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Authors: Mary Logue

Tags: #Mystery

Dark Coulee (22 page)

BOOK: Dark Coulee
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The choking was the worst. He had only done that once before. She had thought he was going to kill her. It taught her that he could.

Just when she thought she would pass out, he let her go. Let her fall to the floor. She didn’t move. Let him think she was dead. Maybe he would leave her alone then.

He walked away and looked out the window at the lake. Then he came back toward her and kicked her in the face. She screamed.

“You know what I can do,” he said, standing over her.

When he was leaving, he said he would be back. She wondered when. Now that he had come to her house, he would do it again. He had told her there was a bond between them that was stronger than any other kind of love on Earth. There was no pattern to his anger. It made it harder not knowing what made it happen.

Once she had loved him so much that she didn’t mind when he beat her. Every time he had promised her it would never happen again. Every time he had been so good to her afterward, it more than made up for it. But after he had choked her the first time, she had left him.

That was over a year ago.

She reached her house and climbed the stairs, then pushed open the front door to her house.

It smelled funky. Her house had turned into a pigsty this week. She hadn’t done anything but moved from the bed to the couch. What was the use, when her world was going to be destroyed?

Stephanie sat down at her kitchen table and felt huge gulps of sobs pushing up inside her, trying to break out. She swallowed hard. Do something, she thought, anything rather than start crying again.

She stood and carried her coffee cup to the sink. The dishes were piled up until there wasn’t any room to put another plate down. Time to do the dishes.

She cleared out the sink and piled the dishes on the counter. She ran the water until it was hot, so hot it scorched her hands. Then she poured some yellow liquid soap into it. The bubbles came. She sank her dirty dishes into the water. She washed the dishes and stood them up in the drying rack.

Stephanie had always liked washing dishes. Submerging her hands in the warm water felt good after her cold walk to town. After a hard day’s work at the factory, it was about the only way she could get her fingernails clean. When she was finished with the dishes, she wiped down all the counters with her sponge. The kitchen was clean. It was a good start.

A bath. She needed a long, hot bath. She would wash her hair. She would put clean sheets on the bed.

Stephanie looked down at her hands. Short, stubby fingers. Plump and soft. They looked just like her mother’s hands. She should never have told her mother where she was. Her mother had a soft spot for him. She always told him everything, even when she promised not to.

Read more of Glare Ice

Tyrus Books, a division of F+W Media, publishes crime and dark literary fiction—offering books from exciting new voices and established, well-loved authors. Centering on deeply provocative and universal human experiences, Tyrus Books is a leader in its genre.

tyrusbooks.com

Published in Electronic Format by
TYRUS BOOKS
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
4700 East Galbraith Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45236

www.tyrusbooks.com

Copyright © 2000 by Mary Logue

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction.
Any similarities to people or places, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

eISBN 10: 1-4405-3294-X

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3294-8

This work has been previously published in print format by:
Walker Publishing Company, Inc.
Print ISBN: 0-8027-3351-4

BOOK: Dark Coulee
7.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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