Code PINK_A Novel Of Suspense

by Erica R Stinson

  For instance, I wanted to work, but he wouldn’t allow me to have a job. I had seen plenty of openings in the zillions of restaurants all over Manhattan and I was stoked. So, I was very surprised when he flat-out told me no.

  “My wife doesn’t have to work.” He’d proclaimed, kissing me as he told me to just take care of the household and he’d do all the hard stuff. I quickly grew bored sitting at home all the time, but my cooking skills increased as I watched The Food Network religiously and actually learned how to make some really good dishes. I watched Chopped, Master Chef, Hell’s Kitchen and Top Chef religiously, looking and learning. I really wished that I had the brains to open my own place someday. I wished I had just gone ahead and at least tried it in Virginia instead of abandoning my dream and moving to New York so quickly. Evan knew that I dreamt of it, but I never really brought it up anymore for fear that he’d mock me, or make me feel stupid for not seeing it through. My plan hadn’t really worked out once I started seeing Evan, and I had just let the silly notion go, eating and watching others live their dreams as I sat in front of the television day in and day out, growing fatter.

  When some courses were advertised at The French Culinary Institute, I begged Evan to let me take them. He’d hemmed and hawed, but he finally relented when I told him that I needed something to keep me active during the day while he was at work. I told him that his meals would be a lot better, and since he already liked my cooking, he was sold. He was impressed with the new dishes I’d learned, and often praised my talent to others.

  I had even made a number of friends in the class, a welcome change from being alone for most of the time. I was invited out for drinks and just fun stuff like lunches, movies and concerts in the park, loving the fact that I had finally met some people that wanted to be real friends, unlike the phonies that Evan hung around with. But Evan had complained that all of these activities would keep me out of the house too much, and that my place was at home.

  I had been mad as hell about this one, because he couldn’t really expect to be my only friend in the entire state of New York.

  I wanted to go out.

  I wanted to see the city, the sights and taste the different foods that we didn’t have in Virginia, just have fun with my new friends. But to keep the peace, I started to decline whenever I was invited out. This had happened over a year ago, and after not hearing from me for so long, my new friends slowly stopped calling and finally ceased altogether.

  One of the other things that really bothered me was that Evan would pick fights over little, stupid, shit for no reason, because he could be incredibly anal about things at times. Lord knows, I tried to be better and do everything I could to keep the peace, but Evan wanted me to be perfect and I had learned a long time ago that nobody was perfect.

  Sometimes I just got tired of trying to be something I wasn’t. In Evan’s eyes, I had to look and be perfect all of the time. Deep down inside, I think I antagonized him out of spite because the pressure he put on me was enormous.

  I thought about killing myself sometimes, just to end it on my terms instead of waiting for him to lose control one day and do it for me.

  I lay awake for most of the night, with all that had transpired since I’d discovered I was pregnant, while Evan snored loudly next to me, not knowing what to do. And as the sun rose the following morning, after an agonizingly long and sleepless night, I knew then exactly what I had to do.

  I had to get out.

  ***

  When his alarm went off a short while later, I got up and made the bed, and while he showered, I laid out one of the more casual business suits that he reserved for traveling. I dutifully packed his suitcase and I made sure that he had all of his toiletries and other things he’d need for his business trip. I picked out his best suits and put them gently into the garment bags where they belonged. I checked the shoes, from an expensive label that he insisted on wearing, for scuff-marks and packed them neatly.

  Evan strode out of the bathroom, naked and smiling and he slipped his arms around me, pulling me close as I fought the bile rising in my throat.

  He took his time getting dressed and then making phone calls to his office as I made a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast which included freshly squeezed orange juice. His New York Times lay at the side of his plate, the business section on the top, just the way he liked it.

  Evan told me all about his upcoming business trip as he ate, snatching up a third piece of toast to slather it with some of my homemade orange marmalade.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked, directing his gaze to my plate which was scantily filled with eggs and bacon, dry toast.

  I hadn’t taken a single bite yet, sitting at my place across from him with my hands folded neatly in my lap. It was to the point that I almost hated to eat in front of him, because he always had a comment waiting.

  “I’ll eat some in a bit. I still don’t feel too well.” I answered, in a near-whisper.

  “It’s probably for the best, right now.” He said, thoughtfully, as he appraised me. “We need to get you back in the gym. You’ve really put on some weight lately. I don’t know how you think you’re going to fit into your dress in April.”

  I didn’t even bother to respond to that one as Evan prepared some peppermint tea for me, setting it down next to my plate, as he rubbed my back affectionately.

  I winced as the stinging bruises there came alive at his touch, the ones he’d given me a few days ago when he’d shoved me so hard that I fell against the wardrobe in our bedroom.

  “Drink this. It’ll help.” He said, softly, as I sipped it gingerly, after thanking him.

  “Better?” he asked, moving my hair aside so that he could press a kiss against the nape of my neck, as I nodded. “Good.”

  I got the dishes cleared, washed and put away as Evan checked last minute emails and got some papers from his home office. I waited for him at the front door as he made sure he had everything. He pulled me to him, placing his hands on my backside and gave my buttocks a gentle squeeze.

  “Have I told you how much I love you, today?” he murmured against my hair as his grip on me tightened. Evan was gazing at me now, as he leaned closer and then paused.

  He was still convinced that I was contagious.

  “You’re sure you’re going to be all right, Daphne?” he was asking now, clutching me to him as we stood in the foyer. “I can call off the meeting, if you need me to. That’s what Skype is for.”

  I shook my head, and pressed my cheek against his broad chest as he hugged me.

  “When I come back, we’ll go somewhere nice for the weekend. Anywhere you want to go.” He whispered as I nodded against him and he cupped my face in his large hands as he stared deeply into my eyes, stroking my cheek.

  “Hurry home.” I said, before he gave me a tender kiss just off the side of my mouth.

  “Behave yourself, and watch your intake.” He reminded me, as I nodded and hoped he hadn’t seen me roll my eyes at the comment. Even though he was heading out the door, my diet was still foremost in his mind.

  “I will.”

  And then he was gone down the hallway to get the elevator down to the lobby so that he could catch a cab to JFK.

  I was starting to have second thoughts about everything as I began to pack a suitcase for myself, feeling sick about my decision to finally leave him once and for all.

  I ran to the bathroom to throw up, rinsing out my mouth afterward as I tried to get my stomach to settle down. I raised my nightgown up over my stomach and I could see the faint swell that hadn’t been there a few days ago and I thought of the baby that I was definitely carrying.

  This was not the only time I’d been pregnant, losing the first baby to a miscarriage not too long after Evan and I started living together. I was sure it was due to that first beating Evan had given me, and I’d never said anything to him about it.

  Ever.

  He’d never even known that I was pregnant and I’d silently mourned
my loss, convinced that the next one would survive, the child cementing our relationship and possibly even calming him down some.

  But it hadn’t happened that way.

  Stress, not eating well and my fragile nerves from dealing with Evan’s Jekyll and Hyde routine had caused me to lose the second baby I’d gotten pregnant with, less than a year ago.

  This was my third shot, and I didn’t want to imagine anything happening to it.

  I may not have made it past the first trimester with the other two, but this baby was going to be protected and loved.

  Would she have my personality?

  Evan’s good looks?

  My hair?

  What about his smile?

  In my fantasy world, where Evan was kind and even tempered, I imagined a beautiful little girl for him to spoil rotten or a handsome boy for him to play sports with in Central Park.

  It was stupid of me to even dream that things could possibly work out at this point. And I refused to put my child through a life with a father that would resent, batter and abuse. Evan’s own father treated him indifferently, and that was a big part of his problem. They had a strained relationship, to say the least, and I hadn’t even met his parents yet. I found all of this odd, and more and more I was convinced that I was doing the right thing by escaping the abuse.

  I’d seen enough of that to last me two lifetimes and I was going to protect my child at all costs.

  I slept for most of the day, intending to leave first thing the following morning. I thought about calling Brent to tell him that I was coming home, but I was sure that he would ignore my calls as I’d stupidly done his since I’d left home.

  He’d tried to warn me about moving in with Evan, especially out of state and so far away from family, so quickly. I hated that fact that Brent had been right about Evan being everything he’d predicted and more, even though I knew that he would never berate me for not listening to him.

  He had called me a number of times over the past few months, yet I had never bothered to return them, lest it start an argument between Evan and me.

  Evan had an insane jealous streak, and in his world men and women could not be friends without something going on. I saw Brent as a friend, and nothing more, despite the fact that Mom and Dad had tried to push us together as teens, failing miserably.

  But Evan could not be dissuaded of his beliefs, no matter what, so I’d just stopped mentioning Brent altogether.

  On a whim I picked up my computer tablet and looked up Brent’s Facebook profile and saw that he was in a relationship with someone named Courtney-Jane Meadows now. Had been for at least a year, or so it seemed, as I’d done some more digging. Further clicking brought me to her profile, and what appeared to be a photo of a gorgeous fashion model staring back at me from the screen.

  This girl was definitely high maintenance.

  Her long, shimmering hair was a bold, brassy red color and her meticulously lined eyes were narrow, like a cat’s, and were a light, pale green color. Her lips were wide, and she wore a glossy red stain on them. Her pert nose had a smattering of freckles across it, but you could barely see them underneath the professional makeup job she’d done on her face. I looked at a picture of her nestled in Brent’s large arms, shaking my head at just how stick thin Courtney-Jane was. The woman had no breasts, hips, thighs or buttocks, to speak of. I had never seen someone so rail thin before, her thighs, underneath the very short skirt she wore, not even touching each other at all. It looked like she could wear a bracelet for a belt, with her tiny waist, no fat of any kind anywhere on her lithe body.

  Courtney-Jane’s fingernails were long and painted a fiery red color, as were her toenails in the designer sandals she wore, with very high heels.

  She had put pictures of her and Brent up on her wall from a recent event, a gala of some sort, but I couldn’t see everything on her timeline because she and I were not friends, at least not yet.

  I smiled faintly to see Brent looking so well and happy.

  His hair had grown quite a bit, which was very different from the short style that he normally wore and a look I’d never seen him try before. I liked it on him.

  Brent was tall, about six feet, four inches in height, with a muscular physique not betraying an ounce of excess body fat. His thick golden, blonde hair was styled in gentle waves, off his face. His beautifully shaped mouth always offered an easy-going smile to everyone he met, with his white teeth straight, even, and perfect. I shook my head with faint smile at the memory of how much he’d hated wearing those damned braces.

  Brent could have easily landed a successful career as a model, with blue eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea that sometimes seemed to change shades depending on his mood as they went from light to dark. He’d actually had offers to model in the past, agents sometimes stopping him on the street, but it just didn’t appeal to him.

  He loved finance too much.

  People never believed what he did for a living, as his size always seemed to belie his occupation, and often people showed surprise that this handsome, brawny, blonde had some serious brains in addition to his good looks.

  Brent had an IQ of one-hundred and twenty-nine, just shy of being gifted. Very few people knew this about him, and he liked it that way. Despite his humbleness, people were drawn to him like moths to a flame, and he got on famously with just about everyone that he met.

  I knew that Brent would do anything for me, without regard for himself. He was like that, and that’s why I loved him so much.

  I felt my eyes fill with tears as I realized just how much I had really missed Brent and needed to talk to him. I probably should have called him and told him what was going on long ago.

  But what good would it do to have him in jail?

  I clicked through some more of the photos on Brent’s profile, his blue eyes were shining in just about every one that Jane accompanied him in. Brent was smiling broadly in a photo of them in fancy restaurant somewhere, his arm slung familiarly around Courtney-Jane’s petite shoulders and I read the caption she’d written beneath the photo.

  OMG! Just got engaged!!!

  The photo was dated about three weeks ago. There was another of Courtney-Jane smiling happily, with teeth I was sure had been whitened, perched on Brent’s lap. His face was pressed against her cheek, his lips kissing it, his eyes closed in romantic bliss.

  In another photo, her slender fingers showcased the impressive engagement ring that she wore. I stared at the large, elaborate ring, pretty sure that it had cost Brent some serious money, judging from the size of it.

  I went back to Brent’s profile, starting to type something along the lines of congratulations in the comments section and then thought better of it.

  He probably didn’t want to hear from me, anyway.

  We’d grown so far apart since I’d left Virginia, and I knew that seeing him again might not be the happy reunion that I was hoping for. He hadn’t even told me that he had a girlfriend serious enough that he’d proposed marriage to her, and that hurt.

  We had always told each other everything, kept each other’s secrets. Literally, if you saw one of us, the other one wasn’t too far behind. But I had no one to blame for our deflated relationship but myself.

  Please Turn The Page To Read An Excerpt Of The Prequel to

  Survival Tactics

  Swept Away: A Survival Tactics Novella

  By. Erica R. Stinson

  Available now as a free bonus eBook at your favorite online retailer

  1 White Collars

  My iPhone began to jingle as I startled awake and groaned. It was the third time I had snoozed the alert, and it was already ten after eight. I didn’t have to be to the restaurant until ten-thirty, but I had some stuff to take care of before I went in for my shift.

  I heard a nearly identical groan from the twin bed across from mine, and I turned to see Suzy sit up, her long blonde hair all over her head as she yawned loudly.

  I could tell just by looking at her
that she’d only gotten an hour of sleep at best, the dark circles under her blue-green eyes a dead giveaway. I never even heard her come in.

  “What?” she asked, defensively as I smirked and shook my head.

  Suzy was notorious for hanging out until all hours and then sneaking into the house afterward, hoping my parents wouldn’t catch her at it. However, this particular weekend, my parents were out of town at a local resort and Suzy and I had the house to ourselves. They were due back sometime late this morning.

  She was taking full advantage, even though I was ‘in charge’ of her. I was nearly ten years older than she was, but I had no control over my sister at all.

  “Were you with Derrick again?” I asked, as she smiled and laid back against her pillows with a satisfied look on her beautiful face.

  “Things are really starting to heat up with him.” She gushed as her blue-green eyes sparkled, giving me much more information than I wanted to hear.

  Suzy was hardly a virgin, but I worried about her dating so many guys at once and getting ahead of herself.

  As she filled me in on some of her sexual adventures from the night before, I felt my face growing hot with embarrassment. I didn’t like to talk about sex and hadn’t had any encounters of my own since college, extremely rare as they were.

  It was just something that I could do without, truth be told.

  I had been abused by my biological parents from the time I was about six or seven years old. Regularly molested and raped by my father and physically abused by my mother. I had been yanked out of my home at the age of ten by child protective services, and promptly put into the foster care system. I wasn’t there long before a very nice couple showed up, offering to take me in as they explained that they were Brent’s parents.

  Brent had been in my class at school and we’d been close friends at the time, and I somewhat knew his parents from visiting his home a time or two. He was the one who’d told them about what was going on with me while I’d been in the hospital, recovering from my mother’s attempt to murder me.