The Sanatorium(46)

When she reaches the steps, she finds that they’re steep, the treads icy. Clinging to the handrail, she moves carefully, precisely.

At the bottom, there’s a wooden fence separating the grounds from the spa.

As Axel pushes the gate open, the spa comes into view. Steam is billowing off the pools, twisting, coiling, as it rises to meet the falling snow.

She increases her pace until she’s right behind them, feels the wooden slats vibrate beneath her feet.

Axel speeds up, circling the larger pool until they reach the smaller one, set a level lower. He stops. “Ici.” His arm shakes as he points toward the pool. Here.

With Axel’s silhouette blocking her view of the water, Elin has to step to one side. A light is flickering overhead.

A sudden gust of wind whips through the vapor, teasing it apart, pulling it to nothing. The pool comes into view, the cover about a third of the way across, snow collecting unevenly across the surface.

It’s then she sees it: the lifeless form of a body at the bottom of the pool. The uplighters cast a dull glow upward, highlighting her hair drifting about in the water.

It’s shoulder length. Dark.

A woman, Elin thinks, bile rising in her throat. A refrain is beating out in her head: Is it her? Is it her?

Elin takes a step closer. Looks again. It is her. She recognizes her immediately. Black puffer jacket. Dark jeans.

Laure.





36





Elin’s muscles seize, the scene around her becoming strangely distant, dropping in and out of focus.

“We need to get her out of the water. Try CPR.”

It takes her a moment to realize it’s her own voice. On autopilot. Calm. In control. Nothing like how she’s feeling inside.

But before she’s able to move, a hand yanks at her arm. Someone’s pushing roughly between her and Cecile. Their footsteps kick up snow.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” The voice is thin, high. Panicked.

Isaac.

“Move . . . just move.” His hand is still on her arm, shoving. “I want to see if it’s her.”

He’s past her now, his expression wild, cheeks patchy blotches of red.

Elin puts her bag down, lurches forward, tries to reach for him. “Isaac, no—”

But it’s too late. Her hand barely grazes his jacket, uselessly groping the air. Pounding past her, he’s already skirting the pool, slipping every few steps on the snow. He’s only yards from the water.

“Isaac, please!”

Isaac ignores her, ripping off his coat. He clumsily kicks his shoes off and away. Diving into the pool, he breaks the surface with a thundering splash. Water arches into a sloppy spray.

Above, the lights are still flickering.

Elin catches only glimpses: Isaac blurred, luridly magnified in the distortion of the water as he propels himself to the bottom of the pool.

She can barely breathe, panic clawing at her throat, threatening to take control.

In what seems like seconds, Isaac’s pulling back to the surface, on his back, his arms wrapped around the shadowy shape of Laure’s body.

Let her be okay. Please let her be okay.

Isaac reaches the surface of the pool. His hair is plastered over his forehead in dark, ragged streaks. He’s gasping for breath, chest heaving.

“I’ll help.” Will’s voice, from behind her. She hadn’t even noticed he was there.

He drops to his knees at the edge of the water. Leaning over, he hauls Laure from Isaac’s grasp, hoisting her up onto the decking beside Elin.

It’s the first time that she sees the body faceup.

Elin recoils: a visceral, full-body reaction.

There’s a black gas mask strapped around Laure’s face.

No: not a gas mask. There’s no filter. In its place is a thick, ribbed tube, running from nose to mouth.

Squatting next to the body, Will’s already pulling the mask away, moving Laure onto her side. There’s a precision to his movements, a desperate urgency.

The mask is gone.

Elin stares at the exposed face, water running in fine droplets over the pale skin. Her breath catches in her throat with a sharp jag.

It’s not her.

The woman, whoever she is, has similar hair, frame, clothes, but it’s not Laure.

Will starts tipping her forehead back, positioning her body for CPR, but Elin knows without doubt that it’s too late.

The woman’s skin is bluish, her green eyes open in a hazy death stare, mouth slightly parted.

Still, Elin bends down, feels for a pulse in the woman’s neck. There isn’t one.

“Will,” she says softly. “She’s dead.” She’s sure it hasn’t been long, though—rigor mortis usually occurs around two to six hours after death, and it hasn’t set in yet. Elin’s no expert but she knows that the warm temperature of the water would possibly shorten that timeline even further—her guess is that the woman’s been dead for one to two hours at most.

Isaac hasn’t moved. Still soaking wet, he’s crouched beside the lifeless body.

Elin absorbs the reaction. He really thought it was Laure, didn’t he? You couldn’t fake that response.

The implication is clear: he genuinely didn’t know where Laure was. He can’t have been involved in her disappearance.