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  PRAISE FOR THE BUBBLE GUM THIEF: A DAGNY GRAY THRILLER

  “There are lots of twists and turns here, and just when the case appears to be solved, it isn’t. A gripping plot and a terrific cast leave the reader hoping that this is the first of a series; these characters are too good for just one book.”

  —Booklist, starred review

  “Deliciously complex and entertaining. . . . Jeff Miller will be a must-read for me.”

  —Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine

  “Brings a few new twists to the mystery genre [and] surprises us by pulling it together in the end.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “A terrifically entertaining novel. . . . The narrative is smartly written, the dialogue realistic, the actions on the part of all involved credible. . . . An amazing ride and a fine start to this series.”

  —Mysterious Reviews

  OTHER TITLES BY JEFF MILLER

  The Bubble Gum Thief: A Dagny Gray Thriller

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Jeff Miller

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503936812

  ISBN-10: 1503936813

  Cover design by Brian Zimmerman

  Dedicated to my parents, Joel and Linda Miller, for their endless support and love

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Thirty-five years ago . . .

  Sheriff Hal Dickens was patrolling the hills above the Rio Grande when he spotted a woman giving birth on the Mexican side. Ever the gentleman, he averted his gaze, until he heard her scream.

  She was carrying the newborn across the river, and the frothy white rapids had pulled them under. The sheriff ran down the hill, jumped into the water, and pulled them to the surface. Holding them to his chest, he carried them to the banks on the American side.

  Dickens leaned the woman against a boulder, and she brought her baby boy to her face. “Tu nombre es Pedro,” she whispered. Then she moaned and began convulsing.

  “Gemelos,” she said, but Dickens didn’t know what that meant until a second baby started to push its way out of her.

  It wasn’t something he had done before, but the good sheriff muddled his way through the delivery of the twin. The woman looked into the eyes of the younger son and said, “Tu nombre es Diego.” She gave her baby a kiss and looked up at the sheriff.

  Dickens smiled at her. “Me llamo Hal,” he said.

  “Me llamo Maria.”

  She was bruised and cut and dirty. He wasn’t sure what kind of journey had taken her to the border, but he could tell it wasn’t an easy one.

  “Let’s get you well,” he said.

  He took Maria and her boys to the town’s only doctor. Over the next four days, the doctor monitored them, while his wife fed and cared for them. Each day, the sheriff brought clothes, diapers, and other supplies and checked to see that she was healing and that her boys were fine.

  On the fifth day, the doctor pronounced Maria well. Dickens told her it was time to go.

  “¿Adónde?” she said, smiling.

  “Back home,” he said. “Back to Mexico.”

  Her smile vanished. “Mis hijos son estadounidenses.”

  He shook his head. “I saw you give birth to the first boy in Mexico.”

  “¡Y el segundo en los Estados Unidos!”

  “You aren’t a citizen, Maria.”

  “Pero Diego es!”

  “It’s the law, Maria.”

  She began to cry. “I thought you were good,” she muttered in English.

  “It’s the law, Maria.”

  As tears poured from her, she told him she had a cousin in Corpus Christi who could take the American baby.

  “No, no,” he pleaded. “Don’t split up your boys.” But she would not agree.

  Dickens drove Maria and her boys eight hours to Corpus Christi. They arrived at sunset. He walked her to the doorstep and pushed the doorbell. A small Mexican woman answered.

  “Soy tu prima,” Maria said. A flurry of Spanish flew between the women, and Dickens didn’t understand much of it. Both of the women started crying.

  “Por supuesto,” the aunt said. “Por supuesto.”

  After twenty minutes of conversation that he couldn’t follow, Dickens announced, “Es el momento.” He didn’t like rushing her, but it was getting late.

  Maria lowered her head. “Okay,” she muttered. She looked back and forth between her boys, and her face went blank. Dickens realized that she couldn’t tell the twins apart. One of them was an American, but she didn’t know which.

  “You have to pick,” he said.

  She gave the aunt the boy in her right arm. “Esto es un regalo, Diego,” she whispered to him. In English, she added, “For the love of God, do something good with it.”

  The sheriff drove Maria and Pedro to Brownsville and across the border into Mexico. Parking at a bus station, he opened his wallet, pulled out $138 in assorted bills, and placed them in her hand. “To get home,�
�� he said. She folded the money and shoved it into her pocket, held Pedro to her chest, and walked to the platform, never looking back.

  CHAPTER 1

  There were twelve anorexic women sitting in a circle in Room 4A at the Shirlington Community Center, but only one of them was fingering the phone in her pocket, waiting for the vibration of a text identifying the location of a serial killer.

  Dr. Colleen Childs had a strict no-phone policy, but Dagny Gray didn’t care. She probably had a no-gun policy, too, but Dagny’s was strapped under her jacket. FBI special agents were always on the clock, even in group therapy.

  At Dr. Childs’s signal, two women walked to the center of the circle, joined hands, and stared at each other for seconds that felt like minutes. Then, upon command, each traded compliments that escalated in uplift and hyperbole until both women collapsed in a tearful hug.

  Another pair took their place. As they traded words like powerful and magnificent, their voices tumbled under the hum of the air conditioner, which kept the room uncomfortably chilled. It was wrong to cool any room on an autumn day, Dagny thought, but especially wrong to cool a room full of slight and underweight women. Dr. Childs should have informed management to shut it down. She was too focused on emotional feelings and not enough on real ones.

  “Dagny and Elizabeth.”

  Dagny looked at Dr. Childs.

  “It’s your turn,” the doctor said.

  Dagny rose and took a couple of steps to the center of the circle. Elizabeth stood opposite her. Although she was only twenty-seven, Elizabeth looked and dressed like a much-older woman. Plaid sweater, covered in balled lint. Long pleated skirt. Glasses with a black frame and big lenses. Underneath it all, rail thin and worn. The girl took Dagny’s hands and stared into her eyes. Dagny averted her gaze.

  Dr. Childs motioned for Dagny to speak.

  “Elizabeth, you are a strong, fierce woman, and there’s nothing you can’t do.”

  “Louder, please,” Dr. Childs said.

  Dagny raised her voice. “I’ve only been here for a few weeks, but in that time, I’ve seen you grow.” She looked over at Dr. Childs, who was waving her hand to prod Dagny to continue. “You have the power to do anything you want. You need not let anything have power over you.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you, Dagny.”

  “Now, Elizabeth, tell Dagny what you see,” Dr. Childs said.

  Elizabeth looked at Dagny and smiled. “You are an ocean breeze on a summer day. You are a delicate flower—”

  Dagny blurted out a laugh. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and then despite her best efforts, she laughed again. The more she tried to suppress it, the harder it came.

  Dr. Childs rose from her seat. “We are here to support one another—”

  “I’m so sorry,” Dagny said. “I’m so sorry. But . . .” She surveyed the scowls in the circle around her. “This was a bad idea.” She grabbed her backpack.

  “Wait!” Dr. Childs yelled, but Dagny was already out the door. She jogged through the hall and ducked into the women’s room, and leaned against the sink.

  At thirty-five years old, she was fighting the same battles she had fought as a teenager. She grabbed a tissue from the dispenser and dabbed her eyes. Looking up at the mirror, she saw only sadness, and then Dr. Childs, standing behind her.

  Dagny turned. “I’m sorry.” She sniffed and wiped away a last tear.

  “Come back to group and tell them.”

  “I can’t talk about myself in front of other people. I don’t understand why anyone would want to. It seems like the whole point of this is to get us to say things in front of others that we wouldn’t want to say even to ourselves.”

  “Yes, that’s the point.” Dr. Childs was in her forties; her graying hair was pulled back in a bun that was neither too tight nor too casual. Her posture was good. She was fit but not thin and wore a professional suit, tailored to her build. Her glasses were stylish, and she wore just enough makeup that Dagny wasn’t sure she was wearing any. Her cadence was clear, and her sentences were concise. She never stumbled over words or changed course midthought. Her confidence unnerved Dagny.

  “I feel lost and confused right now,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good time for therapy.” She realized the absurdity of the sentiment as soon as she expressed it.

  “What about your boss?”

  The Professor had insisted that Dagny attend counseling sessions as a condition of her continued employment. “I’ll talk to him about it. He’ll give me a reprieve.”

  “I doubt that. He calls me to make sure that you’re attending. It seems quite important to him. You seem quite important to him.”

  That was news to Dagny. “He calls you?”

  “With a regularity that borders on intrusion.”

  Dagny smiled. “Despite the tears, you know, I’m fine. I’ve maintained my weight for—”

  “Three months.”

  “It’s been four.”

  “And you think that means you’re doing fine?”

  “My last relapse came at a difficult time. I’d lost someone important to me. It was an aberration.”

  “Losing people isn’t an aberration, Dagny. It’s a part of life. And if you can’t get through it without starving yourself, then you’ve got a problem.”

  “I have a system in place now.”

  “Anorexics are great with systems.”

  “I’m serious. I’m eating now. I always will.”

  “The fact that you think your problem is eating tells me you don’t have the slightest handle on it.”

  “That’s a powerful assessment of a person you barely know.” It was also, Dagny knew, spot-on.

  “So, let me get to know you.” Childs put her hand on Dagny’s shoulder. “Forget the group session. Try me one-on-one.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because you’ve got a good insurance plan.”

  Dagny laughed.

  “Will you let me try to help you?”

  She didn’t have a choice. It was a condition of her employment. “Okay.”

  Her phone buzzed against her leg. She pulled it from her pocket and glanced at the text from Victor.

  “I have an opening on Monday.”

  “I can’t,” Dagny said. “I’m going to Chicago.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Father Diego Vega was naked, still wet from the shower, and dripping water onto his bathroom rug. “I was sick, and you took care of me. I was in prison, and you visited me.” He grabbed a towel from the hook and tied it around his waist. “And the people to his right said, ‘We didn’t do any of these things.’” Diego grabbed a can of gel and pumped some into his hands, then lathered his face. Looking into the mirror above the sink, he saw short, dark hair; a strong chin; and weary eyes. There was nothing boyish about him anymore. When did that disappear? “‘We didn’t feed you. We didn’t clothe you.’ But Jesus stopped them. ‘When you did these things for the least of you, you did them for me.’ That’s what he said. And that is what it means to believe.”

  After shaving, he gathered his uniform: boxer shorts, black socks, black clerical shirt, black jeans, black belt, white collar insert, black shoes, and his watch. At one time, such garb made him feel special, but now it felt constricting and uncomfortable. Grabbing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen counter, he ran out to his car, a 1969 cherry-red Corvette convertible. Clenching the fruit in his mouth, he unlocked the door, started the engine, and headed toward town.

  A painted wood sign at the border announced: WELCOME TO BILFORD, OHIO’S FRIENDLIEST TOWN. The billboard forty feet behind it featured the full, round face of the county’s sheriff, who hiked a thumb over his shoulder under block letters declaring GO ON HOME! Diego took a bite of the apple.

  Downtown Bilford looked like America, at least the way it looked in the 1950s. A four-block grid of three-story buildings housed glass storefronts and apartments. American flags hung from telephone poles. There was a post office, a barbershop,
and a statue of a man riding a horse in the middle of a fountain, surrounded by a square patch of grass. At the center of the town stood the county courthouse, built tall like a mountain, casting its shadow everywhere.

  But it wasn’t the 1950s. The storefronts were mostly empty. The fountain rarely ran. The barber pole didn’t spin. Some artists had moved in and opened galleries; each seemed to last a month or two before another took its place. A theater company had taken over the old movie house so they could show Beckett to small, appreciative crowds. A handful of daring souls had opened restaurants, since the rents were cheap, and at least two of them had attracted a loyal clientele. There was some life in old Bilford. But of all the buildings in downtown, only the courthouse saw steady action.

  Diego worked the apple with one hand and turned the wheel with the other. “Sheep and the goats. Sheep and the goats. And lucky us, we live in the goats’ town,” he said. Or was it a ghost town? Lots of people lived in Bilford’s city limits; most of them didn’t go downtown, absent a summons. All of the new construction in Bilford was five miles west, next to the interstate that took people to Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and other places that were bigger and better. The schools were out by the interstate now. So were the library, the golf course, and a shopping mall. The local newspaper was there, and the local radio station, too. The jobs were there. They called it New Bilford, but it was still Bilford.

  Diego’s people didn’t live in downtown Bilford or New Bilford—they lived in the nooks and crannies in between. They lived one town over, in Cleves, and one town up, in Rhodes. They couldn’t afford to join the country club, but they fixed its roof. They did their best to avoid the courthouse, but they also cooked the lunch that the judge had delivered to his chambers every day.

  Diego passed by the statue and the fountain and the courthouse, and he turned onto Alpine Drive, which wound its way over a hill and along a river. He pulled into the gravel lot in front of Barrio Burrito and checked his watch: 9:28. “Faith comes slowly,” he said. He stepped out of the car and tossed the apple core into the woods next to the lot. Ignoring the Closed sign on the restaurant door, he walked inside. A plate sat on the counter; there was one tamale left, and he took it.