Page 167 of Too Close To Home

“Yes, sir.” The officer moved off again, lifting her radio.

Harrison turned back to Jake, the job settling over him again. Routine, structure, control. And he took a step back, trying to remove himself from Jake’s overwhelming warmth and unrelenting pull.

“You’ll need to make a proper statement.” He smoothed his coat back into place. “Timeline. Everything you saw.”

Jake nodded. “Aye. Course.”

“I’ll get a uniform to take you to the station. Sorry, protocol. After that, you’re free to go.”

“Sure. It’s fine.”

“And… there are a few things I’ll need to update you on as well.”

“Okay.”

Harrison hesitated a fraction too long. Long enough to feel the line blur. Between what the job required… and what he wanted.

“I could come by,” he said, quiet enough not to travel anywhere but to Jake. “Your place. Once this has… settled.” He held Jake’s gaze, something unguarded slipping through. “Though I don’t know how long that’ll take.”

Jake’s mouth tipped into a small, knowing smile. “Aye, Detective. I’ll wait for you.”

Those words tore through Harrison’s chest, and Jake held his gaze through the rush of it all. Letting the promise sit between them. Letting it mean something. But Jake meant he’d wait for the updates. Not for him. Not for some version of them that existed outside of statements and evidence bags and everything Harrison kept locked down tight. He couldn’t ask for that.

Wouldn’t.

Even if he wanted it more than he’d ever thought possible.

So he stepped back before the thought could take root, turning towards the house, letting the noise of the crime scene pull him back into place.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Breathing Space

It took a few days before Jake saw Harrison again.

At least in the flesh.

He caught glimpses of him elsewhere. From a distance. On the telly at his mum and dad’s, when the story broke properly, and the town seemed to inhale it all at once. Harrison had stood outside the station. Giving enough to keep the press fed without letting anything slip. And Jake watched it all from the edge of his parents’ living room, arms folded, pretending he wasn’t listening as closely as he was.

That he wasn’t watching him.

They’d had their FLO round as well. PC Murray. Delivering careful, considered words about how, despite appearances, what had happened to Emily Fisher wasn’t connected to Robyn. From what she’d said, and he’d picked up from the news and the bits his mum had repeated from online, the main culprit had been Emily’s dad. With help from one of his employees at the steelworks. Mick, Eileen’s neighbour. There’d been talk of money. Debt. Of a man trying to hold on to the last thing in his life he thought he still had control over—his daughter. Stopping her leaving him the way his wife had.

Jake didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

Probably worse.

Because it meant it hadn’t been random. Or related. Nothing branched out into the past or led anywhere he could follow it. It should’ve felt like relief. And part of it did. The rest of it, though…it made that hollow void in him that little bit deeper.

But as Jake walked PC Murray to the door while his mum clung to his dad in the kitchen, both of them crying in that quiet, exhausted way that came from hope being stirred up then ripped away again too quickly, with Teddy on the sofa, headphones on, staring at nothing, pretending not to hear any of it, he got given a lifeline.

“DI Black asked me to pass something on,” PC Murray said as she stepped out. “He’s tied up at the moment, but he has more information for you. He says he hopes you’re okay and he’ll come speak to you when he can.”

Jake nodded, as if that didn’t land somewhere it shouldn’t. As if he hadn’t been waiting for it. As if he hadn’t kissed that man and thought about it far more than was useful. Cause surely that had to mean something. That in the middle of everything Harrison was dealing with, he’d taken the time to send word. That he hadn’t… forgotten.

Murray squeezed his arm. “See you at your next gig.”

Jake smiled, then got on with his life.