Code White by Scott Britz-Cunningham Read Free Book Online Page A

quickly, without looking at it. Outside, the spring night was warm. Tying her sweater around her waist, Ali put her hand under Kevin’s arm and strolled with him down Division Street. Old habit seemed to guide them in the direction of their apartment a few blocks away. Kevin spoke little, relying on her reminiscences to speak for him, as they passed the tree-lined blocks of sidewalk cafes, Polish delicatessens, boutiques and craft stores where Ali loved to browse on her rare free weekend hours. Then, in front of the gray beaux arts edifice of the Russian baths, with its twin arched doorways, they both paused, a little nervously.
    “Want to come up for a minute?” asked Kevin. Ali nodded and started up the side street with him. A few steps, and they were in front of an old brownstone with large bay windows. Kevin led her onto the porch, and then up a narrow, creaking staircase to the apartment on the middle floor. Crossing the threshold, Ali felt strangely divided, as though she had come home, and yet was a total stranger. It was remarkable how nothing had been changed. Passing through the bedroom to freshen up while Kevin made espresso, she noticed that her bedroom closet and dresser drawers were still empty. In the bathroom, her favorite soap and shampoo still sat on the edge of the tub, and a hairbrush she had left behind lay untouched beside the sink. He’s waiting for me, she thought. Waiting and hoping. Is that romantic instinct, or denial?
    When she came out of the bathroom, she had decided to take a chance on making love to him. She didn’t want to humiliate him by forcing him to ask. She took the initiative herself, tearing his shirt from him so smartly that one of his buttons went flying. She kissed his lips, his jawline, his nipples, and pulled him down with her onto the bed. Kevin was astonished but answered with a blaze of ardor, not suspecting that it was all a gesture on her part—a hollow caricature of the passion she had once felt for him. He was exquisitely attentive, clinging to her body the way a drowning man clings to a lifeline. Something in his neediness brought her back to life. He wants me. How can I not want to be wanted like this? She began to feel a warm glow within her, the first wavelets of a tide of joy and surrender.
    And then, with a single word, he drove a stake through her heart.
    “Ramsey!” he huffed. “We’ll make another Ramsey, babe. We’ll put that business behind us for good.”
    Ramsey! She dried up instantly, and her hands and feet turned cold. Ramsey! Before her mind’s eye flashed a pool of blood. She saw a glass-walled bassinet, and a pink, doll-like form, writhing under a bright, inhuman light. A silent scream arose within her.…
    For over a year, she had fought to expunge this memory. At times, death itself had seemed better to her than to go on seeing that tortured face, those tiny, hopelessly grasping hands, that blood … that sudden, shocking, tragic blood. Kevin knew this, and still he had stuck his finger in the sore. How long had he planned that ill-timed remark? Since Division Street? Since the restaurant? Weeks ago? Here was the old Kevin—the Kevin she had walked out on—obsessive, manipulative, and self-centered. He was pushing her beyond where he knew she could go.
    It was all she could do not to throw him off her. She let him finish, but her thighs were stiff, and her hands held his upper body away from hers in a gesture of disgust. The minute he was done, she rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, her heart pounding, her breath strained by an anvil-like pressure on her chest.
    Kevin saw her anguish, but not with the eyes of pity. In fact, it infuriated him. Gone was the pleading little boy. Gone was the passionate lover.
    “There you go again! Don’t turn your fucking back on me! Quit holding on to your grief, like it was some precious, private jewel that no one but you has a right to see! I have a right! I lost him, too!”
    “Damn you,