Page 91 of Making Home with You

“Dude,” Beck says, hands on the bar as he stands in front of me.“What if she’s like hiding in your house or something?In the walls or the ceiling or whatever.I saw it on some TV show once, it was fucking crazy.”

I can’t stop the chuckle as I roll my eyes.“Jesus, Beck,” I say.“You’re as bad as Erin with all this OTT crime shit.You’ve clearly been out of the game for too long.”

Beck grins at me now, clapping a hand on my shoulder as he says, “Nah, just fucking with you.”

I shake my head.“Well, thanks for that,” I say.“And of course when I’m lying in bed tonight, all I’ll be thinking about is her in my ceiling, staring down at me through some fucking peephole or something.”

Beck laughs.“Now who’s been watching too much crime shit?”

I shake my head, pulling my phone from my pocket to check if Sarah has replied.She hasn’t, which is kinda weird, so I fire off another text asking if she’s okay.There’s no response and just as I’m about to call her, my phone starts ringing, Detective Greenwood’s name flashing on my screen.

“Hey.”

“Finn,” he says, his voice terse.

“What is it?”I ask as an uneasy feeling washes over me.

Detective Greenwood clears his throat.“So, it seems like there’s more to this than we first thought,” he says.

“What?”

He exhales and it’s hard to tell if it’s from frustration or exhaustion.“Yeah, so, I ah…I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but umm…”

“Just spit it out,” I say, my heart pounding.

“We’ve been to her house,” he says, almost sounding nervous now.“And ah, I think you might have been right about her.”

I stand quickly, my stool crashing to the floor.“What have you found?”

“It’s some sort of shrine or something,” he says.“It’s detailed to the point of obsession,” he continues.“Goes back to your high school days by the looks of it.”

“A shrine?”I ask, confused.Beck walks over, a questioning look on his face.“What do you mean?”

“There’s pictures of you,” he says.“Newspaper articles about you, tokens, mementoes, all sorts of stuff,” he continues.“I gotta say, Finn, it’s pretty crazy, seriously.”

I stop, unsure what to say.As unexpected as this has just become, it also feels like the most honest thing he’s said to me.

And the craziest.

“But that’s not all,” he continues.“There’s other stuff too, about Sarah.Dark things, Finn that quite frankly, have me worried.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”I shout, glancing at my brother.He stares back at me, his face questioning but composed, as though he knows I don’t have time for anything other than what Detective Greenwood is telling me right now.

“Finn,” he says, his tone serious in a way that sends a slice of fear down my spine.“Do you know where Sarah is right now?”

“At work.”The words come out automatically, even though I have no idea if that’s where she is because she hasn’t responded to any of my texts and it’s past the time that she should have left by now.

“Are you sure?”he asks.

I swallow the bile that rises in my throat.“What are you saying?”I ask, the words catching.

“The stuff we found, Finn,” he says.“It’s not good, okay?I mean she really has it in for Sarah, it’s…”

“Fuck, I gotta go,” I say cutting him off.“Do not stop looking for Carla,” I shout, my words an order rather than a question.“And, Greenwood,” I add, not bothering with the formalities anymore.“Keep me in the loop.”

I hang up before he can say anything more, immediately scrolling through to the number I know I need to call.

“What the hell’s going on?”Beck asks.