Edge of Midnight Read Online Free

asleep.
    â€œHey, baby.” He shook her and kissed her hard. “You’ve been reading too much. That’s why you get these headaches all the time.”
    She lay like a dumb cow, waiting for whatever came next.
    â€œYou need to stop it.”
    Her heart jumped a beat and her breath caught.
    â€œAnd stop going to that exercise place. That friend of yours? That Arlette bitch?”
    Breathe. Pull air in, push air out. Don’t say anything to set him off.
    â€œYou shouldn’t see her any more. She puts ideas in your head.” Hand on her throat, he squeezed. She couldn’t breathe, started to panic. Just when a rushing sound began to fill her mind, he eased his grip.
    â€œOkay?” He stroked her throat, barely touching with his fingertips.
    She swallowed, swallowed again.
    â€œOkay?” he repeated and squeezed gently.
    The next day she ran into Arlette at Sylvia’s. Mitch, furious when Cary’s mother had given her a membership as a birthday present, told her she couldn’t go. She’d pleaded and wheedled and emphasized it was only for women, no men allowed, pointed out he’d said she was getting fat and this would help her lose a few pounds.
    â€œWhat’s with you?” Arlette said. “Why are you hobbling around like an invalid?”
    Cary tightened up her face in a rueful smile. “Just a little sore. I fell down the back steps running in to answer the phone. Two big bags of groceries. Everything all over the place.”
    A hot pit of shame formed in her stomach. Lying was foreign to her. She wasn’t good at it and she hated the way the lie made her feel. Sticky and slimy, like some nightmare creature wading through thick ooze.
    Her whole life was a lie, and she piled lies on top of lies every time she deliberately tripped or bumped into a chair to prove how clumsy she was and give herself a reason for the bruises. How are you? How’s Mitch? How’s everything going? Good. Good. Good. Lies lies lies. And the fake smiles that went along with them.
    Arlette shot her a sharp look. They were longtime friends and Cary worried about those looks. She was quick, Arlette, an attorney with the firm where Cary had been bookkeeper until Mitch convinced her to quit. Smart dresser, straight, sleek dark hair and brown eyes, Arlette was a take-charge kind of person. Unlike Cary.
    She felt relief when Arlette glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run. Got a client. Meet me at the Donut Shop at three-thirty.”
    â€œOh gosh, I really can’t. I have too much to do.”
    â€œOne cup of coffee. Be there. Or I’ll come and get you.” Arlette strode off toward her car.
    â€œI’m going to the library,” Cary said.
    â€œI’ll pick you up. Look up books on battered women.”
    Cary looked around, horrified that someone might have heard, but no one was paying the slightest bit of attention.
    Early on, Mitch tried to stop her from going to the library, but for the only time in their miserable marriage she’d stood up to him, told him she would go and he couldn’t stop her. As soon as she got inside the building with all the books, she felt ease seep into her soul and smooth out the wrinkles. Glancing over the new fiction, she pulled out any that looked interesting, two biographies, a book on dogs and the phenomenal things they could be trained to do, then sat down at one of the tables to soak in an hour of peace.
    Trying to read with her small circle of vision soon had her feeling the streaky beginnings of a migraine. Was his beating her causing the trouble? Detached retina? Did optic nerves get swollen, like everything else when they were smacked around?
    Tears washed up and, before she could stop them, trickled down her face. She plunged through her bag until she found a tissue and mopped her face. Reading was something she’d always done excessively. If staying with Mitch would take that away, then she was