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.“But more important than the physical exercise were the mental ones.” She looked up at Edie.“As badly as he beat me, as often as he raped me, the thing I was afraid of most of all was slowly losing my mind.”It was the first time Colette had said anything about the beatings or the rapes she’d endured and although Edie wanted to know more, she held her tongue.It all had to come from Colette when and how she was ready to tell.“I recited poetry that I remembered from my childhood.I sang a different song every day.I tried to remember the words to all the old Beatle songs.I did math problems in my head, imagined puzzles and tried to solve them.I knew I had to stay mentally active in order to keep my sanity.I had to be ready to take advantage of any path of escape that might present itself.”Edie leaned back in her chair and gazed at Colette thoughtfully.“Why do you think he took you? I mean, why you in particular? Or do you think it was just a random thing?”It was a question that had haunted Edie for years after Francine’s death…still haunted her in the darkness of the night.Why Francine? Why had Greg Bernard become obsessed with Francine? Why not one of the other little girls who walked home from school every day.Why not me? A little voice whispered in the back of her brain.“It wasn’t random.He showed me a picture of his ex-wife one night.I looked a lot like her.After I saw the picture I started thinking back over the weeks before he abducted me.I’m fairly sure he stalked me for a while before he finally got me.But I know he chose me specifically because I looked like her.”“Do you remember seeing him in the weeks before he took you?”Colette shook her head.“No, but I do remember several times I thought I was being watched.You know that creepy crawly feeling you get when you’re out at the store or in a parking lot and the hairs on the nape of your neck tingle? I felt that several times.Then there was one night I went out for a walk and thought I was being followed.By the time I got back into my apartment I dismissed it, told myself I was just being a silly willy.In retrospect I certainly wished I would have paid more attention to those things.”She set her fork down and pushed the last of the cake aside.“That’s part of why I want to do this book, to tell women to listen to their instincts, to pay attention to what’s happening around them.It’s okay to be a little paranoid.Sometimes, somebody really is after you.”“You know it’s not your fault,” Edie said.Colette flashed her one of her beautiful smiles.“I know.It took me a while to figure that out.Until he showed me the picture of his ex-wife, I spent a lot of time wondering why me? Seeing her photo answered that question for me.”“So, he wanted you as the wife who had left him.”Colette’s eyes darkened with the flash of demons left behind.“It was so bizarre.On the nights he came to the cellar he brought dinner and we’d sit together at the table like a married couple.He’d tell me about his day, although never with enough details for me to know exactly what he did or where he worked.It took me a while to realize there was a script in his head that I was supposed to follow.When I got something wrong, whether it was a comment I made or didn’t make or a glance misplaced, I was beaten.In those first few months I was beaten a lot.”“Was it during one of those beatings that he cut your face?” Edie asked.Colette jumped out of her kitchen chair and carried her cake plate to the sink.Edie wondered if perhaps she’d pushed her too hard.She sat silently while Colette scraped the last of her cake into the garbage disposal and then turned to look at Edie once again.She reached up and touched the ropey scars that would forever mar the natural beauty she had once been.“He beat me black and blue over the three years that he held me captive.He pulled my hair, broke my ribs, and twisted my fingers until I screamed, but he never touched my face.That last night he loaded me up in the back of his van and drove me to that empty parking lot across from The Dollar Discount Store.He pulled me out of the back of his van, tied up like a turkey, and for a moment, just for a moment hope filled me as I realized he might let me go.He just might let me live.”Her voice rose slightly and her cheeks flushed with what appeared to be the first anger Edie had seen in her.She grabbed a nearby hand towel and began to twist it around her hands
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