Retribution Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Jilliane Hoffman
finally getting up the balls to actually speak.
And just yesterday, she had left some laundry in the dryer while she went back to her apartment for more quarters and had passed Marvin in the lobby on her way back to the laundry room, again pretending to waterplants. When she brought her laundry back to the apartment later, two pairs of her underwear had been missing.
Now her mail had actually been opened and taken. The thought of Marvin touching her panties and reading her letters while his fat body got off in his bed over her head made her queasy. After the bar she was going to have to start looking for a new apartment, no easy task in New York. She could not live beneath this weirdo anymore. Up until tonight she might have even considered moving in with Michael, but now…
Too many thoughts filled her aching head. When was she allowed to take more Tylenol anyway? She got up from bed and plodded across the living room to check the front door once again. She peered through the peephole, half expecting to see fat Marvin squatting naked outside her door, a coffee cup in one hand and a plant in the other. No one was there, and the lobby was dark.
She made sure she had double-locked the doors, and then she placed a large piece of duct tape over the mail slot on the inside of the door, so Marvin’s chubby fingers wouldn’t be able to force an opening wide enough for his peeping eyes to enter her apartment. The next morning she would nail a board over the slot and arrange to pick up her mail at the post office from now on.
She headed back to the coolness of her room and closed the bedroom door. She did a quick check of her ceiling to make sure Marvin hadn’t taken up carpentry as a new hobby. Finding no holes in the ceilings and nothing odd, she watched the television for a few more minutes, until the throbbing in her head subsided a bit. A boom of thunder sounded outside, and the lightsflickered. The storm sounded like a bad one – she might even lose the electricity tonight. She turned off the television and the lights and settled into bed, listening to the sound of rain as it hit the windows and the back of her air conditioner. It was a soft, soothing patter now, but Chloe knew the heavens would open up soon. Good. Maybe it would cool things off – the recent heat wave had been scorching.
Both physically and mentally exhausted, she finally fell into a deep sleep. She was in the middle of a strange and complicated dream about the bar exam when she heard the raspy, muffled voice directly over her.
‘Hi, Beany. How is my big girl in the big city? Wanna have some fun?’
7
He had slipped easily into the apartment through the unlocked window with the broken latch in the living room. It had just begun to pour outside, and he was completely soaked. With the curtains drawn, it was black in the room and he could see nothing. That was of no concern to him, though, as he was quite familiar with the layout of her apartment. The kitchen clock ticked loudly two rooms away. Carefully, he negotiated his way around the wood-and-metal end table with its sharp corners in the living room and the low-lying glass-topped coffee table strewn with newspapers from three days past.
He had been here many times before. He had stood in her living room, read her newspapers, her magazines, touched her law books. He had listened to her phone messages, seen her mail, and looked at her bills and knew, in fact, that the end table was from Pier I Imports and had not yet been paid for. He knew her slender size four, had touched her dresses, fingered her silk blouses, and smelled her laundry, softly scented with Tide and Snuggle fabric softener. He had secretly nibbled on leftover pizza from her refrigerator – her favorite: sausage and meatball with extra cheese. He knew she used Pan-tene shampoo and Dial soap and favored Chanel No. 5 perfume. He had stood before the mirror in her pale green-and-yellow bathroom, exposed, and rubbed gobs of her
And just yesterday, she had left some laundry in the dryer while she went back to her apartment for more quarters and had passed Marvin in the lobby on her way back to the laundry room, again pretending to waterplants. When she brought her laundry back to the apartment later, two pairs of her underwear had been missing.
Now her mail had actually been opened and taken. The thought of Marvin touching her panties and reading her letters while his fat body got off in his bed over her head made her queasy. After the bar she was going to have to start looking for a new apartment, no easy task in New York. She could not live beneath this weirdo anymore. Up until tonight she might have even considered moving in with Michael, but now…
Too many thoughts filled her aching head. When was she allowed to take more Tylenol anyway? She got up from bed and plodded across the living room to check the front door once again. She peered through the peephole, half expecting to see fat Marvin squatting naked outside her door, a coffee cup in one hand and a plant in the other. No one was there, and the lobby was dark.
She made sure she had double-locked the doors, and then she placed a large piece of duct tape over the mail slot on the inside of the door, so Marvin’s chubby fingers wouldn’t be able to force an opening wide enough for his peeping eyes to enter her apartment. The next morning she would nail a board over the slot and arrange to pick up her mail at the post office from now on.
She headed back to the coolness of her room and closed the bedroom door. She did a quick check of her ceiling to make sure Marvin hadn’t taken up carpentry as a new hobby. Finding no holes in the ceilings and nothing odd, she watched the television for a few more minutes, until the throbbing in her head subsided a bit. A boom of thunder sounded outside, and the lightsflickered. The storm sounded like a bad one – she might even lose the electricity tonight. She turned off the television and the lights and settled into bed, listening to the sound of rain as it hit the windows and the back of her air conditioner. It was a soft, soothing patter now, but Chloe knew the heavens would open up soon. Good. Maybe it would cool things off – the recent heat wave had been scorching.
Both physically and mentally exhausted, she finally fell into a deep sleep. She was in the middle of a strange and complicated dream about the bar exam when she heard the raspy, muffled voice directly over her.
‘Hi, Beany. How is my big girl in the big city? Wanna have some fun?’
7
He had slipped easily into the apartment through the unlocked window with the broken latch in the living room. It had just begun to pour outside, and he was completely soaked. With the curtains drawn, it was black in the room and he could see nothing. That was of no concern to him, though, as he was quite familiar with the layout of her apartment. The kitchen clock ticked loudly two rooms away. Carefully, he negotiated his way around the wood-and-metal end table with its sharp corners in the living room and the low-lying glass-topped coffee table strewn with newspapers from three days past.
He had been here many times before. He had stood in her living room, read her newspapers, her magazines, touched her law books. He had listened to her phone messages, seen her mail, and looked at her bills and knew, in fact, that the end table was from Pier I Imports and had not yet been paid for. He knew her slender size four, had touched her dresses, fingered her silk blouses, and smelled her laundry, softly scented with Tide and Snuggle fabric softener. He had secretly nibbled on leftover pizza from her refrigerator – her favorite: sausage and meatball with extra cheese. He knew she used Pan-tene shampoo and Dial soap and favored Chanel No. 5 perfume. He had stood before the mirror in her pale green-and-yellow bathroom, exposed, and rubbed gobs of her
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