The Bubble Gum Thief Read Online Free Page A

paused. “I know you don’t like talking about this stuff, so I’m just going to lay it out for you. You’ve got until March fifteenth to get up to one hundred twenty-five pounds. Until then, you’re off active duty. I’ve signed you up for a two-month counterterrorism class at Quantico. Anyone asks me where you are, I’ll tell them you’re at the class. I’ve got a friend down there in the medical department. Once a week, I want him to weigh you, just to make sure you’re headed in the right direction. You start heading in the wrong direction, and the whole thing is off. If you don’t make it to one twenty-five by the fifteenth, I’m putting you on medical leave, and you’re going to see a professional. As for what that means for your future in the Bureau—I can’t make any promises. You understand?”
    “Yes.” She wanted to try to talk him down to 120, but held her tongue.
    He seemed to read her mind. “At five nine, one twenty-five is still too low. What are you now?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “One ten maybe. And headed in the wrong direction. I want you right.”
    “Okay.”
    “Dagny, I want to be clear; I’m not punishing you.”
    “I know,” she replied, even though it felt an awful lot like punishment.
    Cooper pushed his chair back, stood up, and reached for his briefcase.
    “Who’s teaching the class?” Dagny asked.
    “Timothy McDougal.”
    “Isn’t he crazy?”
    Cooper shrugged. “It was the only class I could get you into with such little notice.”
    Dagny nodded and watched Cooper leave.
    She sat there in silence for a while. The phones in the outer offices were still ringing, even at this late hour—Bureau brass inquiring about the Mouse, she feared. An electric typewriter hummed—someone was filling out an evidence card and didn’t know how to use the templates on the computer. A group of men were chuckling in the hallway; she wondered if they were laughing at her.
    Dagny pulled her cell phone from her pocket and looked to see who had placed the call that had almost gotten her killed. When she saw Mike’s name on the screen, she smiled, and suddenly felt a little less alone.

CHAPTER 4

    January 15—Warwick, Rhode Island
    In retrospect, the best thing that ever happened to Senator R. Brock Harrison Jr. was that hooker falling off his boat.
    At the time he’d been a rising star. Upon his elevation from the House to the Senate, Tim Russert had praised his preternatural political skills and visionary eloquence. David Broder had referred to him as “future president Harrison.” Maureen Dowd said he was “delicious.” Then, amid talk of a presidential bid, reporters began to follow him closely. The attention was flattering, but it cramped his style. The slightest extramarital indulgence required incredible feats of subterfuge and misdirection. Awkward disguises. Switching cars and such. It had been hard enough keeping things secret from his wife, but reporters weren’t so easily deceived. Unlike Mrs. R. Brock Harrison Jr., they didn’t have a vested interest in maintaining the illusion of a perfect marriage.
    So when that hooker fell off his boat, the accolades gave way to denunciations and the man who would be president became just another punch line for the late-night comedians.
    But a funny thing happened. The good people of Rhode Island reelected Senator R. Brock Harrison Jr. Although he’d never be president, he realized that virtually no sexual misdeed could ever disqualify him from the Senate. And to the surprise of many, including the senator, Mrs. Harrison stood by her husband after his very public mea culpa and a three-week stint at the Promises Clinic—a medically accredited rehabilitation center/health spa/thirty-six-hole championship golf resort in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona.
    The whole experience was rather liberating, and the past three years had been one long erotic and culinary orgy, conferring upon him thirty-five new pounds and a case of gonorrhea.