Read At the Stroke of Madness for Free Online

O’Dell reached for the last doughnut, a chocolate-frosted number with bright pink and white sprinkles, and already she heard a “tsk-tsk” sound scolding her. She glanced over her shoulder at her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully.
    “That’s what you’re having for lunch?” he asked.
    “Dessert.” She added a cellophane-wrapped platter of one of the cafeteria’s daily specials. Something listed on the chalkboard as a “tacorito” supreme. Maggie couldn’t help thinking even the FBI couldn’t screw up something as good as Mexican food.
    “Doughnuts are not dessert,” Tully insisted.
    “You’re just jealous because it’s the last one.”
    “I beg to differ. Doughnuts are breakfast. Not dessert,” he told her as he held up the line, waiting for Arlene’s attention behind the counter, waiting for her to put down the steaming hot-out-of-the-oven pot of creamed corn, before he pointed to the roast beef. “Let’s ask the expert. Doughnuts are breakfast. Wouldn’t you agree, Arlene?”
    “Sweetie, if I had Agent O’Dell’s figure you’d see me eating doughnuts at every meal.”
    “Thank you, Arlene.” Maggie added a Diet Pepsi, then indicated to the cashier, a little mole-faced woman she didn’t recognize, that she’d pay for the tray coming behind her, too.
    “Wow!” Tully said when he noticed her generosity. “What’s the special occasion?”
    “Are you saying I never buy unless there’s a special occasion?”
    “Well, there’s that…that and the doughnut.”
    “Couldn’t it be that I’m having a great day?” she said while leading him to a table next to the window. Outside on one of Quantico’s many running trails, a half-dozen recruits were finishing their daily run, weaving through the pine trees single file. “Classes just ended for this session. I have no nightmare cases keeping me awake nights. I’m taking a few days off for the first time in…oh, about a hundred years. I’m actually looking forward to working in my garden. I even bought three dozen daffodil bulbs to add to the southwest corner. Just Harvey and me, enjoying this amazing fall weather, digging in the dirt and playing fetch. Why wouldn’t that put me in a good mood?”
    Tully was watching her. Sometime around the daffodil bulbs she realized he wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and said, “You never get this excited about time off, O’Dell. I’ve seen you before a three-day federally approved weekend, and you’re chomping at the bit for everyone to get the hell back in their offices first thing Tuesday morning so they don’t hold you up on whatever case you’re working. I wouldn’t be surprised if your briefcase is stuffed and ready for the backyard breaks. So really, what gives, O’Dell? What has you grinning like the cat that swallowed the parakeet?”
    She rolled her eyes at him. Her partner, ever the profiler, always “on” and solving puzzles. Hard to argue with him for something she did herself. Perhaps it was simply an occupational hazard. “Okay, if you must know, my lawyer finally got the last—the very, very last—of the divorce papers back from Greg’s lawyer. This time everything was signed.”
    “Ah. So it’s all over. And you’re okay with that?”
    “Of course, I’m okay with that. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”
    “I don’t know.” Tully shrugged as he tucked his tie—already stained with morning coffee—into his shirt, then scooped up mashed potatoes, gravy and all, and dumped them on top of his roast beef.
    Maggie watched as he dipped his shirt cuff into the gravy, completely unaware while he concentrated on building a dam out of his mashed potatoes. Maggie only shook her head and restrained herself from reaching across the table to wipe at his newest stain.
    Tully continued, fork and now knife working at his lunch creation, “I just remember having lots of mixed feelings when mine was final.” He looked up, checked her eyes and paused with fork in midair, as