The Sanatorium(84)

“Why didn’t Lucas want you to tell me this?”

“The official answer would be that the information hasn’t been made public yet, but I’ll be honest, he isn’t thinking straight. He’s trying to contain this, but it’s impossible.” Cecile’s voice is thin with frustration. “It’s gone too far.”

“Contain it?” Elin repeats, incredulous.

“Yes. What’s happened here, it could be disastrous for him, not only professionally, but personally too. This place is more than work for him. Building this hotel has been his dream since he was young. His illness, being in and out of the hospital . . . it gave him this drive.”

“His heart troubles?”

“Like I said before, there were several operations, complications, long recovery times. He didn’t have a normal childhood. When he did go back to school, he had a hard time.”

“Bullying?”

“Yes. He didn’t look right, you know?” Her tone is bitter. “Weak, thin. Half the children teased him and the rest pitied him.”

“That’s stayed with him?”

“I think so. This place . . . he’s never said it, but I think it’s about exorcising those ghosts. It was the impossible project. Someplace everyone said could never be resurrected.” Cecile shrugs. “Like him. No one thought he’d become what he has.”

“A point to prove,” Elin replies. “It’s the same with Isaac. He’s always had that need to be the best. The one on top.” She frowns. “It probably stems from an insecurity too.”

“I don’t think it’s exclusive to them. That desire to prove yourself. Be something.” A smile plays on Cecile’s lips. “You know, I read somewhere once that most men want to build a monument to themselves. My ex did. When he met his new wife, he moved to Australia, built his own house in the middle of nowhere.” She turns, gestures around her. “This is it, isn’t it? Lucas’s monument. A giant, beautiful, glass fuck-you monument to all those people who said he couldn’t.”

Elin doesn’t reply, taken aback by the strength of Cecile’s emotion, her protectiveness. It flips what she saw in the stairwell on its head. She can’t help seeing Lucas in a different light. A more favorable light.

Yet something’s nagging at her about how Cecile’s talking about him. The same feeling she has when she examines her own feelings for Isaac: that while protecting them, they’re also excusing them, finding answers for their shitty behavior when perhaps there shouldn’t be any.

“I think that’s why he’s been holding back.” Cecile glances around the room. “The idea that this place could fail—I don’t think he can even contemplate it.”

Elin considers what she’s said, and while the reasoning makes sense, it still feels unconvincing. Even if he wants to protect the hotel, surely his first instinct would be to share what he knew?

There has to be something more to this.

“You said before, that Lucas and Daniel were close.”

The statement seems to throw Cecile. Her face closes momentarily before she shrugs. “Yes. Look, you should probably speak to him about it.”

Elin picks up on the way Cecile’s closed down the conversation. Up until this point, she’s been open. Forthcoming.

There’s something here.

“They were still good friends, though?”

A hesitation. Cecile flushes. “No,” she says finally. “I wouldn’t describe them as good friends. The relationship in the past few years was more professional than anything else. Daniel’s firm had worked on several of Lucas’s hotels.”

“But you said they were close?”

“As children, yes, but when Lucas got ill . . . it changed. Daniel got close to my father. He was a talented skier and my parents used to watch him race. I think Lucas always felt there was a comparison there. Something he had to live up to. It was one of those things. As they got older, they grew apart.”

“But the relationship must have been solid enough for them to want to work together?”

“Yes, but to be honest, I think they were both regretting it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There were some arguments, the last few months before Daniel went missing. The strain on them both was immense—the opposition to the build, the complaints . . .” Her face looks pinched. “A couple of days before he went missing, he and Lucas had a fight.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Lucas has never gone into detail about it.”

Elin thinks about what she’s said. Despite the story behind it, her empathy for what Lucas went through as a child, it would be stupid to ignore the fact that he had a possible motive, however tenuous, for not only Laure’s death but Daniel’s too.

“So what was it you were looking for?” Cecile changes the subject. “I—”

There’s a loud rap on the door, then another.

Cecile opens it. A woman in her late twenties is standing outside. She’s wearing a staff uniform, her fair hair twisted into a loose bun, strands falling messily over her face.

“I’m sorry,” she starts, her words emerging with a strong French accent. “I don’t want to disturb, but . . .” Her lip trembles.