Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

if you start having trouble with your breathing again. I’m gonna get you a bathrobe, and you can get undressed.”
    He disappeared up the stairs. I started pulling off my shoes and socks. I was anxious to get out of my clothes, and I needed a shower. My body was completely drained, but my brain was wired from the side effects of all the meds I’d had over the course of the day. I felt grungy from the hospital, and I smelled like smoke.
    Pete reappeared with a bathrobe. “Here. You can use the guest bathroom and just leave your clothes in there. I’ll toss them in the washer. Do you want pajamas?”
    “Do you have just a pair of gym shorts?”
    “Yep. Coming right up.” He headed back up the stairs. I left my computer bag on the sofa and followed him, then turned off into the guest bathroom. I dropped my clothes on the toilet lid and put on the robe, then headed for the master bedroom.
    Pete was putting the comforter back on the bed. “I put a pair of shorts in there.” He indicated the master bath with his head. “There are clean towels in there and a new toothbrush. Help yourself to shampoo or whatever else you need.”
    I nodded. I was too tired to form words. The shower had a seat molded into its shape; I turned on the water and sat down. Once I was done and dry, I put on the shorts and the robe, brushed my teeth, and headed for the kitchen.
    Pete was starting the washing machine. “Feel better?”
    “Cleaner, anyway.”
    “Well, that’s a start. Want something to eat?”
    I didn’t feel hungry, but I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “I guess I’d better. But not much.”
    “How about tomato soup? Some crackers?”
    “Actually, that sounds great.” And it did. I sat down at the little dining table and waited.
    We ate. I needed to check my peak flow again, but realized the flow meter had been in the apartment. I wasn’t going to do anything about that tonight; I’d get it replaced in the morning. I rubbed my face. I was whipped, but the worst side effect of all the drugs dumped into me over the course of the day was a jittery exhaustion that made sleep impossible. So there wasn’t any point in going to bed. Pete arranged a mass of pillows on the sofa, and I propped myself up with my laptop and a glass of water. Pete went out briefly to get my prescriptions filled, then settled on the love seat to grade papers.
    Pete was coming down off the adrenaline of the day and was soon napping. I leaned back and closed my eyes, but sleep still wasn’t coming. I sighed and decided to take a crack at rearranging the translated Welsh article. I wasn’t going to be able to read anything tonight, but maybe I could unscramble some of it.
    I pulled the document out of Dropbox and paged through it. The article was arranged in sections, similar to the research articles I was used to seeing – abstract, introduction, review of literature, hypothesis, methodology, statistical analysis, results, discussion. I decided to start with the methodology. That would be the most interesting comparison to Oliver, Wray, and Goldsmith’s article. I took a deep breath – at least as deep as I was able to – and jumped in.
    About an hour later, Pete woke up. “Whatcha doing?”
    “I didn’t get a chance to tell you. The Welsh-language article came today. I’d run it through the translator and saved it before Harley came in.”
    “You’re working on that now ?”
    “Well, I have to do something. I’m still all juiced from the drugs. The worst of it will wear off in a couple of hours” …breathe… “and I’ll be able to sleep then, but until then I might as well do something. And I can’t do anything that requires concentration or precision. So I might as well do this.”
    Pete just shook his head. I turned back to the article. I’d almost finished with the methodology section. The terminology sounded very similar to that of the Americans’ article, but that was no surprise. If the successful procedure was a modification of the earlier one, the methodologies should be somewhat similar.
    I completed the last paragraph of the section, saved it, and logged off. It was after midnight now. The jitters were wearing off and exhaustion was starting to steal over me again. I decided to check email before shutting down. Nothing important, except for a message from Detective Blake.
    Dr. Brodie,
    We’ve taken a preliminary look at your computer and haven’t found any evidence that it was hacked into from outside the