Page 148 of Too Close To Home

Maybe it was Jake Whitton.

“Keep eyes on them.” Harrison exhaled, pushing the thought of his distraction with Jake aside before it could take hold. “Discreet. I want a clearer picture of what’s going on in that house.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get me the background you collected on the father. His finances, work, and any recent changes. I need to reread that.”

Murray nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Harrison watched her go, then turned back to the desk. Putting his mind back to the man he had in custody. Andy. They had material. Enough to apply pressure. But not enough to hang a charge for Emily on. Which meant the next interview had to be different. Take a different focus. No more general questions. No more letting him sit comfortably in denial. He’d go in with Robyn. The obsession. The timeline. The photographs. Build the pressure. Make him talk. And if Andy cracked, even slightly, it might lead them to something they could use to find Emily. Whether she was dead or, unlikely but hopefully, alive.

A knock at the doorframe cut through his thoughts again. Calder. “Sir?”

Harrison didn’t look up this time. “What is it?”

“Jake Whitton, sir.”

That made him pause. He lifted his gaze, catching the look on Calder’s face. The faint edge of it. Interest. Curiosity. Bordering on amusement. Not entirely undeserved. And, if anything, it gave credence to Calder’s initial assessment of Jake being Hartswick Police’s resident pain in the arse.

Jake Whitton was fast becoming a problem for him, too.

For an entirely different reason.

“What does he want?” Harrison kept his tone level, even as his stomach coiled tighter underneath.

He swallowed it down.

This had to be work.

Had to be.

Better be.

“You.” Calder sniffed. “Apparently.”

Harrison had no response to that. Luckily, Calder continued.

“Says it’s about the case. Claims he’s got information.” He rolled his eyes. “Also says he, and a direct quote, ‘won’t speak to me, or anyone else who’s been here for more than a week’.”

Harrison let out a quiet breath through his nose.

Jesus Christ.

He was walking a line so thin it barely existed anymore.

“Right.” He stood, ripping off his evidence gloves. “I’ll go speak to him then.”

His pulse didn’t just kick up as he headed down to reception, it hammered, sharp and relentless, as if it already knew what waited for him. Then it hit him full force the second he saw him. Maybe it was the hair. That thick fall of unruly curls brushing the collar of Jake’s neck, untamed and begging for fingers to catch, grip, and hold. Or the work gear. Fitted just right, marked with grime and grit, steel-toe boots planted solid.

Or maybe it was simply him.

Jake Whitton, in every rough-edged detail.

There was something about the whole of him. His raw, unpolished masculinity slid straight under Harrison’s skin and stayed there. The look. The scent. The presence. Jake Whitton was exactly the sort of man Harrison had always had a weakness for.

Exactly what he’d loved about Chris.

Though Jake was there. Right there. Eyes locked onto him, holding him there, and dragging him under, inch by inch, into something he wasn’t ready to feel.