Elin immediately makes out the pavilion where Leon is kneeling, examining something.
Justin’s fingers hover over the keyboard. “What time shall I go back to?”
“Let’s try from about eleven p.m. last night.”
He starts scrolling. The picture is fairly clear because of the exterior lighting but still holds the shadowy grain of nighttime. “Stop me if you see anything.” Images rapid-fire across the screen. All similar; the same gray static.
11:00, 12:00, 12:30, 1:00 . . .
“Wait—I saw someone. There . . .” Elin points.
Justin rewinds, slows the footage to real time. At the bottom left of the screen a woman weaves unsteadily past the camera, something dangling from her hand. Despite the dim light, Elin’s certain that it’s the dead woman, the same length hair, clothing.
The woman stops at the center of the yoga pavilion and walks toward the barrier. She lays her wrap over the balustrade. It slips, falling to the other side.
A few seconds later the camera glides away to the right so she’s no longer visible. Elin leans forward, frustrated, as the camera image jitters slightly then slowly glides back again. When the woman reappears, she’s leaning over the balustrade, as if bending to retrieve the wrap.
All at once, her foot jerkily slides backward, so she’s farther bent over the railing. It’s enough for her to begin to tip, and the forward movement once started is unstoppable. The weight of her body, its momentum, propels her over the barrier headfirst, her legs upright, face and body pressed against the outside of the glass panel.
Her hands are still clamped to the rail. There’s a brief moment when Elin thinks the woman might be able to right herself, but it doesn’t happen. In an instant, her right hand loses its grip, and her left becomes an awkward pivot point, twisting in its socket as her body swings around below it, pulling her legs below her in a complete reversal of position.
Elin watches, her breath high in her chest; it’s clear that the woman won’t be able to hold on for long.
Staring at the screen, time seems to slow. This woman is a stranger to her, but it’s as if Elin knows her intimately in this moment. She’s inside her head, imagining her panic, the mounting sense of desperation as her hand becomes slick with sweat and she can feel herself slipping.
The weight is too much. She falls.
No one says anything: they’re still staring at the blank space where the woman had been. A void has opened up and no words will be able to fill it.
18
The morning air is still, full of the musky scent of flowers. The group slowly weaves its way up the winding stone path toward the main lodge, crossing fine streaks of light scattered among the long branches of the pines.
The drunken bonhomie of last night has dissolved—the awkwardness emphasized by low blood sugar and the lack of social lubricant that is Jo. It’s only when she isn’t there that Hana realizes how much Jo fills in the gaps between them all.
Seth’s holding forth as they round the corner, bouncing from one subject to another: Digital epicenters. A trip to San Francisco. Bioweapons. He’s speaking quickly, as if it will somehow kick the group chemistry to life, but it doesn’t. They fall into silence again, distilled into individual sounds: Birdsong. Voices escaping from one of the villas. The slap of Maya’s sandals against the ground.
Maya loops her arm through Hana’s, her skin surprisingly cold. “Seth doesn’t like it without Jo, does he?” she whispers. “You never really see that side of him.”
Hana nods. It intrigues her. She’d always assumed Seth was the one who bolstered Jo, but perhaps it was the other way around. Without her, he seems adrift.
Maya turns to look at Seth. “Still no word from Jo?”
“Let me . . .” Seth pats his shorts—left pocket, then right. “Shit, I’ve left my phone in the villa.”
Everyone stops in their tracks.
“We’ll wait.” Caleb shrugs as Seth starts walking back. “No hurry.”
Maya says, “I need to send a few emails anyway.” She starts tapping out a message on her phone, but as Hana watches, she senses a frustration in her movements—a slight shake of her head as she types.
“What’s up?” Hana stops beside her.
She shrugs. “Just the usual. Job stuff. If I don’t find something soon, I’m going to have to move out into an even smaller flat.”
“What happened to the job that Jo recommended you for?”
Maya’s face tightens. “Only temporary. Got the boot a few months ago. Haven’t found anything since.”