SAM
Sam watches the feed in real time, hand on his chin, like he’s tuning in to a late-night soap he definitely isn’t supposed to be watching.
And there she is.
Emma Christianson. Eyeliner like war paint, posture like a lit fuse. The camera in the hallway — a perfectly placed buttonhead lens, placed behind the coat rack — captures her leaving, Tom closing the door behind her.
He leans closer, amused. “Well, well,” he murmurs to himself. “Look who crawled out of the comments section of life.”
He recognises her immediately. Chris’s sister. He’s seen her before, always a shade too frantic. Like grief shot through with espresso. She’s been hunting for truth for two years.
Tom wanders back to the living room, falling back into the sofa, a man deep in thought. Such clean emotion, Tom. Bless him. He’ll break his own heart tying neat bows around other people’s mess.
The living room camera, tucked into the spine of a fake plant, gives him a nice, soft-focus view of the sofa. Sam watches him and, despite himself, feels a tug of something that might be fondness. Irritating.
Still, Emma + Tom = … interesting.
He toggles wide: exterior cam, front door; hallway; living room; kitchen; study; upstairs landing; bedroom, obviously. Enough coverage to know the shape of a day, not enough to be noticed.
Tom’s home makes him ache a little, and he hates that. He’s always been too sensitive to the idea ofhome, like a cat pressing its head into a warm patch of sun. It’s a reaction he learned to smother early.
The last address he could call home with a straight face was before he was five, and even then, the word was being misused. Those final months with his family were all noise and corners—doors slammed so hard the frames gave up, meals forgotten mid-argument, the bad magic of adults who talked in low voices until the yelling started again. He remembers standing on a kitchen chair, trying to reach a biscuit tin that was kept high and empty. He remembers the smell of bleach, and the way the carpet never quite dried.
Care was worse in a different register. Too bright, too grey, too watchful. Some homes were decent in the way a hospital corridor is decent. Others were… not. He learned early that comfort was borrowed and warmth came with a receipt. The look of Tom’s place — soft, cluttered,kind— presses old bruises.
He files the feeling in the box marked “Later” and shuts the lid.
Sam thinks about Pete’s place in contrast: rooms designed by consensus and money, immaculate surfaces reflecting nothing back. Rooms that hold their breath whenever someone laughs. Tom’s living room would survive a good cry and still smell like Febreeze.
He takes a sip of his cold coffee and scrolls ten minutes back. Emma’s expression freezes mid-plea; Tom’s brow folds in sympathy. Sam rewinds further, catches the moment they step through the door — Tom ushering, Emma hesitating in the threshold like the house might bite. He pauses, zooms. Her eyes drag the room with a practiced scan; she’s done her share of doorway decisions. He files that look, too. She’s the kind who spots exits and alarms without thinking.
Useful. Annoying. Both.
He knows her reputation. Erratic, hungry for answers, good at blowing up bridges and then acting surprised she can’t get back across. People like to call her crazy because it’s easier than calling her right. He doesn’t think she’s right — not yet — but he respects a person who refuses to be bored by her own life.
And she’s not Tom’s only visitor.
There was another man he needs to keep his eye on this week.
A man entering the house by the backdoor like he owned the place, but never when Tom was there.
This needs further investigation.
Back to the living room. Emma’s crying now, quick, angry tears she keeps trying to blink back into her head. Emma wipes her face and says something —pleaseis in it; he can tell by the mouth shape. Tom nods again.
He’s going to help her.
Of course he is.
He flips back to the live feed. Tom has not moved from the sofa.
He will absolutely agree to something generous and foolish because he’s the kind whose heart has never met a boundary it didn’t want to climb over and hug.
He closes one eye and imagines the strings crisscrossing the city: Tom to Pete, Pete to James, James to Sam and to a dozen other things it’s wiser not to name, Emma threading through all of it like a needle.
The tapestry is ugly at some angles and stunning at others. Either way, it’s going to be expensive.
Yes. Emma and Tom connecting is interesting. It changes shapes. It opens doors.
