Whispers at Midnight
Whispers at Midnight
Robards, Karen
Atria Books (2003)
O
THER
T
ITLES BY
K
AREN
R
OBARDS
Whispers at Midnight
Irresistible
To Trust a Stranger
Paradise County
Scandalous
Ghost Moon
The Midnight Hour
The Senator’s Wife
Heartbreaker
Hunter’s Moon
Walking after Midnight
Maggy’s Child
One Summer
This Side of Heaven
Dark of the Moon
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Karen Robards
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-7434-5346-8
ISBN: 978-0-74347-547-1 (eBook)
First Atria Books hardcover printing January 2003
ATRIA
BOOKS
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Contents
This book is dedicated as always to my husband, Doug, and my three sons, Peter, Christopher, and Jack, with all my love. It is also dedicated with special love to my very own Curls, who knows who he is.
June 20
“I
’M NOT LIVING
with no flea-bitten mutt, so you can just get it the hell out of here!”
The mutt cowered against her legs. Marsha Hughes scooped it up, then took a cautious step back, glad that Keith was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and not between her and the exit door. She knew that tone. She knew the expression on Keith’s reddening face. She knew what came next after the angry tightening of his brawny arms, the clenching of his meaty fists. The dog, a small, pitiful-looking stray she had found huddled behind the Dumpster outside their run-down apartment building, seemed to know too. Looking at Keith from the shelter of her arms, it began to shake.
“Okay, okay,” Marsha said to Keith placatingly, while at the same time tightening her hold on the trembling dog. It wasn’t anything special, it wasn’t worth making Keith mad over, but she wasn’t going to let him hurt it if she could help it. There was something about it that tugged at her heartstrings. Not much bigger than a cat, it was skinny and dirty and obviously unloved, a female with liquid dark eyes in a foxlike face, big, upright ears, a short, dull black coat with a single white spot on its chest and a curling, improbably feathered tail. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a sweet dog that had come to her when she had knelt and snapped her fingers at it. It had let her pick it up and
carry it inside and up the stairs, licking her hand in appreciation when she had fed it a meal of baloney and cheese, which was about all they’d had in the refrigerator since this was Thursday night and neither she nor Keith got paid until Friday. In the hours between the time she’d gotten home from her job as a cashier at Winn-Dixie and had found the dog and the time Keith had come in from working the second shift at the Honda plant and started pitching a hissy fit about it, she’d kind of thought she might keep it. With Keith gone in the evenings, it would be something to come home to. Something she could talk to and fuss over and maybe even love.
When she thought about it, it was kind of sad that she was starting to have to look to a stray dog for love, but if that was the way her life was headed, then there was no point in ducking the facts. She was thirty-five years old, a redhead with a pretty good figure if she did say so herself, but a face that was starting to show some age. Men had mostly quit giving her second looks now. The other day, in the Rite-Aid, she’d sort of flirted with the hot young guy who’d filled her prescription. He’d been friendly, but when he called her “ma’am” as he told her to have a nice day she’d gotten the message: thanks, but no thanks. The plain truth was that she was slip-sliding over the hill, with two divorces behind her and not much in front of her except this good-looking but bad-tempered man and her dead-end job.
“So get it out,” Keith said, his tone menacing as he gave her
the look.
The look was kind of like a storm warning, giving her a heads-up that one of their bad times was brewing. Her mouth went dry. Her stomach lurched. Keith in a good mood was sweet as moon pie. Keith in a bad mood was scary.
“Okay,” she said again, and turned toward the door. Defused for the time being, Keith turned too, disappearing into the kitchen. Taking a deep, relieved breath as the door that separated the kitchen from the living room swung shut behind him, Marsha hugged the dog closer.
It licked her chin.
“Sorry, angel,” she whispered regretfully in its ear. “But you see how it is: You’ve got to go.”
The dog gave a sad little whine as if it understood and forgave her. Patting it, she felt a flicker of regret. It was a good dog.
From the kitchen, she heard Keith say
“Goddamn!”
Then, louder,
“Where the hell’s the fucking baloney?”
She almost wet her pants. Just as she had feared he would, he’d lit on an excuse to kick his bad mood up a notch. Now he was mad. Now he would take it out on her. When he got mad, it always seemed to end up being because of something she had or hadn’t done. Tonight it would be about the baloney.
The refrigerator door slammed.
Galvanized, Marsha snatched her purse from under the end table beside the couch and bolted, making it out the apartment door just as he burst into the living room.
“Where the hell’s the fucking baloney?” he roared. His voice boomed after her through the door that, in her haste, she’d left open behind her. By the time she reached the top of the stairs, he was already coming through it.
“I don’t know.” Clutching both dog and purse in her arms, she threw the answer back at him over the noise her ancient Dr. Scholl’s made clattering down the metal steps.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? The hell you don’t. The baloney was in the refrigerator when I left for work and now it’s gone. Don’t tell me you don’t know where it is!” He was leaning over the guardrail at the top of the stairs now, his face beet-red with rage as he glared down at her.
“I’ll go to the store and get some more, all right?” Out of breath, she reached the downstairs hall. Awkwardly juggling dog and purse, she grabbed for the knob of the heavy metal door that opened onto the parking lot. The purse she had to have: her keys were in it. The dog she didn’t. But if she left it behind, Keith would take his anger out on it. She knew Keith. When he was mad, he was mean as a snake.