She studied the windowless room. Not more than ten by ten, it had the look of a large industrial freezer. But no meat hung from hooks, no frozen foods stocked the shelves, no ice blocks flanked the walls.
The room was completely clean save for the bits of ice and frosting clinging to the walls.
“Oh, God!” She ran to the door, silk stockings sticking to the cold floor and ripping as she moved. She pounded on the door. “Let me out! There’s been a mistake!”
It couldn’t have been the man. He’d been normal. And she’d vetted him completely, calling his contacts back East and doing a complete check on him. He couldn’t have done this to her. It made no sense.
The cold burrowed deeper into her bones. She pounded harder on the door. “Let me out! Please!”
After minutes of silence, the chill demanded she generate warmth in her body. Moving around the room, she searched for another way out, slamming her fist against the walls until her hands burned from the cold. There was no escape from this icy prison.
Returning to the door, she beat on it with her fist until she couldn’t raise her arm anymore.
“Who is doing this to me?”
Her answer was a blast of cold air into the vault. She shivered, her silk blouse little help against the bone-gnawing cold.
So where was she? How had she gotten here? “Think, Sara. Think.”
She struggled to remember the man she’d seen last. He’d wanted retail space for restaurants. He’d not thrown off one signal triggering worry or making her think twice. He’d carried a cooler in the trunk of his car, and it had been stocked with bottles of cold water. She’d gladly accepted the water. Though she’d grown accustomed to the Texas summer heat, she’d drank too much last night, and was thirsty. She’d drained the bottle.
They’d taken a dozen steps toward the warehouse when fatigue settled in her bones. At first she’d blamed it on the heat, but the lethargy had rushed through her, draining all her strength. When her legs had given way, strong arms had caught her.
And then she’d woken up here.
Hot tears burning her eyes, she tilted her head back against the wall. “Why are you doing this? I don’t know you.”
Her answer was the whoosh of the cold air flowing in the vents.
For a moment she closed her eyes. The cold sapped her energy as the heat had earlier. It drew her inward and coaxed her to shut out the world and draw into herself.
“You like the cold, don’t you?” The soft, soothing voice came over a loudspeaker.
Her eyes opened. “Who’s there?”
“You’ve always been drawn to the cold. Remember that winter when the snows were so heavy, and you couldn’t resist going out into the drifts?”
She blew on her bluish fingertips. “That was a long time ago. I was wrong to go into the snow.”
“You weren’t wrong. In fact, it was probably the first time in your life you did something right. It was the first time you followed our true path.”
“My true path is not to freeze to death.” She flexed fingers and then shook them hoping to keep the blood circulating. That’s when she noticed the red rope bracelet around her wrist. With a trembling hand she touched the uneven braided thread.
Immediately, her mind tripped back to the day she’d received a similar bracelet. She’d hated that bracelet as much as she hated this one.
Gripping it in her hand, she ripped it from her wrist and tossed it on the icy floor. “I’m supposed to live my life.”
“Do you remember why you went into the cold?”
She thought about the package she’d received on Monday. Sick. Twisted. “I don’t know who you are but I don’t want to play this sick game. I want you to let me out of here!”
“You don’t really want out, do you? Aren’t you tired of struggling each day just to get up in the morning? You work hard at looking like you’re happy but you’re not.”
“I’m fine.” Her teeth chattered. “I’ve made the best of my life. Ask anyone.”
Soft laughter rumbled over the speaker. “You can say it as many times as you like, Sara. But we both know the truth. You don’t want to live. How could you want to live after what you did?”
A sadness colder than the frigid room twisted around her heart. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Your mother didn’t see it that way. What was it that she called you? Slut? Whore?”
Sara shook her head. “Shut up. You don’t know my mother.”
“I know a lot about your mother and you. She hated you after she found out what you’d done. What did she call you?”
Sara shut her eyes and shook her head. Perhaps her mother didn’t say the words, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel. How could a mother not love a child? “My mother loves me. My mother loves me.”
“That’s what you want to believe, isn’t it, Sara? You want her to tell you she loves you.”
“I don’t need to hear it. I know it.”
“Sara, you are going to die today.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” The voice was tender and soft. “That fact is a given and won’t change.”
“No.”
“It’s okay. You know what it feels like to let the cold seep into your bones and steal your life. This is how you tried to kill yourself all those years ago. You ran into the snowstorm without shoes and in your pajamas. You huddled under a tree, and you waited for death to take you.”
“That was a mistake! I know that!”
“When you lay dying, what did you wish for most?”
“I didn’t make a wish!”
That was a lie. She’d wished for several things that night. Most of all she’d wanted to turn back the hands of the clock and erase her meeting Colin Little, the nights of awkward sex, the pregnancy, and the abortion.
Sara, how could you have been such a stupid slut. Your actions are of common trailer trash. You make me sick!
Uncontainable hot tears now spilled over her cold face, burning a path to her chin.
“It’s okay to cry,” he said. “It’s okay to give in to the pain you’ve carried for so long.”
“I’ve not carried the pain.” That was a lie. She had never fully wrestled free of the pain. To this day an icy chill lingered between Sara and her mother. No matter how hard she worked to distance herself from the past it always lurked in the shadows.
“I have a fiancé,” she said. “He will miss me.”
“He won’t miss you. Your mother won’t miss you. You are going to fade away, Sara, like you never happened.”
More tears fell. “Stop it.”
“No. I can’t stop.”
Sara rubbed her hands together as her teeth chattered. As she did she noticed the slim red bracelet curled on the floor. It had been a symbol of friendship. Of loyalty. Though she’d pledged like the others, she’d never intended to keep her promises. She’d thrown away her bracelet the moment she’d left camp.
And now it was back.
Sara tipped her head back. Tears welled in her eyes. “Is this about that time? Is this about that stupid confession?”
“Tell me your dying wish. No one should die without their last wish being fulfilled.”
Her teeth chattered. “I don’t have a wish.”
“Sara, you do. Tell me.”
He spoke to her as if they were great friends. As if she could bare her soul, show him all her warts and he’d never judge or think less of her.
“I want . . .”
“Tell me,” he coaxed.
She closed her eyes. “I want to hear my mother say she loves me.”
For a moment there was only silence and then she heard her mother’s voice. “I love you, Sara.”
Sara sat straighter and searched the corners of the room half expecting her mother. But she remained alone.
“I love you, Sara.”
It was her mother’s voice as clear and distinct as it had always been.
“I love you, Sara.”
r /> The words sounded sweet and perfect. “That’s not my mother’s voice. It’s a fake.”
“Not fake, Sara. You requested to hear her voice and that’s what I’ve given you. It wouldn’t be fair of me to rob you of your dying wish.”
“I love you, Sara. I love you, Sara.”
Sara glanced toward the discarded red rope bracelet and then closed her eyes, listening to the sweet words rolling over her.
She huddled close to the wall, not cold anymore but oddly warm. It was as if the cold had wrapped around her like a big blanket and held her close as her mother had done many years ago.
Sara gave in to the cold and felt oddly grateful.
I love you, Sara. I love you.
Chapter Eleven