Echoes of Angels

Julienne's eyes flitted over the two suitcases she'd neatly packed this morning. Along with her purse and cosmetics case, everything was ready to go. She gave a brief glance to the digital clock on the bedside table. Ten-twenty a.m. Forty minutes until her attorney, Daniel DiMarco, arrived. At eleven, he was to pick her up and take her home. From today forward she was going to have to decide how her life would progress. The uncertainty had placed a heavy weight on her shoulders. Could she go back out into the world and stay clean, or would she again be drawn toward suicidal temptations of the flesh?

I can do this, she decided, shaking off the negative thought. I'm ready.

Or...was she?

There were still some things she had not packed.

Look at them. You know you have to.

Resistance nipping at her heels, she crossed to the small dresser. She dropped to her knees and slid open the last drawer. The scraping of the faux wood on metal rollers was magnified in the silence. She lifted out the stack of magazines and tabloids she'd collected. From a casual point of view, they were useful for little except peering into the glamorous world of celebrities. Star, National Enquirer, Cosmo, Vanity Fair, Vogue. All the major rag sheets that counted were in her compilation.

Julienne's hands shook as she studied the covers of each. Here was her life, spread out on the glossy pages of fantasy, back when she was sufficiently hollow-cheeked and starving to get regular work on such high fashion assignments. The camera worshipped her angular body. Her good looks became something extra-spectacular when interpreted by the flash of a bulb and the silver nitrate in film.

But those days were no more than a memory. She felt her gut spasm around the sparse breakfast of wheat toast and tea she'd earlier consumed. Bile rose, burning the back of her throat. She tasted rancid acid. Blood boiled in her veins, giving her pale skin a scarlet hue.

Oh, God, why had she wanted to look at these things? She closed her eyes. Her pulse was racing with the anxiety of the night that had changed her life forever. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Though the disjointed memories were blurred, she would never forget the searing pain of the razor. When she'd separated from James, she didn't think he would follow through with his threats to get even with her.

The articles printed on the glossy pages detailed the attack. On May eleventh, James Hunter had accosted her outside a popular Miami hot spot, viciously exacting a desperate revenge two days after she'd demanded a divorce. Wielding a box cutter, he'd carved deep gashes into her face before horrified onlookers could stop him.

Unbidden, James' image reared up in her mind. He'd been everything she thought she'd wanted in a lover. Good-looking. Puppy-brown eyes under a mop of blond hair that perfectly complemented his tanned, buff physique. He had never failed to catch a woman's eye. He considered the world his personal playground and was good at conning women into paying his bills. Polo in England. Bullfighting in Spain. Gambling until dawn in Monaco's casinos. There was nothing he did not pursue. The fact that he never had his own money didn't seem to hamper him. He was a professional houseguest and made quite a good living escorting rich, single women.