake left Harrison’s cottage with a knot sitting low in his gut.

There were a few reasons for that.

The first was simple. The DI had read the file. His file. Robyn’s file. All those statements and photographs and timelines boxed up in neat police language, where grief got flattened into paragraphs and Jake became nothing more than male, violent, prior conviction. No matter what Harrison had said, no matter how calm or reasonable he’d sounded, Jake knew how it worked.

Coppers saw the file first.

The person second.

If they ever got that far.

Didn’t matter that Harrison was new here. Or that he was some southern blow-in with soft vowels and sharp suits and none of the town’s history weighing on him yet. It certainly didn’t matter that he had kind eyes, or that quiet, crooked smile that made Jake want to keep seeing it. Keep bringing it out. Make him smile.

It didn’t even matter that Jake had recognised something in him.

Grief recognised grief. Didn’t need a file to see that.

Because he was still a copper.

Pulling out of the narrow lane, Jake headed down towards town, the van rattling as it hit the first stretch of uneven road and early morning Hartswick waking up. Grey light sat heavy over the rooftops, a sky that never quite committed to being day in Yorkshire. Shop shutters were still half down along the high street. The butcher’s van was parked crooked outside the square. Somewhere a bin lorry groaned as it reversed. Normal sounds. Normal morning. Except there was nothing normal about the town today.

Jake tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Second reason for the knot in his stomach.

Emily Fisher hadn’t been found yet.

Which meant one of two things. Either she’d turn up safe somewhere, embarrassed and hungover, and the town would breathe again.

Or she wouldn’t.

And if that happened…

Jake exhaled hard and turned onto the main road towards the estate where his first job waited, forcing himself to focus. Roofing wouldn’t forgive distraction. So he’d bury himself in it. Rather than under it. But as he drove past the petrol station on the edge of town, past the familiar rows of terraces and the narrow lane, eventually leading up to the woodland path, his mind kept circling back.

Because that third reason for the knot?