Worth the Wait (Worth It #1)

Chapter One Clear and Present Danger

Chapter One

Clear and Present Danger

Worthbridge always looked prettier from a distance.

Up close, the cracks showed. Empty shopfronts. Kids with their hoods up and nowhere to be. The wrong vans pulling into the wrong lockups at the wrong time of night. And PC Freddie Webb had spent the last six months watching it get worse.

Taking a reluctant sip from his battered travel mug, he grimaced. “Jesus, that’s vile.” He screwed the lid on tight. Not that he was trying to preserve it, more contain the damage. It tasted like tar scraped off his boots after a rainy shift. “You trying to off me, Becks?”

Behind the wheel, PC Becca Lambert smirked. “Brewing anything drinkable with that urn’s like raising the Titanic with a teaspoon. Be grateful you’re still alive.”

“Pretty sure that kettle predates the Bronze Age.”

“Like Tony in Custody.”

“The one with the pager?”

“Vintage chic, mate. ”

Freddie snorted and slouched lower in his seat.

The patrol car hummed along Worthbridge’s narrow back lanes, tyres whispering over damp tarmac.

The Sunday morning shift always brought a peculiar hush.

Not quite peace, not quite quiet. It was the town catching its breath after a long Saturday night.

This morning was no exception. The April sky hung low and sulking, a thick blanket of cloud turning the sea into a sheet of dull metal.

April showers were getting ready to wash the town away while the gulls shrieked overhead, wheeling in lazy circles as if they had grievances to air.

They shouldn’t. They’d already hoovered up the scraps from Saturday night’s takeaway benders.

The air smelt like brine, damp concrete and leftover chips.

And…home.

Yeah. It smelt like home .

Because for Freddie, this scruffy little Essex seaside town was home. The place that raised him, roughed him up, and, at least once, nearly choked the life out of him. Literally .

Stretching out his legs, he relished the lull.

Mornings like this were rare. No drama yet.

No one screaming down the phone about stolen bikes or domestics.

Not even any drunken lads spoiling for a fight.

The shops were only just stirring, shutters rattling up like yawns, and the pubs hadn’t rubbed their eyes open yet.

For a moment, it was the sea, wind, and the quiet hum of the car.

“How’s it going with the history teacher?” And Becca’s too personal questions.

That was the thing about sharing shifts with Becca. She came armed with shit tasting caffeine, boatloads of sarcasm, and an endless supply of personal questions. Prying ones. Ones that made him want to crank the window down and roll himself out onto the A-road.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Freddie tipped his head back with a groan. To buy time, he took another sip of the coffee, immediately regretted it, then leant out the open window to spit it out onto the tarmac.

“Oi!” Becca barked, eyes still on the road but tone filled with mock outrage. “That’s a criminal offense!”

Freddie fastened the lid shut on his travel mug. “The gulls’ll clean it up before you even dig out your ticket pad.”

She snorted. “Did you spit on the history teacher, too?”

He shifted in his seat, suddenly fascinated by the scuffed trim on the dash.

“Swallowed?”

He side-eyed her. “Christ, Becca. I know I ain’t your superior by rank, but can we roll with the pecking order, anyway?”

“You don’t like him then.”

“I do. He’s…sweet . ”

“Knew it.” She grinned, triumphant. “You don’t like him.”

“I do like him,” Freddie said, far too quickly for Becca not to pick up the subtext. “I said he’s sweet.”

“Which is code word for boring.”

“No, it’s code word for—wait for it— sweet. ”

“Then you’re clearly a diabetic.”

Freddie laughed, but it caught in his throat, and he turned back to the window, watching the gulls wheel over the flat grey sea, their cries piercing over the stillness of the morning.

Jude was sweet. Polite. A bloke who remembered birthdays and opened doors and would make sure he drank water between pints.

Safe .

But that was the rub. Safe didn’t do it for him.

Never held his interest long. Didn’t light him up or make his pulse jump.

No. He always gravitated towards the messier options.

The ones who bit back. Had shadows behind their smiles and chaos stitched into their bones.

The ones who burned too bright and left scorch marks when they went.

The ones who were oh so very unattainable .

He stared out the window, the scent of salt and old chip fat curling through the crack in the glass.

He scrubbed a hand over his stubble and forced a grin to cover the shift in his gut.

But, as if right on cue, they passed the weatherbeaten pier, and he got the same old ghost of cider on his lips.

An echo of a laugh tangled in the sea wind.

And remembered when, for a heartbeat, life had been simpler.

Lighter. When everything still felt fixable.

By a crooked grin, a bottle passed between trembling hands, and a kiss that wasn’t sweet, wasn’t perfect, but lodged itself in him, anyway, rewriting the blueprint for every kiss that came after.

“It ain’t cause you’ve still got feelings for that Reece, is it?” Becca took her eyes off the road to deliver that punchline.

“The fireman?” Freddie laughed. “Nah. Not sure I ever had feelings for him. He was…”

A stop gap.

They were all stop gaps.

Distractions. Warm bodies and easy smiles. Stop-gaps between the job and the bits of his life he didn’t want to sit with for too long.

He was starting to think they’d all be that way. Temporary .

Sighing, he looked back out the window at a group of late teens carving lazy arcs across the promenade, wheels rattling over the cracked concrete of the skatepark. Hoodies up. Heads low. Same faces, same patterns. No harm in them. Yet.

Worthbridge had always had edges. None the tourists ever noticed.

Cause, sure, it looked like bunting and postcards in summer, but when the sun went down?

Different story. Uni students necking pints, fights outside chip shops, lads shouting karaoke until their voices cracked.

Freddie knew the routine. Not only because he was the poor fucker who had to clear up most of those things, but he’d also been one of them once.

Young, stupid, and three sheets to the wind under the pier with someone whose name he barely remembered.

Those were reckless, golden nights. Sweetened by vodka and a cocky grin. But they’d left their mark too.

Irreversibly so.

Lately, though, Worthbridge had become dangerous .

He knew he probably shouldn’t be policing in his hometown.

All the complications. The conflicts of interest. He’d listened to the warnings when he’d joined the force.

And for a while, he earned his stripes with an extended stint in Southend, saw the other side of the patch.

But Worthbridge needed him. His mum was here.

His little sister. His niece . New baby nephew.

He had to make sure this town was safe for them.

He couldn’t trust anyone else to do that for him.

Which, yeah, he was well aware and had been told sounded cliché as fuck.

Maybe there was something deeper going on. A reason he’d stayed put all these years, wearing this uniform in the same streets he’d got drunk in as a teenager. But he didn’t like to over-analyse it.

Especially not on a bloody Sunday.

“You’re doing it again,” Becca cut through his thoughts.

Freddie arched a brow. “Doing what? ”

“That constipated thinking face. Usually means the Radley case is crawling around in that brain of yours again.”

Freddie grunted, resting his elbow on the window ledge. He didn’t have to answer. They were both thinking about it.

Six months. That’s how long he’d been embedded on community detail, quietly feeding anything useful upstairs. Six months of tailing ghost vans and jotting down license plates leading nowhere. Six months of watching Whitmore Estate kids wander home with new trainers and older eyes.

Still nothing stuck.

Because Graham Radley was careful. Generous. Untouchable.

Everyone in Worthbridge knew the name. Radley Developments. Proud sponsor of the local sports teams, the Christmas lights, the bloody community day stage. Vivienne Radley chaired the town’s cultural committee. Their photo was still framed on the council website, cutting ribbons and shaking hands.

But Freddie had spent too long chasing ghosts to be dazzled by high-gloss charity work. The real Radley estate wasn’t made of bricks and ribbon-cuttings. It was made of silence.

The East Docks moved at night. Vans in by five, out by six.

No names. No cargo manifests. No CCTV that couldn’t be explained away.

Cash passed in corners. Girls from the estate disappearing for days, coming back quieter.

Some didn’t come back at all. Drugs flooding the estates, but never in Radley hands.

Always some teenage runner who “couldn’t say” where it came from.

And everyone was too bloody afraid to say the word out loud .

Trafficking .

Because saying it meant admitting it was real. That it wasn’t just happening in cities or headlines, but here, in Freddie’s hometown. In alleyways he used to ride past on his bike. Behind doors marked with Radley logos. In the silence between neighbours who knew better than to ask.

Becca had been there the night they pulled that girl from the van behind Whitmore garages, too. Seventeen, half-starved, wearing a men’s coat three sizes too big. She hadn’t said a word.

Radley’s name wasn’t on the van.

It never was.

“We’re running out of time,” Freddie said, more to himself than her.

Becca drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Maybe. But Carrick wants more. Wants them caught in the act .”

“Yeah, well, while we sit on our hands, more kids get chewed up and spat out.”

Becca didn’t argue. There was nothing to say.