Code PINK_A Novel Of Suspense

by Erica R Stinson

  “Hello to you, too, Mother.” Vera said, quietly with just enough sarcasm in her voice to get away with it.

  “What were you doing?” Marianne inquired nosily, and then she paused mid-sentence as her eyes crawled towards Vera’s bedroom before widening slightly. A sly smirk appeared on her face now. “Do you have a man in here?”

  Vera sighed wearily deciding the best way to deal with Marianne would be to find out what she wanted so that she could get her mother out of there. She was actually very surprised to see Marianne since the big blow-up three weeks ago, but neither one of them mentioned it.

  “What do you want, Mother?” Vera asked, tiredly, suppressing a groan as Marianne took off her light coat and made herself comfortable on the sofa.

  She didn’t want her to get settled.

  She wanted her out of here already.

  “That’s a nice tone to use with your mother.” Marianne snorted, “But then again, what else is new?”

  Vera shook her head lightly, knowing that her mother would never change and she sat in her favorite upholstered chair from IKEA, as far away from the woman as possible.

  “I could use something to drink first. Really Vera, where are your manners?” her mother chastised her, as Vera got to her feet.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.” She apologized meekly, before she could stop herself.

  Habit.

  She fixed a pot of tea and listened to the silence from her small kitchen as her mother continued to sit on the sofa as if she were a queen. She sucked her teeth again as she heard the television go silent.

  That meant a lecture was coming, if Marianne wanted it completely quiet.

  When the tea was finally ready and Vera served them, she sat back in her chair.

  “So....” Vera began, not even bothering with dressing her tea as Marianne took one sip and then moved the cup away. She had finished. “What’s going on?”

  “Your father and I have been talking and we’d like you to re-consider moving back home.”

  Vera closed her eyes as she braced herself for what she knew was coming next. They didn’t care about her enough to really want her back home, and when she had moved out two years ago they had called her selfish.

  Treated her like she was a monster for simply wanting her own life.

  She didn’t have any friends because she could never bring them home without fear of her parents and family humiliating her.

  The few that she’d tried to make in the past would look at her with pity once her parents started filling them in about Victoria, what had happened to her and how she had died so young.

  What a tragedy the whole thing was.

  What a disappointment that Vera was, in their manner towards her if not in their words.

  She wasn’t surprised at all that her mother still kept a shrine for a dead twelve year old girl, after all this time. Marianne would even talk about Victoria as if she were actually here.

  Who would want to be friends with someone whose parents didn’t even respect their own daughter, who was still alive?

  Who still needed and wanted love.

  Who had parents that could only lament about the daughter they had really loved.

  The one that had been lost, no gratitude for the one they still had.

  After all, Vera had been in the accident too.

  Her brother, Henry, had been smart and had gotten away as soon as he graduated high-school and started college out of state.

  But Hank was different than she was.

  He was everything a father could be proud of.

  Good grades, football scholarship and he’d met his wife Pauline while attending school and married her shortly after she got pregnant their junior year.

  Of course, neither one of her parents had said anything about the fact that they were having a baby out of wedlock.

  They were just happy that their golden-boy son was giving them a grandchild.

  Then Marianne would start grilling Vera about taking better care with her appearance so that she could attract a man enough to possibly incite marriage and have a family of her own.

  But she already knew that she didn’t want any whiny, snot-nosed rug-rats in her life.

  Ever.

  She just wanted to be alone.

  Okay, not completely alone, but maybe with a man that would adore her and do all the romantic stuff that she could only dream of.

  Or at least fantasize about while she’d masturbate, guiltily, when she was really feeling lonely.

  One that could take her away from it all.

  Vera had been little more than a live-in maid for her parents and an unwilling babysitter for her older brother’s kids anytime he and his wife wanted to go away somewhere.

  She was expected to do everything that everyone asked and not complain.

  Ever.

  No matter what she did to try and get her parents to see how wrong they were in treating her as if she didn’t matter to them, it all fell on deaf ears so she’d given up.

  Or worse, they would tell her that she was being ridiculous, or childish. Making her feel like it was all in her head, as if she’d made something this bad up.

  Deciding she wanted a change after that happened two years ago, Vera had boldly moved out after apartment-hunting as far away from her family as she could get.

  So they lived in Douglaston-Little Neck near the QueensNassau County border and she stayed in Manhattan on the upper west-side.

  That worked.

  Allison and her family lived in Long Island City, in one of those new high-rise buildings that Queens was inundated with, which made them the closest relatives distance-wise but thankfully they stayed away. And when they did come to the city, they never bothered with her and that was fine too.

  Vera had been nervous the first few nights in her nearly empty apartment, but she had gotten used to it.

  Although a little scared, she was furious that her parents were being so ignorant about a twenty-four year old woman wanting her own place.

  Her own life.

  “Don’t think that you can come back here when that Manhattan rent eats up your entire paycheck and you get kicked out!” Bradford had shouted after her as she had left their house with the last of her things, for the final time. “Don’t you even think about it!”

  She didn’t need their money.

  She didn't want their money.

  Vera had diligently saved her money and researched the rent issue well before she had even called a realtor to start her hunt. As usual, her parents never gave her any credit for having a brain and still treated her like she was a child.

  Of course her mother got on her case for getting her father upset, being that he had cardiac issues with his heart. Even anger management hadn’t helped him, nor did the fatty, fried foods that he still ate whenever he wanted. Bradford wasn’t a heavy man, but he had really, really bad eating habits and never exercised.

  Her father also hadn’t stepped a foot into the city since she’d been there and this was only the second time her mother had ever been there. She found the less that she said to Bradford, the better.

  Even after all of these years, he just couldn’t let it go and treat her like she was his daughter.

  There wasn’t a therapist in the five boroughs, hell, in all of the free world that could fix what was broken between them all.

  “Vera!” Marianne said, exasperated as she snapped her fingers in front of her daughter’s face. “Are you listening to me? Honestly....”

  “Goodbye, Mother.” Vera said, quietly as she stood and went to the door, waiting for her mother to get up.

  “Just think about what I said. You’ve had your fun and now it’s time to try and be a good girl. Come back home.”

  Vera didn’t say anything as her mother walked out and she closed the door behind her, locking it.

  2

  “Coffee, Vera.” Asshole snapped at her late the following morning as he walked past her desk and towards the restrooms.
<
br />   “Dickhead.” She muttered under her breath as she kept the scowl she’d been wearing the moment she set eyes on him that day.

  “Uh oh” she heard a voice say, as she looked up to see Lizzie standing there, “He’s at it already, huh?”

  Vera let out an exasperated sigh as she rolled her eyes. It was all she could do not to kill him, but again, she needed this job.

  Damned if she was going to end up going back to Douglaston with her tail between her legs. Her parents would never let her live it down and she’d never be free.

  “I am just going to ignore him.” Vera promised, as one of those rare smiles cleaved her features. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing really.” Lizzie admitted, as she perched on the edge of Vera’s desk. Today she had on a scarlet-red, ruffled turtleneck and a pair of black leather high-heeled booties to match her black Le Skinny leather pants. As usual, Lizzie looked like she’d just stepped out of a Nordstrom catalog.

  “I have a friend that works for a fashion magazine. She gets loads of freebies.” Lizzie had explained over their lunch yesterday when Vera had inquired after the coveted wardrobe the young woman had.

  Vera wished more than anything that she could dress like Lizzie did and not look stupid.

  Fat chance, she thought miserably.

  Vera got up to go to the copy machine located in the hallway right next to Asshole’s office, Lizzie right at her heels.

  “You’re not here to see him, are you?” Vera asked as Lizzie let out a heavy sigh and nodded the affirmative.

  “Yeah, but just to ask him about an expense for...”

  At that very moment, they heard the unmistakable sound of Asshole’s heavy footsteps coming down the hall.

  “Hi, Mr. Hartwig.” Lizzie greeted as she moved towards him, “Do you have a moment?”

  He ignored Lizzie as he brushed his way past them and into his office, closing the door behind him. Lizzie straightened her skirt and walked towards the closed door and then stopped suddenly, knuckled poised above the oak.

  “You know what? I think I’ll come back later when he’s in a better mood.” She said, smartly, as Vera nodded.

  She knew all of Asshole’s traits by now and she hated to see him take out his aggressions on Lizzie.

  Vera watched the young woman leave and then turned to glare at the name Brandon Hartwig etched on the closed door to Asshole’s office.

  “I hate you.” She whispered.

  Please Turn the Page To Read An Excerpt of

  Survival Tactics: A Novel of Suspense

  By. Erica R. Stinson

  Available Now At Your Favorite Online Retailer

  Prologue

  The pounding on the door matched the pounding in my head as I trembled in the master bathroom, hoping that he wouldn’t get inside.

  He was drunk.

  Again.

  “Daphne! Open this fucking door!!” he raged, banging against it with his heavy fist as I whimpered and took a step back towards the tub. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the large mirror over the double sinks, noting all the telltale signs of a relationship shot to hell, at a point of no return.

  I took a long look at myself in the mirror, staring at my newly battered face, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

  A wild woman stared back at me as I took in my appearance, shaking my head in disbelief at how horrible I looked.

  My hair was a mess, thick, auburn-colored curls spiraling in every possible direction and out of control. My hazel eyes were reddened from crying, and my caramel complexion appeared a sickening yellow, jaundiced by fear. My lips, already full and pouty, appeared to be swollen a bit and trembled as I realized that I had a very serious problem.

  A sad, weary face was all I saw where once I’d been happy to be Evan’s fiancé, now covered in cuts and bruises from his rage. My shoulders shook as I started to cry again, and I held onto the marble vanity for strength, as I prayed for a way out of this mess.

  Damn him.

  “I said I was sorry, so what’s the fucking problem?!” he was bellowing, along with more pounding against the door. I knew that he was getting weary, and that soon he would tire and then go sleep it off.

  I waited him out for twenty minutes, the silence louder than anything I’d ever witnessed in this apartment the eighteen months I’d been living there with him.

  My hands were shaking as I finally opened the door, after waiting another half an hour just to be sure he’d had a chance to calm down.

  The bedroom had only one lamp glowing, the bed linens in disarray. Half the contents of my makeup table strewn across the carpet, perfume bottles and other beauty paraphernalia scattered everywhere, all victims of his wrath.

  I stepped over the other lamp that normally sat on my nightstand, carefully in my bare feet, the glass base broken as it lay on the floor.

  Evan was sprawled on our bed, still wearing his tux from the events of earlier that evening, snoring loudly as I gingerly crept past him and out of our bedroom.

  I knew that he was going to end up this way, especially when I’d watched him down drink after drink while we’d been at the annual summer gala his office held every August.

  I went to the guest bedroom down the hallway and entered it, locking the door behind me. As an afterthought, I tucked a chair that I had bought just for this purpose the last time I’d had to do this, underneath the doorknob to further keep him out.

  I went into the adjoining bathroom and did the best I could to clean myself up with the first aid kit that I now kept in the medicine chest. My right eye was already starting to swell pretty badly, and my side hurt.

  I sniffled, wiping the blood that had trickled out of my nostrils away, ashamed to even meet my own gaze in the small mirror over the sink as I closed the medicine chest.

  My stomach roiled with nausea, and I thought of the baby in my womb, the one I hadn’t told him about yet, as tears filled my eyes.

  I recalled the gala, and how humiliated I’d been to see him openly flirting with anything that had on a dress. One woman in particular had stood out, as I glared at the two of them being so cozy in a darkened corner.

  Brooke Hunter.

  Brooke Hunter was a tall, raven-haired, overly made-up, model-thin, goddess. She’d worn a short, black cocktail dress with strappy, five-inch heels on her perfectly manicured feet as she held court with just about every man, single and attached, throughout the evening, including mine.

  At one point, both she and Evan had disappeared, and I’d been livid. He hadn’t exactly been discreet about his infatuation with Brooke and I was very sure that they were seeing each other on the sly.

  And if I’d any doubts, the envious voices I’d overheard talking in the ladies room had driven it all home. I was just glad that no one had realized that I was in the bathroom stall, as they prattled on and gossiped about lucky Brooke Hunter snagging such a catch.

  The company’s lavish affair was a gift to the entire staff for pulling in massive accounts and contracts all over the country, and putting their name amongst the very best in the field. Evan was one of the top associates in the firm, and he was well on his way to the top. I knew he’d do whatever he had to, in order to get there, too.

  Evan had completely ignored me most of the evening, and once he stopped ogling Brooke long enough to notice that I wasn’t nearby, he’d found me at the buffet table sampling some of the tasty hors d’oeuvres they’d set out.

  I dabbled in cooking and the Gruyere cheese puffs they had set out were amazing. I was still nibbling at one, my third, when he grabbed my wrist, hard, making me drop it in surprise at his touch.

  “I think you’ve had enough, dear.” He’d said, giving an alluring smile to the young woman, who was serving behind the catering table, as if he was scolding a petulant child. She smiled back, giving him a once over as he forced me along with him. “Come, I want you to meet some people.”

  And then Evan proceeded to parade me around to scores of people, that
I didn’t know from anybody, boasting about what a spectacular wedding we were going to have next year. He went on and on about how he wanted to give me the world, appearing a doting and adoring fiancé to everyone he introduced me to.

  He’d looked over me then, my body stuffed into the creamy white evening gown I’d worn that night, the contempt in his eyes as I’d squirmed uncomfortably under his close scrutiny.

  He’d been getting on me about my weight, about my diet, about everything to the point that I was a nervous wreck around him.

  Stress made me eat.

  That, and the fact that I was pregnant, had caused my appetite to increase.

  As it was, I was barely able to breathe in the gown he’d made me wear, which was about a size, too small. I’d begged him to let me wear something else, telling him that I looked and felt stupid in the dress, but he’d denied me.

  “You do look stupid, Daphne.” He’d said, in what I felt was a very satisfied tone as we’d gotten dressed for the party. “You don’t have a bit of self-control whatsoever when it comes to food.”

  He’d openly gloated to see me ridiculously crammed into that damned dress as we’d entered the room, and I felt self-conscious and insecure about my overall appearance as the other women stared at me, whispering behind their hands.

  They were probably actually staring at Evan, but nonetheless, I felt like an ugly beached whale on his arm, and he’d strode away, leaving me alone not even a minute after we’d gotten there.

  Of course, we’d gotten into it because I didn’t like the way that he was treating me, and I escaped him by excusing myself to the ladies room right before I stopped myself from slapping the arrogant look right off of his face. I had never actually struck him, and probably really wouldn’t have, but I had really wanted to and that scared me.

  That’s not who I was.

  After I came out of the bathroom, we’d argued some more and he’d shoved me, causing me to lose my footing and my dress to tear along the seam on one side as I nearly fell to the floor.

  I’d tried to keep my balance in the high-heeled sandals I wore, horrified as the sound of my gown ripping with every breath I took, filled the silence and we glared at each other.