Just Keep Breathing, GS Rhodes [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

was concerned, it didn’t count in his work-life balance promise if he was still at the station. When he’d told DS Sanchez his theory, she told him it was bullshit, which made him laugh.

He pulled into a parking space near his house and got out, hurrying to the front door to get out of the rain. The house was quiet when he got inside, just as it always was. He flicked the lights on as he stepped in, locking the door behind him and kicking off his shoes. Thankfully, the heating had clicked on when it realised that it was cold outside and the radiators were pumping out their full complement of heat. Perfect.

Ben made his way up the stairs, quickly taking a shower before heading into his bedroom to settle down for the night. He just had one more thing he needed to look for before he could rest, one thing that he knew would nag in the back of his mind all night if he didn’t just do a quick search.

He grabbed his laptop from its usual resting place on the floor by his bed—a dangerous habit that Liz had told him many times to stop—and pulled it up onto the duvet. Within minutes he’d made his way online, checking through each and every social media site for Caleb Kaye.

There were a couple of accounts there, some that he could quickly dismiss for being in the wrong location, a couple that he had to look through a little before he could establish that the person wasn’t in Kingston. But then he found him. The red hair was a giveaway, just like his parents.

He flicked through the photos, through the posts on various pages, trying to find something that would give him a connection to Sarah. But nothing. He checked again, checked the captions under photos, reading comments and hashtags, but there was nothing about Sarah there at all. Some posts were recent, since her disappearance, but there wasn’t a single thing about her.

Maybe he’s just not the kind of person to do posts like that. But he couldn’t help but feel like there was more to it than that. His mother had said he was particularly distressed by the whole situation, that he was worried, and yet he hadn’t posted a single thing.

He made his way over to Sarah’s account, the one that was monitored—or perhaps controlled, Kidd wasn’t all too sure—by her mother. The photos had very much been burned into his memory at this point, pictures of her smiling with her friends, captions that were laden with emojis and inspirational quotes. But Caleb was nowhere to be seen.

He looked at who she was following, searching for Caleb’s handle and finding absolutely nothing. Were they even friends? Did he even know her? Was Alexandra just trying to relate to Laura in a bigger way, get closer to her after everything that had happened between them? If Kidd had found one thing tonight it was that they had a deeper history than he ever could have imagined.

He leaned back against his pillows and stared up at the ceiling. Outside, a car drove by at what had to be quite a way over the speed limit, splashing through the newly formed rain puddles, the white headlights flashing through the panes of glass on the window. He took a breath and sat back up, opening his personal email to send the social media handles to his work email. He would have someone look into it tomorrow, he was too tired to deal with it right now.

The message pinged up just as he was about to shut down. It was Andrea replying to his message from last night. There was no attachment so she hadn’t found anything more, and there was a part of him, after his conversation with Zoe earlier, that told him to ignore it, to just let it go.

But it was taunting him. That unread message. And he knew that if he didn’t at least click on it and see what it said, he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

He took a breath and opened it.

Dear Ben,

Thank you so much for responding so quickly. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who hasn’t given up hope of finding Craig. I know the picture isn’t much, maybe it isn’t enough to go on at all, but it is hope, and I think I needed that.

I am going to keep on looking, and I really hope you are too. If you find anything, or you need any more help from me, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’ve left my phone number below if you want to talk about this in person rather than over email, it can be so impersonal sometimes, don’t you think?

Anyway. I’m sending you a lot of love and all the luck in the world.

We will find him, Ben. He is out there, I know he is.

All my best,

Andrea

He read the message a few times, letting the words sink in a little bit. She was still looking. She didn’t want to be in this alone and he totally understood why. It was hard when people around him were telling him that Craig was never coming back and he’d never really gotten over it. It must be hard for her, she’s holding onto him because he’s her last hope of having someone to find him with.

He was about to reply when he remembered what Zoe had said. If he wanted to be found, he would have been found already. If he wanted to see Kidd, he would have come back.

He considered it and he sighed.

He knew she was right. Deep down he knew.

A message pinged up on his phone.

JOHN: Hope you had a good night tonight. See you tomorrow maybe? X

He looked at the message and couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Maybe it really was time to let go of all this.

He shut his laptop and set it down on