The Sanatorium(87)

She examines the glass balustrade in front of her.

Can I get over it?

It’s not particularly high, but it won’t be easy.

She lifts up her leg, and tries to scramble over it, but immediately gets caught, one leg hanging over, the other left behind.

Elin tries again. She does it this time, but hoisting herself up and over takes effort—the strength of both her arms and her thighs.

How would the killer have got Margot over this? Sedated, she’d have been a dead weight.

Safely on the other side, Elin exhales hard from the exertion. She’s made one deduction, however small: the killer has to be strong, she thinks, watching her breath emerge as white vapor, quickly being dissolved to nothing by the wind. Capable of lifting someone quickly and easily.

Snow is falling heavily. It’s claustrophobic. Suffocating. She can barely see more than a few feet ahead, nothing visible in the whiteness except the outline of the frosted trees, the geometrical shapes of Le Sommet’s signage beyond.

The weather forecast was right—the storm is getting worse.

Steeling herself, she steps forward, then pauses, hearing a low rumble.

A rumble that’s followed by an enormous boom, reverberating through the air.

There’s a roar, a sudden, arctic breeze.

Her mind immediately lurches to what Will had told her earlier: an avalanche.

She’s read that you hear one before you see it. As the snow and ice fall down the mountain, they exert a huge force on the air, compressing it into a terrifying low whistle.

Elin can hear that now, a deafening piercing sound, cutting right through her.

Panic biting, she surges forward toward the hotel, starts to retrace her steps, but it’s a futile decision: she has no idea whether she’s heading into the path of the avalanche or leaving it behind.

But within seconds Elin knows she made the right call.

It’s just missed me. I’m still standing.

But she’s swallowed by what can only be the aftermath: a white cloud of snow that’s been kicked into the air from the force of the fall.

Tiny, glittering particles hit her face. It’s bitter, stinging.

Blinking, she wipes the snow away, but she can’t see a thing; only more snow.

It’ll take a few minutes to settle, for her to see exactly where the avalanche fell.

Heart pounding, she waits, terrified, for the next ominous sound, the next rumble that might come even closer.

But nothing comes—only the cloud of snow, glimmering particles still suspended and falling slowly through the air. Elin breathes slowly in and out, but she’s shaky, wired, adrenaline still blazing through her limbs.

Within a few minutes, the snow settles, the air clearing slightly. Taking another deep breath, she turns, tries to work out the avalanche’s path. She can see right away that it’s on her right: a few hundred yards or so away, in the direction of the road.

The smooth, pristine expanse of snow that she’s spent the last few days looking at has disappeared. In its place: massive, jagged chunks of snow, one on top of the other, piled over ten feet high.

Despite the distance, she can see what it picked up as it thundered down the mountain: rocks and trees, whole trunks protruding from the mass of snow.

She tilts her head up, takes in the trail of utter destruction. It’s as if a rake has been pulled down the face, churning up everything in its path. It’s hard to believe that nature can be so brutally violent.

Turning, Elin looks ahead, wondering if the drifting snow from the avalanche has filled in any trail the killer might have left, making it impossible to follow.

She ponders her options: the sensible thing to do would be to go back, but if she does that, she loses any chance, however small, of tracing the killer’s path, especially as more snow is forecast, snow that would definitely fill in any tracks.

More than that, Elin knows that because of this new avalanche, the chance of the police getting to them anytime soon is even slimmer now. That means it’s even more vital that she take control of the situation.

She makes a snap decision: she has to go on. Has to try to find Margot.

As she steps forward, the wind gusts, stripping any lingering snow from the air.

Pulling her scarf up so it covers her mouth and nose, she walks left, toward Sara and Margot’s room. She’s careful to keep several yards out so that when she comes to their tracks she won’t compromise them.

It’s hard work—her breath coming heavy, the snow so deep it’s grazing her knees—but she keeps going until she’s parallel with the terrace leading from Margot’s room.

As she comes to a stop, she exhales hard—one big cloud of breath. Relief. The drifting snow from the avalanche has filled in some of the indentations in the snow, but around the terrace there are still clear marks surrounding a wider, smoother area of flattened snow. She can still follow the tracks.

When she glances down, Elin realizes that her theory is right: the tracks are still consistent with someone being dragged. Taking several photographs, she follows the marks, her gaze firmly fixed on the snow. As far as she can see, there’s no blood, no visible fibers or debris. The marks continue toward the front of the hotel.

The pattern is uniform, confirming what she already assumed: whoever had dragged her was strong. Strong enough to pull her in one smooth motion.

The trail winds around the side of the hotel for another forty or fifty feet then stops abruptly in front of the hotel entrance.