Chapter 10

DAY 2

10

Michael Zimmerman walks through the restaurant, cloth and polish in hand.

His gaze picks over the scene: the empty chairs, the soft gray of the stone floor, the festoon bulbs, each reflecting a tiny, glowing sun. He likes this time, before the guests are awake. This early, the sun feels heavy-lidded, like it's barely opened its eye over the horizon, reluctant to meet your gaze.

Plus, this shift is easy work. The retreat has already been swept clean the night before. All he has to do is hunt out the final bits the night staff has missed—a bottle jammed into a corner, open mouth still dribbling beer, greasy finger smudges on the balustrades.

He's not good for much more, he thinks, feeling a sharp twinge in his lower back. His days of heavy exertion are over, his body worn out from years of teaching PE and playing weekend rugby. It was time to take his foot off the pedal, but he didn't want to retire completely, which made this job the perfect in-between.

Enough company to keep him out of trouble , that's what his wife would have said, and it was true. It didn't do you any good to be on your own. Too much time to think.

Michael wipes his cloth along the railing one last time, fingertip pressed into the fabric to catch the worst of the grease, then makes his way across to the yoga pavilion.

He hasn't yet reached the entrance when he notices a piece of clothing on the grass outside the glass balustrade surrounding the front of the pavilion.

The brightly patterned material bothers him; something like this shouldn't have been missed by the night cleaners.

Slowly walking over, Michael leans over the balustrade to retrieve it, but as soon as his hand closes around the slippery fabric, something on the rocks below draws his gaze.

He startles. You're seeing things.

But as he looks closer, it's clear that he isn't.

Michael starts to tremble. His hand falls open, wrap slithering back to the ground.

Wrenching his gaze from the rocks, he turns, retches. With each spasm, regurgitated lumps of the muesli laid out for the staff every morning splatter the pale stone of the floor.