Page 99 of Too Close To Home

Jake nodded at the darker line of trees further along the path. “You might want to see summat else as well.”

Harrison lifted his head. “What?”

Jake turned, stepping towards the narrower part of the trail. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

Jake glanced back over his shoulder. “There’s a cut-through most people don’t notice.”

Harrison followed. “What kind of cut-through?”

“A deer path. Runs parallel to the track for about fifty yards before disappearing into trees.”

They moved deeper; the torchlight bobbing between trunks.

“Search teams would’ve found it,” Harrison said.

“Oh, they would’ve seen it.” Jake ruffled his hair back; the mist and damp making the curls frizz. “But in daylight you’d walk straight past it. Looks like another animal trail.” He slowed, pointing ahead into the dark. “But at night… if someone knew it were there…”

Harrison stepped past him, angling the beam of his phone at the ground where Jake had pointed. The light slid across a narrow strip of flattened earth, weaving between the trees. At first glance, it looked exactly like every other deer trail criss-crossing the woodland. A track animals made over years of moving the same way. Flattened grass. A shallow groove in the soil where hooves and boots had both passed at some point.

Most people wouldn’t notice it.

But Harrison did.

He crouched, lowering the light to follow the faint line as it threaded between the trunks and dipped away towards the darker slope beyond. Somewhere below, Jake could hear the faint rush of the river through the trees. Harrison reached down, brushing a thumb across the flattened earth before glancing ahead, following the line until the darkness swallowed it. His focus sharpened, as if the rest of the world seemed to fall away. As if he were mentally mapping the ground, testing the logic. And Jake watched him instead of the track. The way he tilted the light, adjusting the angle to catch the impressions in the soil. And the faint crease forming between his brows as he followed where the deer trail disappeared into the undergrowth.

It did something strange to Jake’s chest.

Because this was the first time in thirteen years he’d seen someone stand here and actually try to understand the place instead of just searching it, as if someone else could see the woods the way he did.

Harrison stood, then took a step forward to get a better look, but his boot clipped the hidden rise of a root where the ground dipped sharply beside the path. He lurched, and Jake moved before the thought had finished forming, grabbing Harrison’s arm and hauling him back to him before he tipped sideways down the slope.

“Careful.” Jake’s breath misted through the cold air, giving a halo to Harrison’s features. “We got bumpy terrain up here.”

Harrison stumbled against him before catching himself, one shoulder brushing Jake’s chest. “So I’m discovering.”

Jake steadied him.

Then forgot to let go.

Harrison was close enough that Jake could feel the heat of him through their coats. Close enough to catch the faint trace of something clean beneath the cold air. Soap. Day-old aftershave. Beer on his breath. Jake dropped his gaze to Harrison’s mouth.

Fuck.

He let go of his arm. “Sorry.”

“No harm done.” Harrison started walking again, as if trying to remove himself from the physical contact. “You know this place well?”

Jake stayed where he was. “Grew up running through these woods.”

“And you never really left.”

Jake drew a breath. Because there it was again. Harrison seeing something Jake hadn’t fucking told him.

“Hard to leave somewhere that keeps part of you.”

Harrison went quiet. Glanced over his shoulder.