Shattered

by Janet Nissenson

  ISBN: 978-1-4835505-6-5

  Contents

  Part One: The Ghost

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two: The Devil

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Three: The Angel

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  PART ONE

  The Ghost

  Chapter One

  Late February

  Angela Del Carlo had just crested a hill – the one she’d nicknamed Coronary Peak – and heaved a sigh of satisfaction. From this point on, the terrain was mostly flat to gradual downhill, making the final four miles of her twenty mile route a little easier. She hadn’t been pushing too hard today since she had a tough 50-kilometer trail race scheduled for next weekend, and didn’t want to toe the starting line on tired legs.

  She took a swig from her handheld water bottle, always careful about maintaining her hydration levels during these long runs, even when the weather was cold and blustery like today. Winters in San Francisco were relatively mild when compared to most of the country, but out here on the bluffs of the Marin Headlands the winds could be fiercely biting. She’d dressed accordingly in Lycra leggings, a long-sleeved windshirt, gloves and a knit cap, but the cold still permeated her ultra-thin frame. Angela was almost always chilled, regardless of the weather, a condition that wasn’t surprising considering how skinny she’d become and with almost nonexistent body fat. But food had lost its appeal a long time ago, right around the same time her entire world had been shattered and she’d been cruelly left to try and pick up the pieces alone.

  More recently, however, she’d finally begun to start picking up those bits of her life, albeit at a very slow pace and never more than one jagged section at a time. But for the first time for as long as she could recall, Angela was feeling – something. She wasn’t quite sure what that something was – hope, optimism, or God help her, maybe even happiness – but all she knew was that she didn’t feel quite as dead inside as she had for almost four years. She also didn’t know if this newfound sense of hope was because of the new man in her life, or whether it was simply her own sense of survival that had finally kicked in. Whatever the reason, she was gradually getting to a point in her day to day life where she didn’t have to drink herself to sleep every night, and where she didn’t wake up each morning dreading the hollow emptiness that her life had become.

  She gave a brief nod to the two mountain bikers who were headed up the trail in the opposite direction, ignoring the admiring glances they sent her way. It figured, she thought ironically, that most of the runners and cyclists she had met on her runs or at races didn’t seem to think she was too skinny, unlike nearly every other person in her life did. Her mother and sisters, of course, never failed to make some sort of deprecating comment about her shrinking form every time they saw her – which was intentionally not very often at all these days. Her best friends – the McKinnon twins– also nagged her about the drastic weight loss, though Julia was kinder and more subtle about it than ballsy, in-your-face Lauren. And Cara – Angela’s loyal, hardworking PA – seemed to be constantly trying to entice her to eat something – a candy bar, a piece of birthday cake, an egg roll.

  Her fellow athletes, though, were nearly all as thin – or even thinner, in a few cases – than she was and didn’t seem to think there was anything in the least bit unusual about her tall, emaciated body. It was one of the reasons she’d embraced the sport of ultrarunning in recent years, not having been content to merely run marathons or shorter distances. One of the reasons, but certainly not the only one. No, that would be the peace she seemed to find, the solace, from running these long, lonely distances. She would spend hours out on the roads and trails, running ten or twenty or more miles at a crack, and letting her sorrow, her despair, disappear for a time. The only other method she’d successfully employed to block out her brokenness involved drinking copious amounts of vodka, and usually waking up with a nasty hangover as a result.

  Lately, though, she’d been laying off the booze. Whether that was due to Dwayne’s influence, or just herself growing weary of waking up with a pounding headache and roiling tummy, it didn’t really matter. Angela knew that drinking in excess like she’d done for so long wasn’t healthy – mentally, physically or emotionally – and that its numbing effects were only short term at best. In the long run, nothing really seemed to work for any length of time.

  She still had a couple of miles to go when it started raining. As it was, she’d been lucky to run this far without getting wet, given that the weather had been inclement for the past week. The trails she’d run on had been riddled with sections of thick, sucking mud, and she was glad she’d worn her sturdiest trail running shoes this morning.

  Angela was soaked by the time she reached the parking lot, shivering from a combination of being wet and cold and a lack of calories in her system. Once inside her sporty Toyota 4Runner, she toweled herself off briskly before reaching for a pre-mixed recovery drink. She grimaced at the slightly chalky taste of the vanilla flavored beverage but forced herself to finish it, knowing she needed to replenish all the calories she’d just burned during her nearly four hour workout. Dwayne had given her a case of the drinks, along with a variety of protein bars, nutritional supplements, and other freebies he’d received from several of his sponsors. He’d claimed he had more of the stuff than he could ever use, and insisted she was doing him a favor by taking some of it off his hands. Angela gave a wry little smile, fully aware that this was Dwayne’s own sweet, subtle way of getting her to eat more.

  She cranked up the heater as she began the drive across the Golden Gate Bridge back into San Francisco, thankful that the traffic was light this morning. She was beginning to shiver and needed to get into a hot shower quickly. She’d come perilously close more than once now to full-blown hypothermia, and had been careful ever since the last near miss to watch for the signs. Maybe that was another indication that she was slowly returning to the land of the living. It had been a long time since she’d given a damn about her health or safety, not seeming to care very much about the potential consequences of not taking better care of herself.

  The rain was coming down a little harder as she pulled inside the garage, and she found herself wishing yet again that there was an inside staircase leading to her flat upstairs. Instead, the only entrance to the flats was via the outside staircase, which meant she was going to get soaked again.

  Angela had been thinking for a while now about moving, perhaps even buying a condo of her own. She made a healthy six-figure salary as a stockbroker, and had socked away a lot of money these past few years. Even with the outrageous cost of real estate in San Francisco these days, she could easily afford to buy a place. But she had never really liked making changes, especially the major one that moving would entail, and continued to procrastinate on making a decision. And since Julia had recently announced her intention to stay in the downstairs flat until her lease expired next January, Angela wasn’t in a big hurry to move out. She would never admit it out loud, but it made her feel secure to know that one of her best friends lived close by. Or at least most of the time. Julia spent part of the week sleeping over at her fiancée’s condo, but
she and Nathan were almost always here at the Lower Pacific Heights flat at least three or four nights a week. They were currently building a custom dream home across the Golden Gate Bridge in Tiburon, and were keeping their fingers crossed it would be completed by the New Year.

  As if on cue, Julia’s brand-new silver BMW – an extremely generous Christmas gift from Nathan – pulled inside the two-car garage. Angela gave a wry smile as her almost perpetually perky friend alighted from the car, her face glowing. From her attire, it was obvious that Julia had just come from one of her daily yoga classes, and Angela thought it all a bit unfair that while she was a sodden, sweaty and mud-splattered mess, Julia looked as chic and put together as she always did.

  “Hey, Angie. Looks like the heavens opened up on you during your run. This is why I prefer indoor exercise,” said Julia as she began to unload several re-usable grocery bags from the trunk.

  Angela shrugged. “It wasn’t too bad, at least not until the last couple of miles. And it still beats running on a treadmill at some noisy, crowded gym. And, sorry, I know you’ve got this big love affair going on with yoga, but it’s never really been my thing.”

  “I know. You and Lauren have always been these jock-girls,” teased Julia. “Oh, thanks,” she added, as Angela took two of the bags from her.

  “Let’s make a dash for it. Thank God you’ve got sensible shoes on for a change,” commented Angela, glancing down at the vivid pink and orange athletic shoes on Julia’s feet. It was an extremely rare occasion when she wasn’t shod in four-inch heels.

  Julia wrinkled her pert little nose. “I’m really not a sensible shoe kind of girl, you know. But I admit it would look weird to wear Jimmy Choo’s to yoga. And at least these are cute.”

  Angela rolled her eyes as she closed the garage door and they dashed up the outside staircase to the landing. “Sweetie, I don’t think anyone pays much attention to your footwear when you’re wearing skintight yoga clothes.”

  Julia – and her identical twin Lauren – were both on the petite side but with curves in all the right places – boobs, hips, ass. Julia was wearing a cute little pink rain slicker over her yoga attire, but Angela knew that beneath it Julia’s close-fitting pants and top would be clinging to every one of those eye-popping curves. And while Angela’s running gear was equally as clingy – especially since it was soaked from the rain – whatever curves she might have had at one time had disappeared along with the twenty plus pounds she’d lost. Everything about her five foot eleven inch frame was flat now – breasts, stomach, butt. Her arms and legs were stick thin, her narrow hipbones protruding sharply, her cheekbones starkly pronounced.

  Most of the time she didn’t give a shit about how she looked any longer, rarely if ever bothering with makeup, going months without trimming her long, straight black hair, and paying little attention to her wardrobe. But every so often she’d get a fleeting urge to glam herself up like she used to – to spend hours fussing over her appearance in order to please –

  Angela grimaced, forcing those kinds of thoughts firmly out of her head as she opened the exterior door to the flats. She helped Julia carry in the grocery bags, dumping them on the kitchen counter. Even Julia’s re-usable grocery bags were stylish – in a variety of bright pink and purple prints – while Angela couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually shopped for food, much less what sort of bags she’d used.

  Julia smiled gratefully. “Thanks for helping. I’d have had to make two trips otherwise. Why don’t I return the favor by inviting you over for brunch?”

  Angela gave her friend a knowing little smirk, well used by now to Julia’s not always subtle attempts to feed her. “Nice try, Jules, but I’ll pass. Thanks all the same.”

  But Julia wasn’t so easily deterred. “Come on, Angie, you need to eat something, especially after that long run you did. Have you had anything to eat today?”

  Angela sighed, knowing she was incapable of lying to her friend. “A protein bar before the run. And one of these nasty tasting recovery drinks that Dwayne gave me. Maybe the chocolate one will be better than the vanilla was.”

  Julia shuddered daintily. “Ugh, neither of those items you just mentioned constitute a real meal. Look, Nathan’s supposed to be here in a few minutes and I promised to make eggs Florentine. That used to be one of your favorites back in high school when Mom would make it.”

  “Maybe.” Angela knew the poached egg and spinach dish covered in Hollandaise sauce would be delicious since Julia was every bit as good a cook as her mother Natalie had always been. And while she never seemed to feel actual hunger pains anymore, and food in general just didn’t seem important, she realized that she did need to make more of an effort to eat.

  Julia scented blood and went in for the kill. “I’m also serving home fries and fruit. Oh, and tangerine mimosas.”

  Angela laughed. “Actually, hard as it might be to believe, I’ve been on the wagon for over two weeks. In fact, the last time I had any booze was during our New York trip. But I love your tangerine mimosas so you’ve talked me into it.”

  Julia gave her a quick hug before wrinkling her nose delicately. “Oh, that’s great news, Angie. Why don’t you, uh, go catch a shower and I should have everything ready in about half an hour.”

  “I can take a hint, Jules,” Angela replied drolly. “I’ve got wet dog stink and a hot shower that’s calling my name.”

  After promising Julia that she would in fact return, Angela jogged upstairs to her own flat, and wasted little time getting into the shower. She almost wept as the blissfully hot water hit her chilled body, and she gradually felt the blood in her extremities begin to warm. Her hands and feet in particular were always cold these days, no matter how many layers she wore or how high she cranked up the heat.

  She pulled on clothes without paying the slightest attention to what she grabbed, grimacing as she noticed her size zero jeans were a little looser than the last time she’d worn them. Her breasts were small enough not to need a bra but she pulled one on anyway for the extra layer. Over it she layered a white camisole, a long sleeved navy T-shirt and a gray thermal Henley. The three layers not only helped keep her at least a little warmer, but also added some bulk to her ultra-lean torso.

  Angela pulled her almost waist-length hair back into a barrette, not bothering with makeup as was her norm these days. In fact, it was more than likely that any cosmetics she might still have lying about had long since dried up or expired.

  As she pulled a pair of low heeled boots on over her thick wool socks, she fought off the temptation to call Julia and dream up some excuse to back out of brunch. Oddly enough it wasn’t the idea of actually eating that was causing her reticence, but instead the thought of having to watch Julia cuddle up to her very affectionate fiancée Nathan.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like Nathan, even if his initial treatment of Julia had been more than a little on the douche-bag side. And so long as Julia was happy – which she evidently was in spades, being knee-deep in wedding plans at the moment – then Angela’s own feelings about Nathan shouldn’t matter. Part of it, she supposed, was that she had an inherent distrust of men in general these days. And the other part, she admitted ruefully, was that it bothered her to witness the frequent and rather blatant displays of affection that the besotted couple seemed to engage in almost constantly.

  Angela had known little affection in her twenty six years, her childhood one of loneliness and emotional neglect despite growing up in a seemingly stable household with two parents and two older sisters. The few sexual partners she’d had during college had all been fleeting, casual encounters, all during a time in her life when she’d been angry, rebellious, and totally incapable of managing anything remotely resembling a relationship.

  And then had come the time in her life she merely referred to as “the year” – though in actuality it had only been eleven months and five days. It had been the only time in her life when she’d felt truly alive, truly fulfilled, even though ther
e had also been countless days during the same year when she’d felt helpless and out of control. And since then, she’d spent every day trying to claw her way out of the depths of hell that she’d fallen into when the ill-fated affair had ended so horribly.

  But now, for the first time in years, she was beginning to find hope. That fleeting sensation of something that she’d felt earlier today during her run had been hovering on the outskirts of her emotions for a little while now, and she wasn’t sure whether to embrace it fully and welcome it in, or shove it brutally aside so she could continue to wallow in her sorrow.

  Not wanting to dwell any further on what might be happening to her, Angela headed downstairs. hoping she could find enough of an appetite to do justice to Julia’s admittedly delicious eggs Florentine.

  Chapter Two

  April

  As usual, she was the first one in the office, arriving well before the sun came up and most likely before the majority of her co-workers were even getting out of bed. She liked the quiet, preferred the solitude that she could enjoy before the intrusions of ringing telephones, loud voices, and client meetings demanded her attention. And despite her largely anti-social behavior towards her co-workers, Angela presented a much different persona to her clients. She was certainly businesslike and professional, but also engaging and personable, and her clients were extremely loyal to her. And of course that loyalty was further ensured by her unquestionable success in picking the types of investments that had performed exceptionally well over the past couple of years. She’d received a number of very lucrative referrals from those clients who’d been very pleased at the increase in their portfolio value.

  Angela booted up her computer and sipped her coffee while she looked over her schedule for the day. She was meticulous about her daily to-do list, insisting on maintaining strict control over it as she had done for most facets of her life. It was somewhat ironic, considering the fact that no one had ever imposed any rules or controls over her as a child or teen, and that she’d been more or less free to do whatever she wanted for as long as she could remember.