Free Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense by Eve Seymour Page B

counsel you. Please don’t contact me again. Ever.”
    I hung up and wondered whether I’d done the right thing. I should have ignored it. I shouldn’t have engaged. If only I hadn’t been so rash. And then the cold thought entered my mind that the caller had waited for my return, seen my arrival, knew that I was there. Christ, I thought. H e’s watching me . Livid, I crossed the room, briefly scanned the street, wrenched the curtains closed, then returned to the bathroom and locked the door after me.
    As I sank beneath the surface of the water, a question plagued me. Could it be Phil, my ex-husband ?
    I hadn’t given him a thought in years, but this was exactly the brand of obsessive behaviour he’d indulged in. He’d almost broken me with it. But that relationship was years ago, when I was young and gauche and inexperienced. It couldn’t have any bearing on the present, could it? Why would he crawl out of the pit to intimidate me now, after all this time? More likely, he was exercising his jealous streak on another poor woman. Still, I was forced to consider as I reached for the soap, was it possible? And if so, what could I do about it? The last I’d heard he was in Canada.
    Twenty minutes later, my scars itching, I carefully applied camouflage cream, eternally grateful that the titanium dioxide, acting as a high-density primer, managed to mask most of the discolouration. Lightly dusting my skin with finishing powder to make it waterproof, I applied make-up to the rest of my face, leaving my lipstick until after I’d eaten breakfast—not that I felt much like eating—then clipped on a pair of gold earrings. Halfway through a miserable slice of toast, the phone rang again. Leave it, I thought, taking an insistent bite. It kept ringing. Ignore it. Still it rang. Mustn’t touch it. The messaging machine kicked in and the caller rang off.
    The toast hovered in midair. Rooted, I regarded the phone as if it were primed to detonate. Can’t breathe in. Can’t breathe out. Willed the thing to stay silent, to shut up, to fuck off. He knows I’m sitting here like this. He knows that I’m waiting. The phone started up again, this time it blared, deafened, screamed. So insistent. So intrusive. Oh God, anything to shut off the bloody noise …
    â€œPiss off!”
    The smooth reply sounded faintly amused. “I’d no idea you swore with such vigour, Kim.”
    â€œJim,” I spluttered. “I’m terribly sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
    â€œThey must have upset you a great deal to elicit such a florid response so early in the morning.”
    â€œIt’s a private matter,” I said, silently cursing. Jim was smart. He’d piece it together with the “litter” incident. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
    â€œGlad to hear it,” came the disbelieving response.
    My stomach squirmed. My professional persona had slipped and I hated looking out of control, especially in front of Jim Copplestone. How had things spiralled so quickly? Why hadn’t I simply let the answering service collect the call?
    â€œAbout this morning,” he said. “All set?”
    â€œLooking forward to it.”
    â€œGood, thought I’d give you a ring to wish you luck.”
    â€œThanks.” As I signed off I wondered if Jim Copplestone was featuring too heavily in my life.

thirteen
    â€œAs already stated, eating disorders are not about food.”
    â€œBut isn’t that a contradiction?” Imogen Kulp, an American presenter, had a businesslike manner and machine-gun delivery. “If you’re a sufferer the whole focus is on food, surely?”
    â€œOnly in so far as it’s symptomatic of the disorder,” I explained. “The weight loss is what catches our eye. To an outsider or a loved one who’s in the agonising position of watching a young woman starve herself, the food issue