Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

them. Goldstein first since he's the one we want to rule out. Everyone agreed on that?"
    A consensus was reached, and the meeting broke up. I stood up and stretched. Kevin patted me on the shoulder and went back to work. Pete looked at me. "Anywhere else you want to go before we go home?"
    "Yeah. Could we stop by the library?"
    "Yeah, but why?"
    "I just wanna put things there in order. I'll go back to work Monday. I want to have everything ready."
    Pete grinned. "You're a little OCD, you know."
    "Yeah, I know. Occupational hazard with librarians."
    He sighed. "Okay. If you're sure you're up to it."
    "I am. Plus, this will let me tell everyone the story today, so I can actually work on Monday."
    He laughed. "Oh, yeah. The telling of the tale will take a while. Dr. Loomis had better call a meeting."
    It was close to noon, so we went to lunch first. When we got to the library, my face created quite a sensation. People gathered around and the word spread. In about five minutes, everyone that was able came to hear the story. That was fortunate; it meant I only had to tell it once. Everyone was astounded to hear that IT Andy had been involved, and that he wasn't cooperating with the police.
    My office still looked funny without a PC on my desk. It did give me a chance to clear the entire surface, though. Pete helped me clean and straighten and get everything put away that I'd left out on Wednesday, thinking I'd be back on Thursday. I put the inhaler that I was carrying with me into my desk drawer to replace the one that I’d emptied on Monday. When we finished, my office was clean and organized, just like the day I'd moved into it. I stood back and admired our handiwork. "This is awesome. Thanks for helping."
    Pete laughed. "You're welcome. It doesn't take much to make you happy, does it?"
    I tried to grin; that still hurt. "I'm low maintenance. Give me milkshakes and a clean office and I'm all set."
    Pete looked at the pictures I had on the top shelves of my bookcases. There was already one with him in it, from one of our hiking expeditions. He took it down and looked at it. "I remember this hike. That was the day we went too far and ended up in Encino."
    "Yeah." I laughed. "Gonna have to get some more pictures of you in here."
    He put the picture back and looked at me gravely. "When Ben asked you yesterday if we were a couple, I wasn't sure what you were going to say."
    "I know. I could feel you tense up when he asked." I reached out and took his hand. "I want to try this again with you. I want to be with you. I figure-" I stopped and took a breath. "I figure if you're the one that can hurt me, then you're the one I should be with. Because you're the one that-" I stopped again and looked right into his eyes. "Because you're the one."
    Pete smiled. He did have a beautiful smile. "I'm glad you think so. Because I think you're the one, too." He laughed. "And it's making me crazy, not being able to kiss you with your mouth all swollen up like that."
    I shook my head. "A couple of days. I'll be all better."
    "Yeah, you will." He sighed and squeezed my hand. "Okay. Are we done here? You look exhausted. And I need to turn in grades by 6:00."
    “Yeah, we’re done.” And I was exhausted. There was nothing I wanted more at that moment than a nap.
    We got home a little after 2:30. I changed into sweats and got on the sofa with a book. Pete went up to the office to turn in his grades. I barely got through a paragraph before I was asleep.
    When I woke up, it was 5:30 and Pete was gone.
    I looked for a note. There wasn't one on the ottoman. I went up to the kitchen and looked on the dining table, the counter, and the fridge. No note. I went up to the office; nothing on my desk. There was no note lying on our bed, or written in soap on the bathroom mirror.
    Nothing to indicate where he'd gone.
    That was odd.
    I went back downstairs and walked outside to where we parked our cars. The Jeep wasn't there.
    Huh. Maybe he'd run to the grocery store and thought he’d be back before I woke up.
    I went back inside and saw my phone lying on the ottoman. Maybe he'd sent me a text. I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen. I was right; there was a text message. But it wasn't from Pete.
    It was from Ben Goldstein.
    "Found something big. Can't talk, have to see you. Meet me at lab asap."
    But this text was sent to me, not Pete.
    Pete must have seen the text when it came through and decided that he'd let me sleep and go meet Ben himself.
    I