Page 15 of In Too Deep

“How far back you thinking?” Calder clicked his pen over his pad.

Harrison drifted his gaze, not to Calder but back to the tent, its white canvas fluttering in the breeze. “As far as we need to.”

Calder shifted his weight, lowering his voice. “Female, guv. Unidentified. Local stretch of water…”

Harrison turned back to him. Frowned.

“All we really know so far is how long she might’ve been in the river.” Calder held his gaze. “Not where she were before that.”

Harrison drew his eyebrows in, not quite following.

Calder sighed. “Whitton, sir. If we’re looking into local missing females, are we looking as far back as her?”

For a second, everything narrowed. The river. The tent. The body. All of it seemed to veer aside and let one name surface.

Robyn Whitton.

Jake’s sister.

And there it was—the problem.

Not the case.

Him.

Getting involved with anyone tied to an investigation, especially a cold one, was a line Harrison should never have crossed. It blurred things. Pulled his focus in directions it had no business going. Turned instinct into bias. Made things personal when they couldn’t afford to be. Because the job didn’t stay at work. It followed. And it always knew exactly where to press.

Harrison shut it down before it could take hold. Locked it back where it belonged.

“We’re not looking at anything until we have something to look at. Run the checks. Everything else stays out of it.”

Calder nodded once. “Understood.”

“And keep it contained. No speculation, no loose talk. Not in the station, not outside it. This doesn’t reach local gossip, and it sure as hell doesn’t reach the press. Nothing leaves this team until we have an identification.”

Calder straightened. “Yes, guv.”

Harrison gave a single nod and turned back towards the river. As if Calder hadn’t just taken one unidentified woman and attached her to the name this town had been asking about for thirteen years.

As if it hadn’t touched him.

He watched the slow movement of the water, the tent flapping in the breeze, the last of the team working through what remained to be done. Whoever she was, however she’d ended up here, she deserved a clean investigation. Decisions made on evidence, not instinct. Not fear. Not the pull of something personal that had no place in any of this.

Harrison knew that.

He’d built his career on it.

But Robyn’s name had already changed something. It sat beneath everything else now, quiet and persistent, refusing to be put back where it belonged. Because this wasn’t contained anymore. Not properly. Not when one name had immediately brought one person to mind.

Jake.

Harrison drew a breath, dragged his focus back into line and turned away from the river, heading towards the track without looking back.

Controlled.

Even if he wasn’t.

chapter three