Pencil, Paper, and Passion.

Chapter Twenty: Aftermath.

     "Elizabeth, are you all right?" Ben's voice was soft in my ear, his hand gentle as he stroked it down my back.

I was hunched over in a chair and hugging my knees as Ben knelt beside me.  I tried to open my mouth, to answer him, but nothing happened.  I couldn't move, I couldn't speak.  I couldn't even think.  At least, not about anything other than what the police were currently extracting from my locker.  So, I sat in the chair mutely, staring blindly down at the floor.  I would've closed my eyes, had I not been sure of what I would see behind my closed lids.

"Sweetheart?" Ben's voice again, still gentle but with a trace of urgency behid it.  "I need to know if you're all right.  Answer me, please."

I managed to lift my head and shifted from staring blindly at the carpet, to staring blindly at Ben's face.  I opened my mouth, to tell him 'yes, I'm fine' but the only sound that emerged was an unintelligible murmur.  Even to my ears it sounded broken and I focused on Ben's face long enough to watch panicked concern cloud his features.

He lifted a hand to my cheek and swept his thumb along my cheekbone, before turning and speaking to someone off to the side.  "After the police are done, I want you to take her home.  She needs to get some rest."

I let my eyes travel over to whoever he was speaking to and was surprised to see Mr. Kalebrow leaniing against the desk, with his arms folded across his chest.  When had he gotten there?  How long had I sat here, completely unaware of what was happening around me?

I blinked rapidly, finally taking notice of where I was and who was with me.  The chair I was in sat in Mr. Avery's office and he was there, along with Ben and Mr. Kalebrow.  All three of them wore nearly identical expressions of concern and anger.  I assumed the concern was for my dubious mental stability at the moment and the anger was for whoever had desecrated my locker.  If the circumstances were different, I'd be able to appreciate three extremely attractive men being angry and concerned for me.  As it was, I had trouble appreciating the fact that they were even there.

At a knock on the office door, Ben stood and watched as Mr. Avery answered it.  A man, dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a jacket over a black t-shirt, entered.  He was ridiculously good looking, with high cheekbones, chestnut hair, and grey eyes that edged towards lavender.  Confused, I narrowed my eyes at him.  Who was he?  He couldn't be a cop; he didn't have a uniform.  Had my mother hired another bodyguard?  Did she even know about this?

Ben stepped forward and the two of them slapped palms before hugging each other one armed, in the way that all men seemed to do.  "Jamie, hey.  I wasn't expecting you."

"When someone gets a death threat, homicide gets called in." The man, Jamie, said it cheerfully.

Death threat?  Had there been some sort of note in my locker?  I must have made some sound of distress, because every pair of eyes in the office shifted to me.  I stared at them, wide-eyed.  "Was there a note?  What did it say?"

"Elizabeth..." Ben started, his tone one of warning.  "There's no need for you to-."

"No." I cut him off, trying to inject a firm note into my voice without success.  I sounded shaky and scared.  Frustrated with myself, I determinedly stood up and, locking my shaking knees, crossed the room to stand in front of Jamie.  "I'm Elizabeth Sinclair.  Those... things were in my locker.  They were directed at me and it's my life that's apparently on the line.  I have a right to know."

The man stared at me for several moments, as if he were deciding whether or not I did have the right.  Finally, he held out a hand for me to shake.  "Well, Elizabeth, my name is Jamie Gallagher.  I'm a homicide detective, which is why I've been assigned to your case.  Once someone recieves a death threat, we're called in to investigate, to make sure an actual homicide doesn't occur."