Page 45 of Runner 13

Stella

Seven years earlier

Ibiza

My alarm goes off at three a.m. Despite my excessive drinking the night before, I feel good – in all likelihood I’m still a bit tipsy.

I’m making the right decision. So I’m not going to Barcelona with my sister.

That sucks. But I am going to see the new man in my life. And that fills me with excitement.

I don’t even care that it’s selfish. It’s what I want. I promised Yasmin a week, and that’s what I gave her.

I stop outside her hotel-room door, my suitcase dragging behind me. I think about knocking. But I know what will happen if she answers. She’ll change my mind. So instead, I leave the small posy of wild flowers I’d picked when I’d gotten back from the restaurant with Adrienne. Along with my note.

Gone to see P. Good luck with your training.

I hope it’s worth it.

A short flight, train and taxi journey later, and I’m at Pete’s door.

Thankfully, my surprise works. I grin at his open-mouthed shock at seeing me, toast crumbs round his mouth from breakfast. He picks me up and twirls me round.

We kiss, and I forget about everything – everyone – I’ve left behind in Ibiza.

Any second thoughts I had about this plan are swept away, replaced only with lust.

I’ve timed it exceedingly well. Ethan is with his grandparents, so we can spend the rest of the day together in bed. He cooks me dinner and even forgoes his evening training run for me – he has no idea how sexy I find that.

I’m tired of being second place to running, after all.

The next morning, while Pete’s in the shower, I head downstairs to make coffee.

My suitcase is still in the hall, where I’d abandoned it in favour of our kiss.

I dig my phone out of my bag, turning it off airplane mode for the first time since I got on the flight in Ibiza.

It lights up with missed calls, a voicemail, texts.

One from Yasmin is glaring at me: I need you .

Guilt gnaws at my stomach, but I squash it down. I’d left a note. Maybe I should have texted her too, but I assumed she’d be too busy training to notice. Obviously not. There’s a voicemail from her too. Left in the morning, about the time my plane took off.

At first I don’t understand what I’m listening to. It’s quiet. Muffled. I’m about to hang up, writing it off as a butt dial. It’s not like Yasmin to stay out until six a.m. so maybe she was up early for a run.

Then I hear a sound that sends chills down my spine. A whimper. My fingers grip the phone tight, my knuckles turning white .

Her voice sounds so small. She says my name and it sounds like a prayer. ‘Stella. Stella, s’il te pla?t …’

Shit. I should never have left. The voicemail is still running.

I listen carefully, trying to hear every word.

‘OK, I’m back,’ I hear someone say. Another woman.

There’s a thud, like the phone’s been dropped on the floor.

It’s even harder to hear now. But I recognize that voice.

I hear her muttering soothing things to Yasmin, but there’s an edge to her voice.

An anger. ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she says.

‘Come on. We have to go. The taxi’s waiting. ’

The message cuts off. What was Adrienne doing putting Yasmin in a taxi?

I call her back immediately, but after a few rings it goes to voicemail. I send her a text, willing her to reply. I check her running app, but no new routes have been added today.

Don’t spiral. Everything’s fine.

I hear Pete swear loudly from the bedroom. I rush upstairs.

‘You OK?’ I ask.

He’s perched on the edge of his bed, gripping his phone, scrolling with his thumb.

‘I’m going to kill him,’ he growls.

‘What?’ I snatch the phone out of his hands, and Pete doesn’t protest. He stands up, pacing the room.

‘I knew that guy was bad news! I should have told her not to go to that camp.’

My heart pounds in my chest as I stare at the phone. It’s a photo of Adri in her racing gear. Her head is down; she’s tying her shoe laces. Glenn is standing over her. I know the photo well. I should. I took it. But the image isn’t what Pete is angry about. It’s the caption underneath.

NOT STAYING QUIET . Last night, I experienced the ultimate betrayal. My coach, a man I trusted without question, attacked me in my hotel room. The police have been notified. He tried to threaten me into silence, but I won’t be quiet. He’s an abuser. And I won’t let him hurt any more women.

‘Holy crap,’ I say, not even meaning to speak out loud. Coach Glenn had always given me the creeps – now this confirms it.

‘Right? What is she thinking? She shouldn’t be posting.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘No, no, not like that. Jesus. I mean, because it’s a legal thing, right? If what she’s saying is true, then –’

‘If?’

‘Christ, Stella, give me a break. It’s a police matter, isn’t it?

I have to call her.’ He takes his phone back.

My head is swimming. I need to talk to Yasmin.

Was that what she had called me about? Was she trying to get me to help Adrienne?

That voicemail must have been left after the attack. Maybe they were together.

I dial her number again, swearing when it doesn’t even go to voicemail this time but just rings out. Shit. Is she still in Ibiza?

I’m searching for flights back to that godforsaken island when Pete walks back into the room. He looks ashen.

‘Did you get hold of her?’

‘Yeah. She’s with Spanish police.’

‘Did you tell her about us?’

‘God no. Not the right time.’

‘Did she mention if she was with anyone?’

‘She didn’t say. Look, I’ve got to go and pick up Ethan, but if you stay, then we can all have breakfast together …’

‘Sure,’ I say. But I don’t look up as he heads through the door. Instead, I text Adrienne. Where is Yasmin?

It takes a moment for me to get a response. She’s gone home.

My heart is pounding, but I don’t waste another second.

I grab my suitcase from the hallway, glad now that I never unpacked.

If I get the next train, I can be in London in a few hours.

I listen to Yasmin’s voicemail again. How terrified she sounds.

And Adrienne’s voice – stronger, more authoritative.

Then I read Adrienne’s social media post. It doesn’t make any sense.

The post has gone viral; the ultrarunning community is up-in-arms, dismayed, outraged.

Then I see that Glenn has posted a response on his own page.

White font on a black background. He firmly denies all the allegations and is cooperating with Spanish police.

He signs off with THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT .

It’s so messy. Complicated. But I have only one goal in mind: finding Yasmin.

My hope is she has nothing to do with this. My fear is that she’s at the very heart.

When I arrive at her flat, I call her name but she doesn’t answer.

She’s been here, though. Recently. There’s an envelope addressed to me sitting on the kitchen counter. I stare at it like it’s radioactive. I don’t want to open it. I barely want to touch it.

It’s heavier than I expect. I take a deep breath, then I rip open the seal.

Inside, I find her training journal. Pages and pages of notes documenting her runs.

Not the boring metrics, like her distances, pace and heart rate.

But beautiful evocative descriptions of the trails – what she saw, how each step made her feel.

It’s her essence distilled on to the page.

Some of it is soaring, other sections more mundane – and then there are parts that I know were for her eyes only.

Her private diary. Her innermost thoughts and feelings.

The kind of emotions she felt about running that Glenn tried to coach out of her.

The elation and the heartbreak. He wanted her to bury all of that and focus on the technique.

And when it didn’t work, he decided to destroy it another way.

It had started before that night. On the very first night of the training camp. What I’d mistaken for her pushing me away – her hyperfocus on training – had been her retreating from the reality of what Glenn was doing to her.

She wrote about feeling groggy and disoriented after her sessions.

How her body never felt right. How she’d wake up the next morning, unable to remember the evening before.

She’d find bruises on her limbs and feel sick to her stomach but not know why.

She thought it might be a reaction to the recovery drinks Glenn was giving her.

I’m not going to drink it tonight. That’s what she’d written the night after I left. The night I’d been living it up with Pete.

She’d emptied it out so he wouldn’t know. She thought that would disappoint him. The reality was so much worse. He’d crept into her room in the middle of the night – except this time she was wide awake. He forced himself on her.

She’d screamed. Fought. When he realized she wasn’t under the influence of whatever he’d put in her drinks, he begged for her silence with promises of making her a star.

When that didn’t work, he threatened her with violence and slander.

Her word against his. A nobody athlete against a powerful coach to legendary stars.

She must have been so terrified. When I think of how much she must have needed me …

I’d left her to fend for herself. With no one to protect her. No one – except Adri. I thought she had gone too. But somehow she’d been there.

The journal entries stop.

It’s at that moment that I know I’m too late.

I don’t know why, but my first call is to Boones. I tell him everything. I don’t know what I expect him to do – certainly not comfort me. It’s not in his DNA.

But he comes to her funeral and sits with me as we lay her to rest.

I hold on to that.

I ignore the endless missed calls I have from Pete. I can’t bring myself to talk to him, even when I return to the UK to pack Yasmin’s things. I’d gone to him, rather than staying with her. The guilt of that will eat at me for the rest of my life.

I ignore all the calls from Adrienne too.

I’ve seen what she’s going through online.

The fallout from the lie she told – or maybe, more accurately, from the truth she tried to reveal.

I know Yasmin’s journal would exonerate her.

But I’m too angry – with myself, with her, with the world – to care about alleviating her pain.

I have enough of my own now to last a lifetime.