Page 63 of In Too Deep

“I know asking you to trust the police after everything that happened is a fucking tall order. So I’m not asking you to do that.”

Jake’s eyes came back to his.

“I’m asking you to trust me.”

Jake said nothing, and Harrison resisted the urge to fill the silence for him. But eventually, Jake gave the smallest nod and fell back against the pillows.

It wasn’t much.

Harrison would take it.

They’d allowed the river far enough into this room already, and Harrison suddenly wanted something ordinary again. Something belonging to the two men lying in bed rather than the detective and the brother of a missing woman.

So he shifted closer onto his side and ran a hand lazily over Jake’s chest, catching the silver chain around his neck between his fingers. The swallow pendant slid into his palm, warm from Jake’s skin, and Harrison rubbed his thumb over it. He couldn’t give Jake answers this morning, but he could at least give him breakfast.

“You hungry?”

A slow smile tugged at Jake’s mouth. “Always.”

Then he caught Harrison around the waist and dragged him beneath the covers to kiss him.

Harrison should probably have stopped it there. They needed to get up. Needed coffee, clothes and enough distance from everything he’d already told Jake. Needed, at some point, to remember he was supposed to be a detective.

Instead, he pulled Jake closer.

It wasn’t a solution. Harrison knew that. Eventually, they would have to get out of this bed, and everything waiting beyond it would still be there.

But for a little while, it worked.

* * * *

Reality kicked in back at HQ, though.

Harrison pulled into the station car park, the morning well into operational rhythm. Unmarked vehicles lined the rear bays; officers moved in and out, carrying takeaway coffees and paperwork, and the buzz of a live major enquiry hummed through the building before he’d even stepped through the doors.

He headed straight upstairs to MIT.

Whiteboards had filled further overnight, actions added in fresh black marker beside river-search maps and timelines. Someone had pinned updated aerial photographs of the riverbank to the board nearest the printer, coloured markers indicating recovery points stretching further downstream towards the industrial estate.

“Morning, guv,” Murray called from her desk.

He acknowledged her with a brief nod. “Do you ever go home?”

“I’ve got two kids under five. This is my downtime.”

“Fair enough.” Harrison rubbed his temple. “Anything urgent?”

She twisted in her chair. “CSI are processing the clothing the river team recovered overnight. Calder’s back out there checking the secondary recovery point.”

Harrison rubbed a hand across his forehead.

He’d been there last night too. Standing on the riverbank beneath portable floodlights while the dive team worked the dark water further downstream from where the body had originally surfaced. Standard procedure once the initial recovery was complete. Expand the search area. Check snag points. See what the current might have carried away. He could still hear the steady churn of the generator powering the scene lights. Picture the divers emerging black and dripping from the river while uniforms logged every retrieval time and location.

One evidence bag.

Then another.

Clothing pulled from reeds near the eastern bank.