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

seemed to take it as their cue to let out a breath. Given how he’d been earlier that day, it was a wonder that he’d taken the news that they’d let Dexter go so well. It was a minor miracle.

“You heard the man,” Kidd said. “That’s us done for the day. Tomorrow we need an interview with Ms Chowdhury if we can, I’ll go and see the Harpers on the way home, and we’ll bring in Norman for more questioning.” He turned to DS Sanchez. “You might have been right about that one, maybe we shouldn’t have let him go so soon.”

“If it’s him, you owe me a pint.”

“If it’s him, you’re getting all the credit for it,” he said. “I’ll see you all in the morning, bright and early.”

They started to gather their things to leave, DC Ravel still clicking away on her keyboard while she put her things back in her handbag. DS Sanchez stopped by her desk.

“Janya, you’ll work yourself into the ground,” she said. “Clock off, the emails will still be here tomorrow.”

“Not emails,” she said, her face looking panicked as she clicked through screens faster and faster, a sheen of sweat across her brow. “Shit, shit, shit.”

DI Kidd’s ears pricked up. “What’s happening?”

“It’s Sarah’s phone,” she said. “I’ve been tracking it since this all started, it’s been off this whole time.”

“Yes, and?” Kidd breathed, his heart pounding hard in his chest.

Janya Ravel looked over her computer monitor like she’d seen a ghost. “It’s just been switched on.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

After much “what the fuck-ing” and trying to make sure the signal was real, DI Kidd was back out once again, DS Sanchez driving him to the last place they thought they would be going to track down Sarah’s phone.

“Didn’t think I’d be back here so soon,” DS Sanchez said as she parked the car. “So…you think it’s her?”

“Sarah?! Zoe, we’re not ghost hunters.”

“I mean—”

“I know who you mean,” DI Kidd said, taking off his seatbelt. “Best find out, eh?”

They got out of the car and marched towards the house. It was dark, all the windows facing the road had their lights switched off, even from the hallway there wasn’t any light pouring out onto the street through the glass.

“You sure it was here?” DI Kidd asked.

“Positive,” she said. “I was here earlier on, the address is Alexandra Kaye’s house.”

DI Kidd nodded. “Alright then.”

He marched up to the front door and rapped his knuckles three times. The gold knocker jumped and immediately there was movement behind the door. Kidd braced himself for some kind of fight, for Alexandra Kaye to try and do a runner.

“Keep an eye on the side gate, Zoe,” he said. “If she’s—”

The door opened and Kidd was ready to read Alexandra Kaye her rights but it wasn’t her that greeted him. In her place stood a boy that he’d only seen in pictures. His eyes puffy and red from crying, his nose streaming.

Caleb Kaye.

And Kidd was just about to ask him where his mum was when he saw the phone in his hand, lighting up his face.

They’d got him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“Where did you get that phone?”

“None of your bloody business, who the hell are you?” Caleb snapped, backing away.

“I’m Detective Inspector Benjamin Kidd, this is DS Zoe Sanchez, we’re investigating the disappearance and death of Sarah Harper,” he said, advancing on the boy. “Your turn. Where the bloody hell did you get that phone?”

“This phone is mine.”

“Strike two, that phone is Sarah’s,” Kidd said. He’d seen it in pictures enough, the sparkly case, the pop socket on the back, her and Dexter as her wallpaper. “You’ve got one last chance to tell us the truth or we’re taking you down to the station.”

“I—it’s—I—” he stammered and started walking backwards down the hallway. Kidd could practically hear the cogs turning in his head as he tried to figure out just how he was going to get out of this one. They had him backed into a corner and Kidd had that feeling that he was getting closer to solving this particular puzzle, at least. “She was here.”

Kidd eyed him carefully. The lad looked terrified, and Kidd honestly couldn’t blame him. He was about to be arrested.

“Explain yourself,” Kidd barked.

“She was here when she first went missing,” Caleb said. “When everything went down at school, I saw her in town just…just wandering around looking sad and I asked if she wanted to come back to mine and talk. We were…we were sort of friends I guess. And then she just…she stayed.”

“Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell anyone?” Kidd barked.

“Because she asked me not to,” Caleb replied. He was terrified, literally shaking, the phone about to fall out of his hand. “When the police got involved, I told her. Then when I was at my grandma's, I came back and she’d gone. I assumed she’d gone home. Then…then I saw the stuff on the news.”

“Why did you switch on her phone?”

“I was looking for a clue, a note or something, and I found the phone,” he said. “When I saw on the news that she’d…that she’d…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He was stood in front of Kidd and Zoe looking like he was about to burst into tears, and Kidd couldn’t blame him. It was definitely a lot to deal with. “I turned it on. Because it didn’t seem right. I thought she might have been messaged by someone.”

“And has she?”

Caleb shrugged. “The phone is locked,” he said. “I was going to try and unlock it but I got scared and didn’t, and then you arrived.”

DI Benjamin Kidd looked over at DS Sanchez, giving her a tight-lipped, half-smile. She shrugged at him, a silent conversation passing between them. Neither one was sure what to make of this news, of his story. He could, of course, be telling the truth, but there was so much room for error, so much of Sarah’s final days that had gone