Chapter 17

17

Sorry, I didn't know Michael was going to be so full-on," Farrah says as they follow Justin along the main path.

"It happens. People often need to vent after something like this, a way of coping with what they've seen." Elin keeps her tone light, but she's still chilled as she picks over his words. "What did you make of what he said, about someone wandering around?"

Farrah shakes her head. "Made no sense. You can't get up there, not anymore..." She trails off as Justin stops at the entrance to the main lodge and the glass doors slide open automatically.

Inside, it's another world. The reception space is beautiful—wide and open, with pale wooden floors. There's a glass ceiling and, on the left, a glass wall, flooding the room with light.

Whitewashed walls on the right are pulled into sharp relief by floor-to-ceiling panels in the same chalky pink as the exterior. The panels roughly divide the space into two zones: a seating area with a view of the rock through the glass wall and ceiling, and the reception on the opposite side. A row of tall cacti stud the back wall.

Elin's eyes lock on the huge textile artwork hanging on the wall behind the reception desk. It's abstract, swirls of line and color interspersed with smaller, almost primitive markings.

It's only when she gets closer that she realizes what the markings are.

Her pulse picks up. Not abstract shapes at all, but reapers.

Small versions of the rock, dotted throughout the textile.

Elin looks on, discomforted, as she sees more and more—some woven into the fabric in the same color as the background, camouflaged.

Farrah follows her gaze. "Beautiful, isn't it? A contemporary British textile artist who went to the school here back in the day. It's something else, seeing it here." She glances over at the glass wall. "Under the rock itself."

It's only then that Elin properly absorbs the mass of stone above, looming through the glass ceiling and the transparent wall. She balks. The sheer scale of it from this angle is overwhelming; one more yard and it would be invading the building.

"Elin? You okay? Justin's ready if you are."

"I'm fine." She has to force a smile as they walk down the corridor leading off the lobby.

Justin guides them into the room at the end. "I've got it ready."

Elin briefly glances around. Multiple screens cover the back wall, all showing different images of the retreat. The room is thrumming with a familiar office odor: coffee mixed with a plasticky tech smell.

Expertly minimizing one screen, Justin brings up another. "The camera is positioned in front of the lodge looking out to the pavilion. Sweeps from left to right." His fingers move rapidly over the keyboard. "This is the live scene."

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.