Three Steps

"Three steps into the station before my phone rang. Turns out you can measure the distance between detective work and family crisis in footsteps."

I made it exactly three steps inside the station before my phone started vibrating in my pocket.

Three steps. That was all I'd managed — through the back door Karl and I had used countless times, past the memorial wall with its brass plaques commemorating officers lost in the line of duty, into the familiar corridor that smelled of industrial cleaner and burnt coffee. Three steps toward whatever confrontation or debriefing or next disaster awaited, fuelled by Glen's coffee and the fragile determination it had provided.

Then the vibration against my hip, insistent and sudden, derailing momentum before it could properly build.

I stopped mid-stride, one foot still raised, balanced in that awkward pause between movement and stillness. For a split second I considered ignoring it — letting it go to voicemail, dealing with whatever it was after I'd found Karl, after I'd sorted through the chaos of refused warrants and missing persons and bureaucratic obstacles.

But something made me reach for it. Some instinct that recognised timing, that understood calls at particular moments carried weight beyond normal interruption.

The screen showed Virginia's name, and my stomach dropped before I'd even swiped to answer.

Virginia Collins was Jane's primary carer at Vaucluse. She was competent, professional, warm without being cloying — the kind of person you wanted looking after your elderly relatives because she genuinely cared rather than just completing tasks. In the months since Jane had moved into the facility, Virginia had called me perhaps three times. Once when Jane had fallen. Once when there'd been an administrative issue with medications. Once to tell me Jane had specifically asked for me during a particularly bad day.

Virginia didn't call unless something was actually wrong.

"Hello, Virginia," I answered, trying to keep my voice steady despite the worry that flooded through my chest.

"Hi, Sarah." Virginia's voice carried that particular quality of careful concern. "Look, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I think you'd better come down here. Your grandmother is very distressed."

The words landed with physical weight. Very distressed. Not upset. Not having a difficult day. Very distressed. The escalation in terminology mattered. It communicated a severity beyond normal fluctuations in Jane's condition.

"I'll be there in ten," I responded at once, already turning back toward the door I'd just entered. No hesitation. No negotiation. Family emergency overrode everything else — case work, Karl, whatever awaited me in the building I was now abandoning before I'd properly arrived.

"Thank you, dear," Virginia said, relief audible in her voice. "She's been asking for you. I think your presence will help."

We disconnected, and I shoved the phone back into my pocket, frustration and dread tangling into a knot beneath my sternum. The irony wasn't lost on me — I'd just been collected from one emergency, driven back to the station specifically because I was needed here, and now I was immediately leaving again for another entirely.

I executed an abrupt one-eighty, my boots squeaking slightly on the polished floor, and stormed straight back out the way I'd come. The back door swung shut behind me with metallic finality.

Vaucluse was in Lindisfarne — perhaps ten minutes away if traffic cooperated, fifteen if it didn't. I reached my car quickly, fumbling slightly with the keys as exhaustion and nerves made my hands less steady than usual.

The drive would give me time to mentally prepare for whatever awaited. Time to shift gears from detective mode to granddaughter mode. Time to brace myself for whatever had Virginia concerned enough to call me away from work.

Very distressed.

The words echoed in my head as I started the engine, backing out of the parking space with perhaps less care than usual. My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, knuckles white against the black leather, the bandage on my right hand pulling uncomfortably with the motion.

I pulled out of the car park, leaving the station behind — leaving Karl, leaving the case, leaving the refused warrants and bureaucratic frustrations and all the professional obligations that had consumed my day. Right now, none of it mattered. Right now, there was only Jane, distressed and asking for me, needing the one thing I could still reliably provide.

My presence.