Dead Ends (Main Street Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

been cleaved to form the highway. ‘The sign says CAUTION: FALLING ROCK.’
    ‘That sign has been there since you were a little girl. You just never paid it any mind.’
    ‘Well, I'm older and wiser now.’
    ‘Older and scared-er,’ Daisy said, and AnnaLise could feel the weight of her gaze. ‘And scared isn't a good way to live, no matter your age.’
    ‘I'm not scared,’ AnnaLise said, startled. She'd been working very hard at convincing herself that Ben's wife did not know about the affair. That it truly was the Porsche Tanja was talking about sharing, not her husband. But if she could look that murderous just about a car, how would she feel about –
    ‘You are feeling scared,’ Daisy said, ‘and you are feeling guilty. I just don't know why. I'm hoping it's not over me.’
    There was just a hint of a sniffle at the end of the last.
    ‘You?’ AnnaLise asked, ashamed that in addition to Daisy worrying about her own very real problems, the older woman was troubled about her daughter's hypothetical ones as well.
    But what to do? Confess to her mother she'd had a year-long adulterous affair with a man who was now sitting in Mama's restaurant with his betrayed wife and daughter?
    Granted, AnnaLise had come to her senses and ended it, but that didn't excuse it. Didn't excuse her, either, from the stupidity that made the journalist – of all people – believe that she and Ben were different. That only she understood him and that he, and he alone, ‘got’ her. That she must be pretty and smart and funny, because this man – this intelligent, powerful, older man – said so.
    And, biggest lie of all, that if nobody found out about their affair, no one would be hurt.
    AnnaLise , Daisy would say if she knew, a married man?
    And, worse, a married man, who – as cool as Ben Rosewood had played it – now didn't seem to be able to simply let go, witnessed by the text messages and emails she'd been systematically deleting without reading after the first two or three from him.
    AnnaLise had finally sent one last text message, composed painstakingly on her computer first, so she'd be sure to get it right. A clear and concise argument written in parallel structure and using the ‘Rule of 3’ Ben followed in making his closing arguments to juries.
    AnnaLise could hear the district attorney now, explaining why ‘three’ was the magic number: ‘Think about it. Julius Caesar's Veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw, I conquered. Lincoln's We can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. Even FDR's very own advice to speakers: Be sincere, be brief, be seated. We remember them, we repeat them, we live by them, all because of the Rule of 3.’
    Even the man's explanation of the rule was in triplicate. So, in answer to Ben's ‘Why can't we be together?’ AnnaLise replied:
    ‘Three reasons – you have a wife, you have a daughter, and I have a mother who needs me. Do not text me, do not email me, do not call me.’
    If only she'd thought to break the ‘Rule of 3’ to add a fourth: ‘And don't ever show up on my doorstep.’

Four
    The appointment with the neurologist was a huge relief or a colossal waste of time, depending on which of the two Griggs you believed.
    The doctor had been two hours late, meaning they'd finally gotten in to see him at 4 p.m. When he'd entered the exam room, where they'd been waiting another twenty minutes, he'd asked Daisy a few questions and suggested memory exercises she could do at home before saying she should call his medical assistant – who'd already left for the day, naturally – to schedule a CT scan and MRI ‘just to be safe.’
    ‘Talk about the bum's rush,’ AnnaLise said as they drove back toward Sutherton.
    ‘The man had an emergency,’ Daisy said, looking like the cat who swallowed the canary. Or worse, the Cheshire Cat who swallowed the canary. She seemed so smug, in fact, that AnnaLise wanted to scream.
    ‘Besides,’ Daisy continued,