Page 88 of Worth the Wait
He used to like nights. There was a rhythm to them. A quiet hum in the town when everything else shut down. It gave him the day to himself. Time to see his mum, to help Piper with whatever chaos her life had dished out that week. Night shifts felt like they gave himmoretime.
But now?
Now he’d give anything for a normal schedule. A nine-to-five. A dinner hour. Something he could build a life around.Someone. He wanted to finish work and ask Nathan round. Cook him something half-decent. Open a bottle of wine that didn’t cost a fiver and taste like vinegar. Take him to bed, not because they were desperate and half-undressed and pressed against a wall, but because it was real.
Theirs.
Freddie finished the last of his takeaway coffee in the car on the way to the station, nerves curling tighter in his gut with every swallow. He parked in the rear staff bay and entered through the side door, keying in with his fob. The corridor smelt of old tea, damp paperwork, and that strange mix of sweat and stale deodorant clinging to every station in the country. The locker room wasn’t much better with a couple of early-shift officers finishing up, chatting low, boots clunking on the tiles.
Freddie moved to his locker, spinning the dial, going through the motions he could do in his sleep. Off with the civvies. On with the blues. Like peeling himself away andcovering his real self over with the vest. That familiar hug of pressure across his ribs as he fastened the Velcro made it easier to push everything else down.
But it didn’t quite work tonight.
The taste of Nathan still lingered. Phantom pressure on his lips, ghost heat at the base of his spine. And what he’d asked, and everything he hadn’t, squeezed harder than Kevlar ever could.
When Freddie stepped out of the locker room, Becca was already waiting for him in the corridor, arms folded across her vest, one boot braced against the wall, hair pulled back in a tight plait. She wore that look. Calm on the surface, eyes a little too still.
“DI wants us both.”
Freddie had expected it. Knew it was coming. But the words still landed like a punch to the ribs. “Carrick?”
“And DS Bowen.”
That made his stomach twist.
Both of them. Together. This wasn’t a debrief. It wasn’t a quiet ‘good job, well done’ behind closed doors. This was something else entirely.
They walked together to the incident room where Carrick stood behind the central desk, DS Bowen beside him, tapping on her iPad, the case logs open on the whiteboard behind them.
“Webb. Lambert,” Carrick greeted, voice clipped. “Sit.”
They obeyed.
“We’ve been going through the surveillance logs and body cam footage from the raid.”
Bowen turned the iPad towards them. “There’s a gap in the timeline. Both your GPS locators show no movement. Comms were silent. And Webb, your body-worn video was off for the duration.”
Freddie kept his expression neutral. “Wasn’t intentional. We were caught between units when the perimeter shifted. Comms were overloaded in our sector. Cross-talk from Bravo and Delta. Interference. Things got messy.”
“It didn’t get messy for anyone else,” Carrick cut in. “All other teams maintained regular comms. No interference. Your silence stands out.”
Bowen tapped the screen again, then laid a printed still down on the table in front of them, black and white, grainy CCTV from the alley behind the target address. It showed two figures: one tall, one smaller. The larger had an arm around the other, hauling them forward in a low, fast run. Protective posture. Head ducked. Tactical movement.
Freddie’s gut tightened.
“There’s no authorised movement logged before the green light,” Bowen said. “No unit called extraction. No handover. And yet…”
Carrick leant in, eyes locked on Freddie. “We have visual confirmation of someone removing a teenage male from the scenebeforeentry.” He tapped the logbook on the desk. “There’s no record of the boy being found. Not by you, nor by the secondary team. He doesn’t appear anywhere in the incident log. No ID, no statement, not even a verbal acknowledgment. And yet he was there.” Carrick prodded his finger on the picture. “We have him on camera entering the property. And someone got him out before the breach.”
Becca shifted in her seat. “Do we know who they are?”
“Nathan Carter.” Bowen folded her arms, eyes fixed on Freddie. “Civilian. Ex-British Army. AndAlfieCarter’s father. The boyyouarrested last Sunday, Webb.” She let that sit for a beat. “You remember that, don’t you? Gave you a run for your money on the Whitmore foot chase. Bitof a handful. You loggedthat. But nothing from last night? No ID? No mention?” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re telling me you didn’t recognise him when he turned up at your crime scene? Or did you decide not to log it?”
Freddie sat completely still, pulse pounding beneath his skin. “It was dark. Hard to make out anything.”
“Then let’s make sure we’re all on the same page.” Carrick folded his arms. “There is no mention of Carter in your notes. No visual ID logged. No attempt to report civilian interference. And yet somehow Nathan Carter entered an active scene, removed a minor, a key witness or a potential victim, before police units were authorised to breach.” He let the words settle like dust, then, “Do either of you want to tell me how that happened?”
Freddie’s blood turned to ice.
