Dogs Read Online Free

him since then? Has it? You know the goddamn answer is no!”
    â€œCalm down, Tessa. Take an even strain.”
    She didn’t want to take an even strain. She didn’t want to be sitting here, didn’t want this stupid fucking slur on her dead husband’s name. Salah had loved his adopted country. And he’d been a peaceable, sweet-natured man. He had never, not once in his prematurely ended life, had anything to do with anything destructive, let alone terrorism. To even imply—
    â€œHave a tissue,” Maddox said.
    â€œI don’t need a tissue, damn it! And if you wanted to be so fucking sympathetic about Salah, you should have come to his funeral!”
    Maddox stood, walked to the window, walked back, sat again.
    â€œI’m sorry, Tessa. I wanted to go. More than you can know. But—and I’m not telling you this, please, you didn’t hear it here—there was a memorandum. From Bernini.”
    â€œThe A-DIC said for people to stay away from Salah’s funeral? ”
    â€œHe was thinking that so many agents massed in one place…especially so many from counter-terrorism…it would have been a perfect target for an incident.”
    â€œI was domestic counter-terrorism!”
    â€œI know,” Maddox said. Of course he knew—he was Special Agent in Charge for domestic counter-terrorism. “I tried to argue Bernini out of it.”
    â€œHe always was a prick,” Tessa said, something she never could have said if she still worked here. She stood. “Is that all?”
    â€œI have to ask you one more question. Please don’t get mad, and please consider it carefully. Is it at all possible, under any circumstances, that there was more to Salah’s life after you married him, after both you and the Bureau finished clearing him, than he might have told you?”
    Shock held her immobile for a moment. That Maddox, who had known Salah personally, who had sent them a wedding gift, who had brought his wife Jennifer to dinner at the Capitol Hill townhouse, could even suggest…even Maddox….
    She managed, with dignity from God-knew-where, “No. It is not possible. I knew everything important about Salah’s life. Good-bye, John.”
    He stood, too. “I don’t have to tell you not to say anything about this to anyone or—”
    â€œEat it,” Tessa said, which wasn’t fair, because Maddox was basically a good guy. It was Bernini that she wanted to curse at, but she couldn’t reach him.
    â€œTake care, Tessa,” Maddox said, holding out his hand.
    She ignored the hand. But at the door she turned. “John, you asked me a hard question, and now I’m going to ask you one. Was I passed over for promotion all those years because I was married to Salah? The truth, between old colleagues.”
    He gazed at her, said nothing. The silence stretched on.
    â€œI thought so,” Tessa said, held her chin high, and left the Hoover Building. Good riddance.
    But in her car, she allowed herself to rest her head for a moment on the cold steering wheel. Bright sunlight poured through the windshield, deceptively warm. Horns honked and cars streamed through downtown D.C.
    Who was talking about her and Salah in Paris, Tunis, and Cairo? And why?

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    Steve Harper didn’t like dogs, and never had. They were messy, noisy, potentially dangerous. Like all cops, he’d seen a lot of trouble caused by dogs: Your dog shit on my lawn. Your dog’s barking keeps me up nights! Keep that dog away from my garbage can/flower bed/kids or else! Officer, I’m calling to report a loose dog. The dog bit the mailman . The world would be a better place if people kept cats, and kept them inside.
    Then he and Diane had Davey, and suddenly dogs were a part of Steve’s world. Davey seemed to have been born loving dogs. If a dog existed within three blocks, Davey knew it. He lurched upward in his stroller and shouted