Temptation Trails - Page 159

“No, it’s not.” I turned to Marlene. “Those look delicious, but I need to go make sure I didn’t make a terrible mistake before I left. It’s been a very weird day and I kind of have a problem with bad luck. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire place is filled with smoke and the alarm short-circuited and won’t go off. Or something. If Garrett gets here before we’re back, tell him we’re on our way. In and out, it should only take a few minutes.”

“Unless it’s on fire. Then we might be longer,” Owen said.

“Right. That’s going to be a bigger problem. Make sure you have your phone. If we see smoke in the distance, we’re calling it in.”

He patted his pocket. “Got it.”

“All right,” Marlene said. “But drive careful.”

“I will. Thank you!”

Owen and I headed out to my car. As I drove, I crossed my fingers and toes, hoping I wasn’t about to walk into a disaster.

CHAPTER 42

Garrett

Blinding anger seared through my veins, flooding me with fire. A voice in the back of my head told me to calm down and think. Losing myself to rage and panic wasn’t going to help. I needed to get out and get to Harper before he did.

As my mind snapped into focus, I noticed a humming sound and felt cold air blowing against my face. I wrenched myself to a sitting position and looked around, taking stock of my surroundings in the dim light. Where was I?

It looked like a walk-in freezer. And Phillip had turned it on.

Fuck.

He wanted to kill me himself, so he probably wouldn’t leave me to freeze to death. I didn’t know how long a big commercial freezer would take to get to temperature, but I would have guessed at least twelve hours, if not more. Apparently he intended to make me even more miserable while I waited. What a prick.

Still, I had a feeling the cold wasn’t my biggest problem. I didn’t know how long the oxygen would last. Worse than that, without a source of fresh air, I was at risk for carbon dioxide poisoning just from my own breathing.

If I’d been expecting a rescue, I’d have hunkered down, tried to stay warm, and moved as little as possible to keep my breathing slow and minimize exhalations.

But no one knew I was there. I had to get out. I had to save Harper.

Which meant I had to risk it.

But first, I had to get my arms and legs free. He’d used zip ties. Made sense. They were common and easy to obtain, and they wouldn’t be traceable back to him.

He had to know I’d be able to get out of them, so I wasn’t about to celebrate once I was unbound. Getting out of the freezer was going to be a much bigger challenge.

The fucker had taken my shoes. Probably making sure I didn’t have any weapons or tools hidden in them. Getting to my feet with my hands behind my back and a massive amount of adrenaline pumping through my veins proved to be awkward, but I managed. Positioning my feet in a V-shape, I dropped into a hard squat as fast as I could, snapping the zip tie around my ankles.

With my legs free, I could move my feet apart for balance. Lifting my arms as far back as I could, I thrust them down. The zip tie held, and although I could feel it chafe and dig into my skin, I ignored the pain.

One more try and that zip tie snapped too.

Urgency gripped me. I had to get out. Had to get to Harper. But I couldn’t barrel my way through the door.

I remembered seeing somewhere that commercial freezers had safety mechanisms to open the door in case someone accidentally locked themselves in. Phillip had probably broken it, but it would have been stupid not to try. There was a knob on the door, below the handle. I pushed it, but sure enough, it didn’t do anything.

No surprise there. He wouldn’t have made that mistake.

Frustrated, I grabbed the door handle and shook it. Barely even moved. He’d locked it tight.

I’d been unconscious when he’d dragged me in, so I hadn’t seen what the freezer was made of. I ran my hands along the cold interior walls. How thick were they? I tried to remember the freezer at Harper’s bakery. Sheet metal, maybe stainless steel or aluminum.

Where would it be the weakest?

Not the front. The door would be strong, designed to open and close thousands of times without the seals breaking.