The Sanatorium(85)

“It’s fine, Sara.” Stepping forward, Cecile gently touches her arm.

Elin looks at her, a horrible feeling of trepidation weighing heavy in her stomach.

Something’s happened.

“It’s just, just—” Sara’s face is flushed, blotchy. “Margot. I can’t find her.” Any pretense at holding it together is lost as she starts to cry, a throaty sob that makes her chest heave. “I think she’s missing. I haven’t seen her since last night.”





68





Missing?” Cecile repeats, catching Elin’s eye.

Still crying, Sara gives a tight nod. “I’ve checked everywhere. I can’t find her.” She folds, refolds her hands. “After what’s happened . . .”

Cecile steps forward, out into the corridor, her movements jerky. Elin senses she’s struggling to keep it together. “Sara, I know it’s hard, but please tell us what you know.”

“I’ll try,” she says. “Margot and I, we’re sharing a room. When I woke up this morning, she was gone. I thought right away that something was wrong, but I told myself I was being stupid, imagining things, that she just got up early—” She stops; takes a hiccupy gulp of air. “I’m not sure, but her side of the room . . . it looks like there’s been a struggle.”

“You’ve asked other people if they’ve seen her?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve being doing this morning. No one has. There’s only a few of us left; if she was about, someone would have seen her.”

“What about her phone?” Cecile asks.

“It’s gone, but she’s not answering.”

“But there are staff in the corridor to the rooms.” Cecile sounds hesitant, uncertain. “No one can go in and out without them seeing.”

“I know.” Sara’s eyes are dark. “But she’s gone. I know she has.” Her voice is now high-pitched, panicky. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

Elin stands very still, absorbing her words.

It’s another one. It has to be.

She doesn’t like it. This timing, so soon after Laure . . . it seems like it’s becoming something frenzied, spiraling out of control.

Fear uncoiling in her stomach, she looks at Sara. “We need to take a look at your room. Right away.”



* * *



? ? ?

Sara’s bedroom is only three down from hers. It’s an identical layout, but with twin beds.

“This is hers.” Sara gestures to the bed closest to the door.

Elin follows her gaze, exchanges a look with Cecile.

Sara’s right—there’s clear evidence of a struggle. Ivory sheets, snarled in a tangled knot, have been ripped from the bed. A glass tumbler is lying on its side on the floor, the dribbled remains of water pooled next to it together with a book—a Livre de Poche, rent at the spine.

It’s as if she’s been dragged from the bed, Elin thinks.

“This is my fault.” Sara puts a hand to her lip, picks at the dry skin around the edges. “I have problems sleeping. I take pills, wear an eye mask and earplugs.” She shakes her head. “Anyone else, they would have heard.”

“It’s not your fault,” Elin replies, eyes still traveling around the room, finding more things near Margot’s bed—a creased bookmark several feet away from the sheet, a shoulder bag tipped on its side. “We don’t know what’s happened, not yet.”

Sara rubs at her swollen eyes. “But that’s not true, is it?” Her voice is brittle, accusing. “Whoever killed Adele has Margot, too, haven’t they?”

Elin keeps her tone neutral. “Like I said, we can’t assume anything.”

But even to her ears, her words sound weak. Hollow. Looking at the scene in front of her, she’s pretty certain about what’s happened.

Either the killer took Margot in the night, before they abducted Laure, or just after. Either way, it doesn’t look good.

Sara turns away, shoulders heaving.

Elin reaches out, lightly touches her arm. “Sara, I know it’s hard, but I’d like to go through your movements yesterday, before you went to bed.”

Taking a deep breath, composing herself, Sara says: “We had dinner with everyone else, in the dining room. Sat for a while, chatted.” She gives a weak smile. “It’s all everyone’s doing at the moment. Talking. Drinking. No one wants to go to bed.”

“And then?” Elin prompts.

“We came upstairs, back to the room. I watched something on Netflix, Margot was reading.” Her words come out rapidly, still heavily accented. Elin has to listen carefully to understand her. “We switched the light off at about eleven thirty.”

“And this is what you found when you woke up?”

Sara nods. “I haven’t touched anything. I got dressed, came straight downstairs, started looking for her.”

“And when was that?”

“Close to ten. I slept in.”

Elin works it through in her mind. Ten. That meant it was possible that Margot was abducted after the incident with Laure in the penthouse. A slim possibility given the fact that more people would have been around at that time, but not impossible.