The Sanatorium(78)

She freezes, a shiver moving through her spine. Lucas and Cecile. They’d been gone for over twenty minutes. Have they been here all this time?

Moving swiftly, she motions to Will, puts a finger to her lips.

She steps away from the rail, presses her back against the wall. Without the sound of their movements, Cecile’s and Lucas’s voices are more distinct.

They’re speaking in French. Short, rapid-fire sentences. Incomprehensible.

Turning to Will, she lowers her voice. “Your French is better than mine. What are they saying?”

“There’s some slang,” he whispers, “but Cecile’s telling him something is serious, and he should tell, and that what happened to Laure . . . it isn’t a coincidence.”

“And Lucas?”

“He’s not happy. He said, ‘They don’t know anything for sure.’”

What’s she missing here? What’s going on between the two of them?

Elin’s barely breathing.

“Vous devez lui dire.”

“Non, non. Je n’ai rien à faire, Cecile. Ne pas oublier, je ne suis pas l’un des equipe ici. Je suis le chef, votre patron.”

Elin balks at Lucas’s tone. Gone is the laid-back intonation. The words sound aggressive, dominant. She looks at Will.

“Cecile’s saying again that he should tell someone, but he’s getting pissed off, reminding her that he’s the boss.”

Stepping out, Elin peers down into the stairwell again. They’ve changed position, moved from the bottom of the stairs. Lucas’s hand is resting on Cecile’s arm.

More angry words. Two, three sentences, back and forth.

Silence. The click of footsteps on the floor as they leave.

Will looks at her, his expression troubled. “Cecile just said that she’d tell someone if he didn’t.”

“Tell what?”

“She didn’t say.” Will exhales heavily. “What do you make of that?”

“I don’t know.” She pictures Lucas’s hand grasping Cecile’s arm, the anger in his voice. She needs time to think and get everything straight in her head.

But before that, she’s got to do what she’s been dreading the most: speak to Isaac, tell him what’s happened to Laure.

“I’m going to tell Isaac alone, if that’s okay,” Elin says, voicing her thoughts aloud.

“It’s fine.” Will nods his assent. “I’ll do some work.”

They make their way down the stairs.

On the final step, the trace of something—vague, ill defined. It nags at the edge of her senses, gone before she can identify it.





62





But you said, you thought . . .” Isaac’s groping for words, words he can’t find. His face is puffy, swollen, his eyes like slits. The eczema on his eyelid is now a vivid red—raw and weeping.

“I know. I got it wrong.” Shifting a pile of clothes, Elin sits down on the bed next to him, painfully aware of the inadequacy of her words. She slips her bag off her shoulder, places it on the floor.

Isaac moves closer. She can make out a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“What about the CCTV?” he says. “Laure pushing you—”

“I don’t know.” Sweeping back a strand of hair from her forehead, her skin feels damp, clammy. Why am I so hot? “Maybe she was trying to warn me off. Knew what was going on, the dangers . . .”

Isaac shakes his head, his face close to hers. “And all this time, you thought Laure was involved in this. Suspected her.” He folds the tissue in his hand into an uneven square, eyes raw with accusation. “She was looking forward to getting to know you again, Elin. You know that, right? She never understood why you lost contact. She tried to write, call . . .”

Elin moves backward, uncomfortable, a familiar lump of guilt lodging in her chest; she’d let someone down, again. “Isaac, I was in shock. We all were.”

A bead of sweat trickles down her back. Standing up, she turns toward the fireplace. It’s on: red-orange flames leaping up the glass.

Why would he have the fire on when it’s already so hot?

“That’s no excuse, Elin,” Isaac persists. “She was your friend. You dropped her, like Mum dropped Coralie.”

There’s an awkward, loaded silence. She knows where this anger is coming from—it’s not just at her, but at the situation, too, his impotence, but she can’t stop herself from responding.

“It wasn’t about dropping anyone. Life . . . it stopped that day. It wasn’t just Coralie. Mum cut almost everyone off.”

“No.” Isaac’s fingers are turning the tissue to shreds. “All Mum could think about was herself. Her grief. How it was the biggest, most important. She didn’t want to think about anyone else.” He meets her gaze, unflinching.

Elin senses the unsaid implication—he’s referring to her, too, but it’s safer to call out their mother instead. She’s not here, not able to defend herself.

Is he right?

Her eyes track the falling snow outside as she churns over his words. Probably. Her grief for Sam . . . it had swallowed everything in its path and she’d let it. Indulged it. Excusable when she was twelve, but not now.