LOGINHarrison’s POVI got back to Lyndsey’s building at six that evening and Estelle was already there.She was pacing the pavement opposite the entrance, her arms wrapped tight around herself, her coat pulled close.She’d been watching the building. Of course she had.“She went in about an hour ago,” Estelle said before I could ask. “Lights came on, second floor, left-hand window. Hasn’t come out.”I looked at her and something passed across my face—a flicker I couldn’t control—before I nodded.She’d been here first. She’d been waiting for me.She’d come back on her own and stood on this pavement alone and watched because she couldn’t sit at home and do nothing while the woman who’d been stalking our children sat two streets away.“Let’s go,” I said.We went up together. I could hear Estelle’s breathing behind me, the way she breathed when she was keeping herself together by force.I knocked. No answer.I knocked harder—three sharp raps that cracked against the wood—and down the corridor
Estelle’s POVI pulled out my phone and called him and he picked up on the third ring. “Estelle?”“Lyndsey just talked to Chloe at school,” I said.I wasn’t calm, my voice was shaking and too fast and I kept tripping over myself.“She was crouched down at the school entrance, Harrison, she was right there with her hand on her bump talking to my daughter, to our daughter, and I followed her!”“What—”“I followed her back to a flat and it’s two streets from your building, she’s been living two streets from you this entire—”“Slow down. Which building? What’s the address?”“It’s on Curzon Lane, the brown building with the blue door.”“Okay, and—”“Flat probably on the second floor because that’s where the lights came on.”“I—”“And Harrison, I swear to God if you’re not here in the next ten minutes I’m going up there myself and I don’t trust what I’ll do to her!”“I’m coming. Don’t go up. Estelle, don’t go up.”“Then hurry!”I hung up and leaned against the wall across the street, watchi
Estelle’s POVI was late and Chloe was already out of the car.She’d unbuckled herself while I was still fumbling with the bag strap that had gotten tangled around the gear shift, and by the time I yanked it free and grabbed my keys and shoved the door open, she was ten paces ahead of me, her ponytail bouncing, her backpack sliding off one shoulder.“Chloe, wait for me!” I called, half-jogging across the car park, my bag swinging wildly against my hip. “Chloe, hold on, don’t go in without—”I looked up.Across the car park, near the cafeteria doors, a woman was crouched down at Chloe’s height.One hand rested on a visible bump, the other gesturing gently, warmly, and Chloe was standing right there listening with her head tilted the way she did when she was interested in something, not scared, not backing away, just curious and engaged.The woman was smiling at her.I started walking. Then faster. My bag swung out and caught on a pushchair handle and I yanked it free without stopping,
Lyndsey’s POVThe photographs covered the entire bed, dozens of them, spread across the duvet in rows and clusters, and I sat cross-legged in the middle sorting them into categories while I ate dry cereal from the box with my free hand.Blue sticky tabs for Harrison—Harrison at the park, Harrison at the supermarket, Harrison’s car outside the school.Pink for Estelle—Estelle at the clinic, Estelle carrying groceries, Estelle’s car in the car park.Yellow for the children—Lucas in the backseat, Chloe at the gate, both of them together in the playground, their shoulders touching.I wrote the date, time, and location on each tab in careful handwriting and pressed them onto the corners of the prints, lining them up neatly, adjusting the ones that went crooked. The order mattered. The system mattered. If you kept things organised, you kept things under control.My regular phone rang on the nightstand. Claire. I glanced at it and went back to sorting. It rang again. I let it go to voicemail
Harrison’s POVI called Estelle from my car, still parked on the curb, still gripping the steering wheel with one hand.“The phone was traced near my mother’s house,” I said as soon as she picked up, “but it doesn’t fit. I got another call about Lucas—it came from a cell tower near my flat. Whoever made that call was standing practically outside my building.”“So it’s not your mother,” Estelle said slowly.“I confronted her this morning. She denied it and I…I think she was telling the truth. Her anger was real. No pauses, no deflecting—just fury that I’d accused her.”“Your mother has spent seven years proving she’s capable of anything, Harrison.”“This doesn’t feel like her. She operates through lawyers and social pressure and other people’s hands. This is…this feels different.”“Who else?” Estelle asked tightly.Neither of us said the name. The line hummed between us and I could hear her breathing and the faint sound of a tap running.“I’ll update you when Greaves has more,” I said.
Harrison’s POVI was lying in bed staring at the ceiling when my phone lit up on the nightstand and I grabbed it expecting nothing—junk, Julia forwarding something, Mother’s seventh voicemail—and saw Estelle’s name.I sat up so fast something in my neck was wrenched sideways and I swore under my breath and read the message twice, three times, my pulse hammering louder with each word.I called her immediately.She picked up on the second ring and said “Harrison” in a voice so tightly held together I could hear the seams straining.“Tell me everything,” I said. “From the beginning.”She did—the lilies at her office, no card, untraceable. The photograph under her windscreen wiper, her and Chloe at the school gate, zoom lens, shot from across the road. The unknown number texting the bar photo of me.Then today—another photo from the same number, Chloe in the playground, taken through the fence, her face in close-up.“There’s more,” I interrupted grimly. “I got one too. Me and Lucas at the
Estelle’s POVTwo months without contact and Harrison felt like something that happened to someone else. We hadn’t spoken since that night in his car. No calls, no chance encounters, nothing.The parking lot was half-empty when I pulled in. Good. I hated fighting for spots.I killed the engine and r
Estelle’s POVHarrison didn’t answer. His foot pressed down harder on the gas pedal and the car lurched forward, the engine roaring louder.“Harrison! Harrison!” I was screaming now, beating my fists uselessly against the handle above the door. “What are you doing? Slow down!”Eighty. Ninety. The ne
Estelle’s POVWe sat there in the wreckage of what we’d just done.My shirt was half-buttoned and twisted sideways. Harrison’s hair stuck up where I’d grabbed it. The windows had fogged completely and I could see our handprints smeared across the glass.I couldn’t look at him.My hands shook as I re
Estelle’s POVThey paramedics moved at once, preparing the medication while I stayed next to Lucas and held his hand. He was crying silently now, tears streaming down his face as he clung to me.“It’s going to be okay,” I told him, knowing he couldn’t hear but hoping he could read my lips in the dim







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