The Bubble Gum Thief (50 page)

“What can they get us that we didn’t already have?”

“That Jack was the guy who tried to run us over in Cincinnati,” Victor said.

“So it wasn’t Draker.”

“Nope.”

“Also, Ryder wasn’t a suicide,” Brent said. “Fabee killed him.”

Dagny wasn’t too surprised by this. “I guess he was worried that Ryder would go public with Draker’s innocence in the securities fraud case.”

“Which could have prompted someone to take a closer look at that case, and eventually, Fabee’s role in it,” the Professor said. “So are you back in?”

“Look, I’ll call when I’m ready.”

Victor smiled.

“What?”

“You didn’t say if.”

June 1—Alexandria, Virginia

Dagny pulled off her T-shirt and walked naked to the bathroom. She flipped the switch, shielding her eyes until they adjusted to the light. Squinting at the mirror, she looked at her stomach. Firm, flat. Not too skinny. She liked that her thighs didn’t touch, and that her ribs could be seen but not counted. Turning away from the mirror, she stepped onto the bathroom scale. The number below flipped to 127 before settling back on 123. Dagny stepped off the scale, nudged it a couple inches along the floor with her foot, and stepped on it again. The number oscillated back and forth between 123 and 124. She leaned a little to the right and the scale finally settled on 125. Jackpot.

Dagny slipped on her running clothes and her sneakers, grabbed her phone and her gun, and bolted from her house. Morning clouds muted the light of the quarter moon and drizzled a light rain upon Del Ray. The streetlights shimmered off puddles and windshields. The neighbors mostly slept. A skinny, shirtless man worked on his car. He nudged the bill of his trucker cap upward and smiled at Dagny as she blew by. A few blocks later, a man tossed a suitcase into the trunk of a Buick while a woman
berated him. A few neighbors turned on their lights and looked out their windows at the spectacle, but Dagny just turned up the volume on her iPod and continued past.

She followed the sidewalks of Alexandria to the Mount Vernon Trail, then sprinted past Reagan National Airport, past Theodore Roosevelt Island, all the way to the Key Bridge, which carried her into Georgetown. As the rising sun struggled to peek through the clouds, she ran over the hills of the campus and then paused in front of Mike Brodsky’s home. The rain continued to fall as she splashed by the stalled traffic on M Street, Zegman’s Gallery, and the bookstore where Mike was killed. She shot past Benton’s office in Foggy Bottom, past the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Memorial, and then the Washington Monument. She darted up to Pennsylvania Avenue and by the Old Post Office and FBI headquarters.

Drenched and drained, she followed a crowd of tourists and schoolchildren through the door of one of the buildings. She passed the information desk and walked through the open atrium to the stairs. At the top of the staircase, she turned right and then left into a large room. The walls were adorned with a blur of paintings; she ignored them. A collection of dancing triangles hung from the ceiling; she didn’t see them. A bronze statue stood in the middle of the room. She walked up to it and smiled, then bit down on her lip to stifle her tears. Reaching out, she touched the statue’s arm.

“Hey!” A security guard raced toward her. “No touching! No—” And then he looked at her, and at the statue. “You’re...”

“Yes.”

“Well...then I guess it’s okay.” He backed away, taking his post against the wall again.

She traced the statue’s arms, her hips, her mouth, her eyes. At one time, this statue had been the first mirror to make her feel beautiful. Now, it wasn’t a mirror—it was a snapshot reminding
her that she could be happy, that her smile could be genuine, that her eyes could be bright.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, or when the crowd started to gather around the beautiful bronze woman in the evening dress and her soaking-wet, flesh facsimile in running shorts. But it was a testament to Mike’s talent that their eyes stayed with the statue as she slipped away. For the statue to be in the National Gallery, even if it was propelled there by tragedy, was a more fitting end than Dagny could deliver.

When she found her way to the museum’s exit, she braced for the blinding rays of a fresh sun. But outside, it was still dark and rainy. She reached for her phone and dialed the Professor.

“Okay. I’m ready.”

THE END

One of the best things about getting a book published is that you get a forum to acknowledge the people who helped you along the way. My incredible wife, Kate, read through more versions of this book than anyone, and let me bombard her with questions about every chuckle or gasp. Joel and Linda Miller—the best parents in the world—offered their thoughts and encouragement throughout the revision process.

The following family and friends read through early drafts of the book: Stephanie Sellers, Marcia Miller, Carolyn Moore, Jim Bates, Mike Bronson, Rob Hegblom, Bradley Monton, Paige Petersen, Mike Rich, Michele Smith, Matt Tauber, Colette Wachtel, Victor Walton, Glenn Whitaker, and Mona Yousif.

Michael J. Sullivan, author of the the
Riyria Revelations
fantasy series, provided detailed and thoughtful advice that made the book better; Robin Sullivan, his wife, provided equally valuable advice concerning the path to publication.

I am a member of the Arlington Writers Group, and I cannot thank my fellow members enough for giving me feedback on some of the chapters of this book, and for letting me be part of
their community. Special thanks to Michael Klein, the organizer of the group, for making it work so well, and for being a good friend.

My sons, Freeman and Calvin, are too young to read this book, but not too young to bring me joy on the most joyless of days.

When you write a book with a lot of characters, you scavenge for names anywhere you can. If I borrowed your first or last name, thank you, and I’m sorry; the character isn’t you—I just needed a name, and you had a good one.

Before you write a story, you have to understand what you’re writing about. I read stacks of memoirs and biographies before I began writing this book. Marya Hornbacher, Candice DeLong, Michael G. Santos, and Clifford Irving wrote the best of the bunch.

Thank you to the National Institute of Justice, for letting just anyone attend their great conferences. Thank you to Google for things like Street View. And thank you to Keith Blount for creating Scrivener, the best novel-writing software around.

Before she passed away, my first agent, Elaine Koster, and her amazing assistant, Ellen Twaddell, worked with me for many months to make this book better. I will always cherish my time working with them. It will forever be an honor to be associated with Elaine’s incredible career. After Elaine’s passing, my current agent, the lovely Victoria Skurnick, rescued me and found me a home, for which I shall always be grateful. Ingrid Emerick, my developmental editor, gave me invaluable assistance, and found things I missed a hundred times. Copy editor Elizabeth Johnson stopped Michael Brodsky from cooking with “red paper flakes,” taught me the difference between “Bimmer” and “Beamer” (I still went with “Beamer”), and reminded me about rules of grammar that I’d long forgotten. If mistakes slipped through, it’s probably because I’m lousy with Track Changes.

And, of course, many thanks to Andy Bartlett and the team at Thomas & Mercer, for believing in this book and bringing it to you.

Photograph by Kathryn Moore, 2009

Jeff Miller grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, where Jerry Springer attended his temple and Pete Rose broke his heart. He’s rafted down the Rio Grande with folksinger Butch Hancock, co-created an award-winning mockumentary about table tennis, and performed and written for a public-access sketch comedy series. Like many lawyers, the only thing he ever really wanted to do was write.
The Bubble Gum Thief
is his first book. He lives with his wonderful wife, Kate, and their two young sons.