The Sanatorium(73)

An object grazes her cheek. It’s rough, plasticky.

The mask.

Panicked, she reaches up her hand to try to push it away, but instead she just claws at air.

Another thud. She hears her name being called.

Will.

Silence: a longer hesitation. The hand on her face is roughly removed.

Elin waits, staring in revulsion at the glass box only a few feet away, the bracelets catching the spotlight overhead. Her body is tensed for whatever’s coming next, but all she feels is movement: a rush of air.

Her attacker is no longer holding her down.

Tipping her head sideways, she tries to see if the masked person is still there, but there’s no one.

Heavy footsteps, running. Dull rhythmic thuds.

They’ve gone.

Elin draws herself up to a sitting position. Her head and back are still throbbing from the fall. Her heartbeat is thick in her chest, the sound reverberating in her ears.

Tears prick her eyes—shameful tears, her naivete taunting her once again.

How could I have got this so wrong? How could I have imagined that Laure could have been responsible?

This isn’t a crime of passion, of revenge over a fling gone wrong.

It’s bigger than Laure. Something far bigger, and now she’s back to square one.





58





You’re sure you’re not in pain?” Leaning forward, Will takes her hand in his. His forehead is damp with sweat, his eyes thick with emotion.

“I’m fine. Whoever it was . . . they didn’t have a chance to do . . .” She stops, reconfigures the sentence. “They must have heard you coming.” But her words sound shaky, untethered. She can’t stop her eyes from flickering across the room. Despite Will’s presence, the vast space still seems full of danger.

Hiding places everywhere.

It isn’t helped by the frenetic movement of the snow outside—sharp, white arrows targeting the glass, eclipsed only by murky swirls of fog.

Catching the look of fear flashing across Will’s features, Elin squeezes his hand, enjoying the warmth of it around hers. She can’t help thinking what might have been: I could have lost all of this, couldn’t I? Me and Will . . . if the killer got their way . . .

“Honestly, I’m okay.” But as she leans back against the sofa, she can feel the rapid pumping of her heart. Her eyes briefly close.

Once again, she sees it—the mask, the rubber hose running from nose to mouth.

No. She can’t let her mind go there. Can’t let it take over. Not now that Laure is dead. She has to find out who did this and stop them.

“Drink this.” Will passes her a bottle of water, nudges his glasses up his nose with his forefinger.

Elin sips from it, hands shaking, the rim of the bottle wobbling against her lips, bumping against her teeth. Her gaze darts involuntarily toward the lift.

Glimpsing Laure’s body, there’s another sharp jolt of realization: Laure has died. This is real.

This time when she looks, she doesn’t see Laure’s slumped, broken body, but the old Laure. Child Laure.

Memories of her rear up: the tiny creases that bisected her forearms, the colored beads Coralie plaited into her hair, her gangly-legged walk across the sand.

Tears sting the back of her eyes.

“Elin, it’s okay, you know. To feel . . .” Will’s words drop away.

Neither of them speaks for a moment.

“It’s a shock, that’s all,” she says finally. She forces herself to meet his gaze, but the tears haven’t gone away, they’ve simply moved. She’s swallowed them, a sticky mass in her throat, sitting heavy.

Still watching her, Will bites down hard on his lower lip. “Elin, I don’t want to say it now, but you coming up here alone like that, it was dangerous. Reckless.”

Heat chases up her throat. She thumbs the rim of the bottle. “I wanted to give her a chance to explain. I thought . . .” She falters. “I thought it was genuine, okay? My mistake.”

There’s an awkward pause. Elin takes another swig of water.

“Didn’t you think about the risk? What that might have done to us, especially after what we discussed last night.”

“I know, but I kept thinking that if she’d wanted to hurt me, she had the opportunity before, and she didn’t.”

His face is tight, hands clenched in his lap.

She leans over, lightly kisses him. “I’m sorry,” she whispers into his cheek. “I shouldn’t make excuses. I put myself at risk. I shouldn’t have.”

He resists for a moment, before kissing her back. Pulling away, he runs a hand over her cheek, gives her a small, grudging smile. “That’s probably the first time you’ve admitted you were wrong about something.” His voice breaks. “Honestly, if you hadn’t messaged me then, I don’t know what I’d . . .”

But she doesn’t hear the rest of his words. A thought snags around the first half of his sentence.

The message.

She shouldn’t have had the chance to send it. The killer had wanted to catch her unawares, not give her time to contact someone, raise the alarm.

That means timing-wise, something had gone wrong. Had something, or someone, stopped her attacker on the way up to the penthouse?

“Will,” she starts, “how did you get up here?”