Chapter 33
I wake to the sound of rain pittering against the roof. The hollow, thrumming sound seems to be reverberating through the cabin, as though the lack of insulation in the walls is creating a drum for the heavens to play.
When I sit up, I feel my shoulder aching; and as I grimace, the cut on my cheek makes itself known.
I give a grim little laugh.
“Don’t think you’re supposed to get beaten up this badly at a psychological treatment clinic,” I mutter to myself as I survey the room.
The floor is clean, my suitcase all zippered up and ready to go. I packed last night, everything but my toothbrush, before passing out from sheer exhaustion around four in the morning, too tired to keep jumping at every sound from the outside.
There is a relief, I have discovered, in giving up.
I can’t do this anymore. It has all just gotten too real, too dangerous, too fast. People spying in the dark, breaking into my cabin to take my phone, skulking in the woods.
Hunting me.
I wanted to find Susannah Wallin. I wanted to get justice for the people who’ve gotten scammed and broken by Martina Hastings. I wanted to make a name for myself.
All of that is still true. But I’m not willing to pay the price. I always knew there was a risk in coming here, knew that there were whispers and rumors, that at least one person had gotten hurt badly enough, physically or emotionally, to disappear.
I thought I was prepared enough. I thought I was smart enough. I thought I could handle it.
But something has gone wrong. Wrong enough to tell me I have to get out of here.
Some of the fear from last night has subsided with the warmth and light of being indoors and at least nominally safe; enough for my head to clear up, for me to begin to question some of my assumptions.
I don’t know what it was I heard last night. Or who. But that conviction that Sandra was out there with me, that she got hurt—that’s gone. The fear took over.
Sandra didn’t show. Most likely because she got spooked. Someone saw her leaving her room, and she was already freaked out, with no way to leave me a message. Maybe she tried sending me a text, informing me. I never did have time to tell her about the fact that someone got my phone.
It doesn’t matter anymore. I need to go and find Sandra, and then we both need to leave.
What I have might be enough to hand over to someone, the ethics board or the police, and let them investigate.
It might be enough to get the place shut down, maybe even to get the cops to look into Susannah’s disappearance again.
I’ll have something to show for it. Even if it’s not the glorious start to my career that I wanted.
Armin will be happy, at least. Hopefully, happy enough to let me crash on his couch for a couple of months, given that I won’t have enough money to pay my rent.
I get up from the bed, pull my hair back into a short ponytail, and, grabbing my jacket, push the desk out of the way from the door so that I can go outside.
It’s pouring rain out there, the path turned half into a river, pebbles dancing in the water streaming down the hill to the pond.
When I chance a look up at the sky, it’s iron gray, clouds so heavy with water they seem near to touch the treetops.
The wind is still coming in strong, insistent bursts, throwing the rain droplets in the air and spraying my face.
The air smells of cold, and water, and electricity. It won’t be a fun drive. For the first time since I left for this now-failed venture, I find that I’m happy I got the more expensive car.
At least that’s something, I guess.
I pull my hood down, lower my chin to my chest, and set off for the staff quarters. The cloud coverage is thick enough that it looks more like twilight than morning, the light gray and muddled.
When I get to the staff quarters, I hesitate by the door. For a second, I think to myself that it doesn’t matter; I’m getting out of here anyway.
But then, half a heartbeat later, I remember. It might not matter to me, but it matters to Sandra.
Already soaked to the bone, I curse softly to myself.
Then I creep up to the first window, get up on my toes among the low blueberry bushes, and look in.
It’s empty. A neatly made bed, two books stacked on the desk by the window. A duffel bag with the words VALLENTUNA TENNIS CLUB printed on it on the floor next to the bed.
Definitely not Sandra’s room. She’s never played tennis in her life.
The next window shows a small kitchen. It’s messy, the sink full of dirty cups and a full garbage bag on the floor next to the trash can.
I can see flies circling the bag, even from outside the window, and despite the circumstances it gives me a small thrill, seeing this thing I’m not supposed to be seeing.
The pristine employees of the esteemed Himlafall Clinic; not so perfectly neat behind closed doors, it seems.
My mother once suggested that I wanted to be a journalist not to show up my father but because I wanted to be professionally nosy without getting called out on it.
I remember laughing when she said that, even though I was pretty sure she wasn’t joking, at all.
She never did like how interested I was in the affairs of other people; after what happened with my father, I think she disliked everything about me that reminded her of him.
I move on to the next window. This one is a bedroom, and a messy one; a lamp has been knocked over, and no one has picked it up. There is a small picture on the desk that I can just barely make out. Sandra and Andrea, laughing at the camera.
When I strain to stand taller and twist my neck, I can only just make out the figure of Sandra sleeping in the bed. She has her back to me, the blankets pulled up all the way over her head, so that I only see a little bit of short blond hair sticking out.
I raise my hand to knock.
“Isobel, what are you doing?”
I thunk down back onto my heels and turn around.
Belinda is standing on the stairs. She’s got a light-gray rain jacket on, hood pulled over her head, and her usual white sneakers exchanged for low rubber boots.
“I—” I start, mind completely blank.
She walks up to me. “Well?”
I’m out of good explanations. Out of stories, out of energy. I can’t get myself to care enough to make it sound believable.
On the other hand … that note in my file made me out to be an attention-seeking liar. No matter why that was in there, it can only work in my favor.
“I wanted to talk to Martina,” I say.
“Dr. Martina?” Belinda asks.
I clear my throat.
“The very same.” I smile. “I went to the main building, and she wasn’t there, so I thought … well, I figured I’d go to her room and see if she was there.”
Belinda stares at me, unblinking.
“It’s urgent.” I don’t have to fake the way my voice is shaking.
“Well, first of all, that is not okay, Isobel,” Belinda chides me. “Patients are not allowed in staff quarters.”
“I’m not in staff quarters,” I point out. “Technically, I’m outside staff quarters.”
This earns me a sour little smile.
“Very cute.” Belinda does not appear to find this cute. “But that’s not even Dr. Martina’s room. That’s Sandra’s room. You would’ve woken her up if I hadn’t stopped you.”
She takes me by the elbow, her grip firm, and leads me away from the window, toward the main building. The rain is still falling all around us.
“She’s still sleeping?” I ask, trying for innocence. Or stupidity. Whichever works. “Isn’t she going to miss breakfast?”
“She’s sick,” Belinda says, voice short and clipped. “I think she’s got a stomach bug, so we don’t want anyone to bother her.”
“Oh,” I say.
That explains it.
Andrea had a stomach bug. That’s why Sandra was late to show up. She must have caught it from her daughter, gotten symptoms last night.
Belinda stops, turning to me, her grip tightening. The hood and shoulders of her rain jacket are glistening in the rain, and as the wind blows all around us, it catches a strand of her hair escaped from the hood, making it dance across her face, which is tightened up in suspicion.
Up close, I see that she’s got a small brown spot on one iris. A freckle. It makes it look like she’s got two pupils in one eye, like there are two people in there, staring out at me.
“Isobel,” she says, her voice low. “Tell me the truth. What is going on with you? What are you after?”
“Nothing.” I’m too quick to respond; I sound, accurately, like I’ve got something to hide.
Belinda’s mouth twists, for just a second, and I feel like I’m seeing a glimpse of the person behind the picture-perfect mask for the first time. An actual human emotion, as opposed to pure blissful serenity.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” She brings her face closer to mine, her grip on my elbow tightening.
“What was me?” I ask, with genuine surprise.
Belinda stares at me. For one second. Two.
Whatever she sees in my face, it’s enough to make her let me go.
“Never mind.” She turns away, but I swear there was … something, in her eyes. “Come on. I’ll bring you to Martina.”
Belinda walks me over to the main building. The reception area is empty, the lamp in the ceiling giving off a slight electric buzzing I can feel in my teeth.
As we walk in, she pulls her hood down, shaking her hair out.
For a moment, the frustration and irritation still naked on her face, with raindrops running down the surface of her jacket and her dirty rubber boots, I think she looks like someone who could have been my friend, under other circumstances.
“She’s in her office.” Belinda’s voice is clipped. “Just go over there. If she doesn’t have time, she’ll tell you.”
“Thank you,” I say, and Belinda waves me off as she sits down behind the desk.
I hesitate.
“Is everything okay?” My curiosity still winning out.
She looks up. There are dark circles under her eyes, and in the artificial light, she looks washed out, like all the colors have leached out of her.
But then, as though on reflex, she plasters on that by now familiar wide, bright smile.
“It’s fine, Isobel.” That smooth, friendly voice. “Absolutely nothing to worry about. You go talk to the doctor.”
I linger for yet a few more seconds, but Belinda has turned to her computer, her well-kept square fingernails tapping away at the keyboard.
After a few seconds, I turn and walk down the hallway.
The door to Martina’s office is closed. I don’t knock; I just swing it open.
Martina looks up in surprise as I step in.
“Hi,” I say, smiling. “I’d like to go home.”