Just Keep Breathing by GS Rhodes (good books to read for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

confused Caleb got about her going home. She told him that she didn’t want to, so he let her stay. It wasn’t the first time it had happened.

She stayed with him until Monday. When reports went around at school about her having gone missing, about the parents phoning the police and actually reporting it, Caleb got scared and told her all about it. He was meant to be seeing his grandparents that evening because his mum was working late, so he packed up and headed off to see them, thinking that she would go back home now that things had gotten serious. That she’d wait for his mum to vanish off to work and she would go back to her house.

He went to school from his grandparents’ house on Tuesday, and when he found out she was missing, he thought that maybe she was still going to be at his when he got home. But she wasn’t.

“Hold on,” DS Sanchez said. “So when did you last see her?”

‘The last time I saw her was around six o’clock on Monday night,” he said. “When I got home from school, I had to go to my grandparents’ house because both my parents work late. Mum is a little bit cagey about me being home alone. I assumed she’d go home and I’d wake up the following day to news that she’d been found or whatever.”

“So she was with you for the whole weekend and your mother didn’t notice?” Kidd asked.

“She works pretty odd hours most of the time,” he said. “She works at Kingston hospital and was on early shifts so she worked for most of the day and then would be so exhausted she would go to bed quite early. She thought I was doing homework. But I didn’t think it would be that long. After Friday night she went home and—”

DS Sanchez sat up a little straighter. “Sarah went home?”

Caleb nodded. “She went back to her house on Saturday morning after my mum had gone to work, but then showed up to see me a few hours later and was so upset, told me she didn’t want to go back there. I told her we could ask my mum if she could stay at our house but she was having none of it because our parents are friends, they’ve been friends for years. She asked me to keep it a secret so I did.” He sniffed. “I just didn’t think it would end up like this.”

DI Kidd looked across at DS Sanchez. He didn’t know how well it all checked out. And it still meant that there was an entire day that was unaccounted. And her going home and coming back upset meant that somebody in that house had seen her. Kidd shook his head. It was hard enough to get things out of the parents before, but having to do it now that Sarah had died was going to be twice as difficult. They likely blamed him for not finding her sooner. Truth be told he was starting to blame himself for not acting quicker.

“Do you know who she spoke to when she went home?” Kidd asked.

Caleb shook his head. “She was just really upset. She was crying and, I mean, I could barely get a word out of her. I didn’t know what to do so I chose not to talk about it. I’m sorry. That’s really all I’ve got. I’ve told you everything.”

DI Kidd took a breath and looked across at Caleb. DCI Weaver would put his head in the smasher for letting the lad go home, but it was late. It was late for both of them and DI Kidd knew that he wasn’t going to get any further with this right now.

“Thank you, Caleb,” DI Kidd said. “You’ve been very helpful. Just one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Can you tell us a little bit about your dad?”

Caleb froze. That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all.

“What about him?” Caleb asked.

“I want to know what he’s like,” Kidd said, trying to act casual. “There was an incident at the school reunion the other night. He attacked Sarah’s dad.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Exactly,” Kidd said. “Would you say your father is a violent man?”

“Not really,” Caleb said. “He…he has a temper. But he’s working on it.”

“A temper?” DS Sanchez said.

“Yeah, but he’s working on it,” Caleb said, with a little more urgency.

“Why would you say he has a temper?” DS Sanchez asked. “Did he get angry a lot before he and your mother broke up?”

“They fought a lot,” Caleb said. “There was always a lot of yelling, a lot of…I don’t know…plates smashing and stuff. They didn’t fit. That’s what Dad said.”

“But you say he’s working on it?” DI Kidd asked.

“He’s started doing yoga,” Caleb said, a little bit of pink colouring his cheeks. “He really likes it. And he runs now. Apparently, he goes out for long runs to clear his head. Any time he gets frustrated he does that to get it out of his system, so he’s getting better.”

A chill covered Kidd’s body. He knew that Caleb hadn’t meant to say anything incriminating about his father, but all of a sudden he was worried about Norman Kaye’s whereabouts. He didn’t want to show any of that to Caleb though. It was pretty clear from where Kidd was sitting, that Caleb was loyal to his father. The last thing he would want to happen would be for Caleb to tip him off that they were going to be looking into him again.

So DI Kidd fixed a smile on his face, offering it to Caleb. “Thank you for all of your help this evening,” he said. “Honestly, you’re helping us build a better picture of Sarah’s final movements. You’ve been great.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Can I…can I go now? My grandparents are expecting me and if I don’t show up soon they’re going to be calling my mum all worried and I don’t want to do that to her.”

“Sure,” DS Sanchez