The Sanatorium(39)
Lucas Caron. “Where did you get these?” A cold bead of fear moves through her. This doesn’t look right. They don’t look like normal photographs.
Isaac looks at her intently, his face pale, bloodless. His foot is tapping the floor. “I found them hidden in Laure’s ski bag. Look at them.”
Lucas walking toward the hotel, beanie pulled down over his head, looking down at his phone. Lucas talking to a member of staff at the entrance to the lounge. Lucas sitting on the terrace with a group, sipping wine.
It looks like surveillance. Like Laure’s been following him. Staking him out.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Isaac demands. His foot is moving faster now, his knee hitting the tabletop. “Tell me you don’t think it’s weird. They’re not holiday snaps, are they? It doesn’t look like he knows they’re being taken.”
“We don’t know enough to form any firm conclusions. There might be an explanation.” Elin tries to keep her voice on an even keel, but it’s hard. She knows her words sound lame.
What explanation could there be? Why would Laure have these?
“Like what?” Isaac’s eyes are hard, shiny. He scratches furiously at his eyelid.
Elin pulls his hand away, her palm on his. The gesture’s automatic, instinctive. His hand flattens, relaxing beneath hers.
Time folds back on itself. She’s a child again, Isaac helping her back to sleep after a nightmare. They shared a room for years because of it. He used to stretch across, hold her hand in his. He did the same for Sam when he was a toddler.
For a while, Sam had even worse nightmares than she did, and it was her fault. They had a phase of playing dress-up. Sam would be a soldier, a knight, and sometimes, if Elin persuaded him, a sheep, in a homemade white woolly costume—her creative interpretation of the Nativity.
But then Sam started having bad dreams about the costumes—imagined them coming to life at the end of his bed, dancing headless around the room. Elin remembers her mother’s tactful removal of the costumes, the murmured words about “not playing this game for a while.”
Sam.
The thought pulls her up sharply. Elin withdraws her hand with a horrible sense of disquiet. She’s rushing in again, isn’t she? Taking this at face value.
Everything he’s shown her, everything he’s said—it’s just words, nothing more. Reaching for her water glass, Elin blinks, angry at herself. Despite everything, she’s let down her guard. She should know better.
She’s forgotten how easy it is to lose track of someone; the sum of their parts.
30
The fatigue doesn’t hit until she’s back in the room. Elin rubs at her eyes. She can feel the beginnings of a headache; a dull, persistent throb at the base of her neck.
She picks up the water bottle, opens it. It fizzes, a rapid hiss, bubbles chasing up through the neck. Pouring herself a glass, she takes a long swig. She needs to rest, but she can’t take her mind off what Isaac showed her.
What does it mean?
Lowering herself onto the leather chair by the window, Elin picks up her phone, types Lucas Caron’s name into Google. But before she can check the results, she sees an e-mail from Anna, her DCI.
Elin, just checking in as you didn’t reply to my last e-mail. Don’t want to hassle you, but we do need a decision by the end of the month. Call me if you need to talk.
Her eyes chase the words around the screen several times before she minimizes the e-mail, goes back to Safari, to Lucas Caron.
A slew of articles has appeared in the search results: a Wiki biography, numerous articles in the business and hospitality press. Elin scrolls to the next page. More articles. Among these are sports results, listing his times in marathons, cross-country ski races.
Clearly as enthusiastic about sport as he was about his career, Elin thinks, which, looking at the headlines, is most definitely soaring:
Behind the Brand: Over the Past Decade, Lucas Caron Has Emerged as the Man to Watch When It Comes to Swiss Hospitality
The Beginnings of an Empire: How Lucas Caron’s Reinvention of Minimalism Is Transforming the Luxury Hotel Landscape
The Hippie Hotelier: How Daily Yoga Helps Lucas Caron Stay on Top of His Game
More recently:
Le Sommet: Saying Good-bye to Chalet Style. A Study in New Minimalism
The Beginnings of an Empire. Why Lucas Caron Likes to Look to the Past for Inspiration
Elin clicks on the second article. A photograph dominates the screen: Lucas sitting cross-legged on one of the sofas in Le Sommet’s lounge. There’s no hint of discomfort—his smile is wide, natural.
But even in this, a more formal shot, he looks more like someone you’d see on the cover of a climbing or hiking magazine than a property developer. He’s dressed in a pair of faded jeans, a gray zip-up technical top that emphasizes his muscular frame. His dark-blond hair is falling messily about his face, his beard barely trimmed.
Elin’s foot jigs beneath her. It doesn’t add up, does it? The laid-back vibe doesn’t jibe with the hotel, its design. Scanning the text below, her eyes leap to several quotes:
I’ve always chosen to work with buildings that have a history, buildings that ask me to continue telling their story. The fact that Le Sommet’s story started with my great-grandfather’s vision for a sanatorium makes this development special to me. It’s always been my dream to reinvent the building; as a child, I used to look at the structure, imagine it born again, something new.