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Then, after high school, there had been the endless succession of dead-end jobs: the phone company, Macy's, assistant for a vet who spent more time trying to get his hand up her dress than to get pills down cats' throats. Later, she'd waited tables and tended bar, cleaning ashtrays and glasses and dreaming of seeing the worldany world, just as long as it wasn't New York. |
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It had taken her twenty-eight years to find Bryan Douglas, but the moment he'd walked into the bar she'd known he was her ticket out. Tall, good-looking, dressed like he'd just walked off the set of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. He had a soft, round face that looked like it needed a shave maybe once a week and dark brown hair with just the right touch of gray at the temples. His eyes were blue and at times cold, and his nails were meticulously kept and freshly manicured. It wasn't until much later that Kyna heard Bryan threaten to shoot a manicurist if he got so much as a hangnail. |
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But before that, she'd done it all: parties, yachts, drugs. Until the cruelty and banality of the creeps in Bryan's circle of sycophants began to feel like worms burrowing their way slowly into her brain. The first time she had shared these feelings with him was the first time he broke her arm. |
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The memory of that cast floated like a cloud in front of her eyes, rough and white with Bryan's friends' stringy signatures all over it like bird droppings. |
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Glancing at the silver-and-turquoise bracelet on her wrist, Kyna remembered how sorry he'd beenand how sweet. She looked at the other bracelet and at the rings on her fingers. Her medals. She thought of them as her medalslike purple hearts. Besides, had it really been any worse than what her old man used to do? Certainly not bad enough to make her leave. Where would she go? Back to New York? |
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It was all mental masturbation anyway. Bryan wasn't about to let her leaveshe knew too much. Customers, routes, amounts, dates, even the names of some of his contract burglars. More than enough to keep an army of prosecutors busy |
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