Page 12 of Too Close To Home

Some days she was fine. Making tea. Watching quiz shows. Asking about work as if nothing had ever happened. Other days she drifted. Quiet. Lost somewhere he couldn’t follow. Whole house feeling too big and too small at the same time.

“She’s got a lot on.” Lou jutted her chin towards the van. “Teenagers again an’ all.”

Jake huffed a breath. “Aye. S’pose.”

It wasn’t just Teddy. It was everything that came strapped to him.

The meetings at school. The letters with bold writing across the top. The forms asking questions no one ever wanted to answer properly. The looks. The way conversations dipped or flatlined altogether when they walked into a room. As if trouble followed them in on its own two feet.

And Lou weren’t wrong.

His mum shouldn’t be doing that again.

She should be nipping round on Sundays with a tin of biscuits. Slipping Teddy fivers when no-one was looking. Playing gran. Getting the soft bits. Not packing lunches. Arguing about homework. Or lying awake wondering who he was messaging at midnight. She should be in grandparent territory. Spoiling. Loving. Handing him back when it got hard. What Jake got from his Nanna. All sugar and warmth.

But that life had been taken from his mum and all.

Jake tapped his phone against the reader. “Cheers, Lou.” He grabbed the second roll and stepped away from the hatch. “Ta-ra.”

“Oi, Jake?”

He stopped mid-another bite, another splodge of ketchup dripping down his front. “Mm?”

“You hear about the girl?”

He swallowed his mouthful. “What girl?”

“Emily Fisher. She were working at the King’s Arms.”

Jake frowned. He didn’t keep tabs on barmaids. That was Deacon’s territory. Jake preferred the other side of the bar. Though lately even that had been mistakes wrapped in smiles and poor decisions.

“What about her?”

Lou drew a breath. “Gone missing.”

Missing.

That wasn’t a throwaway word here. It was a bruise. One the town pressed at but never talked about properly. One that lingered in Jake every single day.

“Never came home from her shift last night.” Lou shook her head. “Her dad’s been out looking. Came by t’ask if I’d seen her.”

Jake felt that move through him. Cold and fast and sickeningly familiar.

Lou glanced at the van where Teddy still sat hunched over his phone. “He might’ve heard. You know what this town’s like.”

Jake turned sharply, watching the lad through the wing mirror. Head bent. Shoulders tight. Scrolling, but not really seeing. Fuck. In Hartswick, news didn’t break. It leaked. Slid under doors. Passed in whispers. Lived in people’s eyes before it ever hit a headline.

Jake threw the rest of his roll into the bin, appetite gone, and rounded the van quick, yanked the driver’s door open and climbed in.

“Eat.” He shoved the other bacon roll at Teddy. “I’m taking you in.”

Teddy frowned. “What’s happened?”

“Nowt you need to worry about.”

Which meant everything.

He drove faster than he should’ve, chewing the inside of his cheek raw, as Teddy munched through his breakfast.