Page 22 of The Librarians
An overdose, then?
No parents ever want to believe that their precious child is only one bad hit away from being a statistic. But a rich kid filling his existential void with illicit substances is all too common a story.
“The parents apparently have lots of connections. Nobody at APD wants them to hold a press conference saying that the police aren’t doing their job, so the force is looking hard. Or at least they want to appear so.”
Is this good news for Astrid, if the investigators themselves don’t believe that they’re looking at anything more than an accidental overdose? Or does it mean the opposite—that the detectives, under pressure from above, will in turn tighten the screws on Astrid?
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“Okay, you didn’t hear this from me, but at the moment, your colleague is Detective Shariati’s only lead.”
Jonathan swears under his breath.
“I can also tell you that the fried pickles here are pretty good. Try some, if you still deal with gluten.”
Jonathan’s heart thumps. “Will you share some with me? My treat. I don’t think I can handle a whole order.”
“Sure,” says Ryan.
He smiles slightly into his beer and Jonathan’s heart becomes a racquetball ricocheting at a hundred miles an hour.
A large, festive party comes into the restaurant. Ryan gives the newcomers a cursory glance, then leans toward Jonathan. “Do you have a picture of the woman?”
For a moment Jonathan has no idea what he’s talking about. Which woman? Astrid? Oh, Ryan means the perfect woman for his roommate. Jonathan finds the group selfie he took on Game Night and texts it to Ryan. In the picture Hazel stands at the very edge of the frame, almost hidden behind an exuberant Jeannette Obermann, her arms thrown up.
With Perry Bathurst and Jeannette Obermann both dead, it hasn’t been a very good few days for the branch library’s patrons.
“You can hardly see her in the back,” Jonathan says apologetically. “She is beautiful, though, and…”
Ryan looks closely at his phone. “And what? Charismatic?”
“ ‘Charismatic’ might not be the right word. ‘Enigmatic,’ I would say.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it, because the picture doesn’t convey much.”
Ryan puts away his phone and takes a swallow of his beer. Jonathan’s eyes are glued to the motion of his Adam’s apple, the smooth skin of his throat sliding over the protuberance.
“But even if she’s all that, I’m not sure anything will happen,” Ryan continues.
A second passes before Jonathan hears his words. Hastily he raises his gaze to meet Ryan’s. “And—why’s that?”
Again the gleam of amusement in Ryan’s eyes. Jonathan wishes he evoked a more substantial response in the first man who ever went down on him.
“Remember Conrad telling people about his perfect woman at the reunion?”
How can Jonathan forget? When Ryan and Conrad walked in that night, a hush fell upon the gathering. Ryan is hot, but Conrad is stunning, and their combined height and beauty were such that despair instantly swamped Jonathan.
And then, late in the reunion, some women managed to corner Conrad.
Ryan came over, a little hammered, and said to Conrad, “Hey, Davoud Asadi isn’t coming. So you can be straight now.”
Conrad, who might have been completely wasted, tilted his head back against the top of his high-backed chair. Perhaps because of his thick hair, slightly long and just beginning to curl, and his simple white shirt with a couple buttons open, he managed to look like an eighteenth-century aristocrat. “Brilliant. Whatever you say.”
He spoke clearly, if slowly, and with a British accent, no less.
The women hooted.
“Wait, you’re straight now? I’m straight too. Let’s get together!” cried one, three sheets to the wind.
