Page 25 of Too Close To Home

One of them was missing.

“Take it you’ve heard then?” Pete scratched his beard.

“Aye.”

“Had her dad banging on the door at three a.m. Then the police came round first light. Gave them my statement.”

Jake tightened his grip around the tiny cup. “Which was?”

“I saw her off about twenty past eleven. She finished at ten thirty, but she hung about.” Pete rubbed his forehead. “Saw her outside. Thought she was waiting for a lift. Told her to text when she got in.”

Jake’s stomach clenched. “Why’d she hang about?”

“I don’t know, Jake.” Pete sounded both exasperated at having been questioned probably for the third time about things he didn’t know and pissed off it was Jake doing it. Again. “It was busy. Band night. She said she were waiting.”

“For who?”

Pete shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Jake shook his head. “Who did she talk to last night?”

“A lot of people. We were rammed. You know that.”

Yeah. He did. He’d been here himself. On stage. Watching the crowd blur under the lights. Banging drums until he felt nothing but bass and noise.

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Was he here?”

Pete fluttered his eyes shut. “Jake…”

“Tell me.” Jake slammed a hand on the bar surface, sticky beer and years of indentations on the old wood scraping across his palm.

“Not that I saw. And you know he keeps his distance when you’re in. I’ve told him enough times.”

Jake exhaled, forcing his pulse down. “Right.” He levelled himself out. “So let’s do this properly. Who were the last ones left?”

Pete pinched the bridge of his nose, more weary than irritated. “You are not the police.”

“Thank fuck for that. Means I can do this properly.”

Pete widened his eyes in challenge. “Like you did last time, aye?”

Jake ground his jaw. He could see it as if it were happening again. The roar in his ears, the tunnel vision, the way the world had narrowed to one man’s face and his fist colliding with it because he’d been certain. Absolutely certain.

Did he regret it?

No.

But it hadn’t brought Robyn home either.

It hadn’t filled the empty chair at his mum’s table. Hadn’t given Teddy a mother. Hadn’t given him peace. What it had given him was a record. A reputation.

Footsteps echoed down the back corridor, along with a voice drifting through into the pub. “Hey, Pete, did you mean to leave the door open—” Brodie emerged into the bar and stopped.

Course, he had to come down. At this exact moment.

With his blond hair artfully messy, fringe falling over eyes the colour of cheap gin, slim jeans and a fitted black tee clinging to a narrow waist and lean chest, Brodie was a lot of things. Quick with a joke. Quick with a drink. Quick with his hands. And for a while there, he’d been Jake’s quickest way to burn off pressure after closing. Jake had had that man bent over stacked kegs, breath hitching, laughter swallowed as he worked out whatever had crawled under his skin most nights. Mornings, too, occasionally. But Jake usually slipped out of the flat above the pub Brodie rented before sunrise, leaving Brodie tangled in sheets carrying the scent of beer and cheap detergent.

They’d never named it.