Chapter 23
“Sandra!”
I run up to her and throw my arms around her, tilting her momentarily off-balance.
She smells like herself, like mint, and cheap soap, and aggressive deodorant; I have never recognized what a comforting mix of scents that is before.
Sandra wiggles out of my grip almost immediately.
“Jesus, Isobel,” she hisses at me. “Not here.”
She tosses a glance over at the main building.
“Sorry.” I take a step back. “I’m just … I’m really happy to see you.”
Sandra’s short golden-blond hair is pulled back into a bristly ponytail at the nape of her neck, and she is wearing an Adidas tracksuit that pulls over her broad shoulders; it looks as though she might have taken Andrea’s by mistake.
Andrea takes after her mom more than her dad, with the same short stature and sturdy, muscular build, but she doesn’t have Sandra’s thirty-plus years of athletic pursuits to fill out her frame yet.
Sandra is still looking around, a haunted expression in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“Not here, seriously,” Sandra mutters. “Come on, get in the passenger seat. Before anyone sees you.”
Wordlessly, I follow her instructions, climbing into the car and shutting the door behind me.
There is a crumpled-up McDonald’s bag on the floor, and a half-empty off-brand sports drink in the cup holder; the radio is still softly playing the maudlin old Swedish classics Sandra always denies liking, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Sandra pulls the door shut behind her.
“Is everything okay?” I ask her. “Is Andrea all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Sandra waves me off. “She’s with her dad, she’s doing fine. I think she just wanted me around for a few days longer, to tell the truth.”
“Of course she did,” I say. “You’re her mom.”
Sandra rolls her eyes. “Thanks. More mom guilt is exactly what I needed right now.”
“Sorry,” I respond, instantly humbled.
Sandra locks the doors before turning to me.
“We can’t talk for long. I don’t want them seeing us together.”
“No, I get that,” I say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an idiot about it.”
Sandra drums her fingers on the steering wheel. Her eyes are locked on the trees beyond the fence.
“Listen,” she says. “I’ll keep this quick, before anyone catches us. I reached out to someone who used to work here. The other psychologist who got let go last year. I was thinking she might be up for being quoted in your article.”
“I thought you said no one would be willing to talk?” The surprise makes my voice hitch and climb.
“Listen, Isobel.” Sandra draws a deep breath.
I recognize that tone of voice; I’ve heard it so many times before. The slight lowering, the downcast eyes.
Bad news.
“I don’t want to freak you out,” she begins. “I’m trying not to freak out, myself. But I almost … I nearly called and just quit yesterday. I wasn’t sure I could come back.”
When she turns to look at me, I notice the fine red veins spiderwebbing across the whites of her eyes, the lack of color in her cheeks.
As long as I’ve known her, Sandra has always been spiky and energetic. A fundamentally content person in a way that has always confused me.
“Full of piss and vinegar, that one” was the way my dad would describe her when we were kids, with a note to his voice I would only later come to recognize as dislike. He never did like people with a strong sense of self, my father; they were less likely to be swayed to his sense of reality.
“What happened?” I ask her.
“I got ahold of Dr. Nina,” she says. “I thought about it, and I figured that out of all the people who’ve come through this place, she was the one most likely to talk.”
“Who is Dr. Nina?” I’ve never heard the name before.
“She was the other psychologist here. You know, the one who took over when Martina was down in Stockholm doing press and living it up. Like how Ellen and I trade off every two weeks, or how the caretakers cycle in and out. I didn’t think about her before, because we never worked together all that much, but she popped into my head a few weeks ago.
I had a hard time getting ahold of her. I only managed to find her a couple of days ago. ”
“But she doesn’t work here anymore?” I try to clarify.
Sandra shakes her head. “No. She left about eight months ago.”
I can feel my heart give a near-painful thump.
“So around the time Susannah Wallin disappeared.” My mouth suddenly feels very dry.
Sandra nods.
“Exactly.”
“Do you think it might be connected?” I ask.
“Maybe. I asked around a bit. Apparently, Drs. Nina and Martina got in some huge fight about one of the patients Dr. Nina had treated in Martina’s absence.
I don’t know what the fight was about, but I do know Martina fired her on the spot.
Didn’t even have a replacement lined up.
She still hasn’t found anyone.” Sandra looks out the window again, seemingly reflexively.
Making sure we’re not seen.
“You think that patient might have been Susannah?” I ask her.
Sandra sighs. “I don’t know, Isobel. I honestly don’t know.
I looked at those pictures you sent me again, tried to see if I could recognize them.
But I can’t remember. There are so many people passing through here, and half of them look like those photos.
Smiling blond women somewhere between twenty-five and forty-five. ”
“I mentioned Susannah’s name to Ellen,” I say. “It seemed like she recognized it.”
“Ellen did?” Sandra raises her eyebrows. “Maybe. Yeah. She’s been here almost as long as I have. I mean, I can’t even be sure I was here the week Susannah Wallin was a patient.”
“Can you ask her?” I ask. “Can you trust her?”
“I don’t know.” Sandra’s shoulders slump. “I don’t know if there is anyone who can be trusted in this place.”
For a moment, she looks frightened. Defeated. And it scares me.
I’ve never seen Sandra look terrified before.
“What happened with Dr. Nina, Sandra?” I ask her quietly.
Sandra sighs again. “Once I managed to get ahold of her, she told me … she told me she couldn’t talk about Himlafall. She seemed scared. She kept hanging up on me. Finally, she texted me. Told me she’s been getting threats. Bad ones. Ever since she left.”
A frisson runs up my spine. Like someone tracing it lightly with a cold, sharp fingernail. A soft tickle of a warning.
“What kind of threats?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. She seemed to imply it was notes, or letters.
But whatever was in them must have been bad, because she’s in the process of going underground.
That’s why I’ve had such a hard time finding her.
She’s taken her website down, changed her phone number.
She said she’s about to move and told me not to contact her again. It’s got to be…” Sandra goes silent.
“And you think it’s…?”
I don’t want to say Martina’s name. It feels like we are suspended in a little bubble, here in the car. Like saying her name will call her here, break the spell, let her hear the whispered secrets we are trading.
“I don’t know what I think,” Sandra says. “But I wouldn’t put it past her.”
She turns in her seat, so that she’s facing me.
“You’ve seen it, right?” she asks. “Now that you’ve met her. She likes toying with people. Like a cat with a mouse. She’s fine as long as you play along with her rules, but if you piss her off, or get on her bad side…” She stops, and then says:
“The hold she has on people, it’s fucking scary, Isobel. It’s like she hypnotizes them.”
“Yeah,” I agree, mouth dry. “I’ve seen it.”
I’ve felt it.
“You know, when you first brought up that patient, Susannah, I thought there might not have been much to it,” Sandra admits haltingly.
“I wanted you to write an exposé on this place, tell the world what a fucked-up circus it is, but I thought that this Susannah might just have been someone who needed more care than she could get here. Someone with greater needs than the clowns at this so-called clinic could meet. But now, knowing what Dr. Nina has been through … I don’t know. ”
Sandra’s hands are balled up in her lap.
“I can’t help but wonder,” she adds, like an afterthought.
“Wonder what?” I ask her.
Sandra looks out the windshield.
“Lot of woods, out here,” she says. “Miles and miles of them. Plenty of room for someone to disappear.”
I give a shaky laugh. Then I stop, just as abruptly.
I say the only thing I can.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Sandra mutters. “You can say that again.”
“Do you think it’s … I mean, do you think she is capable of something like this? Martina?”
“I don’t know.” Sandra doesn’t look me in the eyes. “I can’t say yes. But I can’t say no, either. And I’ve got to be honest, that freaks me out.”
She sighs, and then turns to me, eyes steely, mouth set in a grim line.
“Have you gotten anything yet? Anything concrete?”
“I’ve been recording the therapy sessions,” I say. “I haven’t had time to go over them yet, but it’s at least proof that they are using some potentially harmful techniques. Nothing overtly illegal yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.”
“We should look into the records, too.” Sandra is chewing on her thumbnail. “Patient records. They are an absolute mess, the recordkeeping here is garbage, but we might be able to dig up Susannah’s file if it’s still there.”
“There was something weird about my file, too, apparently,” I tell her. “I’d like to have a look at it.”
“I have a meeting with Martina tonight at seven,” Sandra says. “I’ll ask her to have the meeting in the staff quarters, in the conference room. That way you can sneak into her office. Don’t take anything, I don’t want her to notice—but take pictures. You still have the phone, right?”
An echo of fright makes my fingertips tingle, the shadowy memory of last night pressing in on me.
“No, I—”
I’m interrupted by a knock on the window.