Being back home is like riding a bike with a broken seat or slipping into an uncomfortable pair of shoes that you can’t remove. I wish with every fibre of my being that I had died on that riverbank, and yet I survived and here I am, back here again. Groundhog Day.

Every day is the same, I wake up and then I pretend to be the person he wants until it’s time to go to sleep again. I may as well be a doll or a robot. I am barely human at all.

Slipping out of the hospital was easy enough; no one thought I would go. People are always underestimating me and that’s fine. I don’t really care. I wonder if I really care about anything, anymore. I used to want to get away, but now I think I have used up nine lives and not all of them were mine. This is where I belong, uncomfortable shoes and all.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Since Imogen and Adrian had started dating, things had definitely changed at work. As they drove out to Reece Corrigan’s home address, Imogen found her cheeks warming as she watched Adrian drive. She had never really thought about how attractive he was, as if the mere fact of her thinking about it might inflate his ego. He was a more cautious driver than her, didn’t seem to wander off in his own head as much as she did. He was definitely more at peace than he had been in a long time. Since his last girlfriend, Lucy, was murdered in connection with an investigation they were conducting last year.

She remembered when they’d met, how she had assumed so much about him and yet within just a few hours they were completely at ease with each other. You don’t get that every day. Imogen knew that this could get tiresome at some point. That one day she might not want to spend the day with the person she spends her nights with, but for now it was easy, it felt right. These moments together in the car were her favourite, she had no idea why.

‘Do you think the DCI knows about us?’ Imogen said.

‘No, I don’t, do you?’

‘I can’t imagine her not pulling us up on it. What would you do if she does?’

‘Then we deal with it, I guess. I’ll move, if she wants, to another department, another team or something.’

‘You would do that?’ Imogen said, taken aback by the very idea.

‘Why not? Wouldn’t you?’

‘I feel like I’m just getting settled here and don’t really want to change again. I like the way things are.’

‘I like it too, but I think I like you more. I’ve been here since I started, maybe a change would be good for me.’

‘I wouldn’t want to feel responsible for that.’