The Break-Up Retreat(62)

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 trashcan. 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, dark 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.