Chapter 2 - The Sound of the Trap
Inside Freezer 12, the digital thermometer flickered between minus six and minus eight degrees. The air was dry, biting, and smelled faintly of sea salt and frozen cod. I zipped my heavy thermal parka up to my chin, pulled my wool-lined hood tight around my face, and settled against a wooden pallet stacked with boxed sea scallops.
According to the mirrored surveillance feed beaming directly to Andrew’s encrypted tablet sitting in a parked SUV three blocks away, Ethan was currently driving back to our Cape Elizabeth home to pour himself a glass of celebratory scotch.
His sister Brooke was parked in her gray hatchback two hundred yards down the industrial access road, watching the entrance of the refrigeration facility to ensure no late-night delivery trucks interrupted her brother’s schedule.
They were all playing their parts with horrifying precision.
I checked my watch. 11:52 PM.
My plan required giving Ethan enough time to establish his alibi, log into his home computer, and begin drafting the preliminary notifications to my corporate board about my “tragic accidental entrapment.” If we moved too quickly, his lawyers would argue the security systems were hacked or the lock failure was a tragic coincidence.
We needed him to commit. We needed him to actively tamper with the facility logs, lock out the remote override protocols from his executive terminal, and officially report my disappearance to the local police department himself.
Let him dig his own grave, I thought, stamping my boots against the concrete floor to keep the circulation moving through my toes.
At 1:15 AM, the heavy metal door outside the freezer bay clanked open.
I heard muffled footsteps echoing across the cavernous main refrigeration floor. A beam of harsh flashlight cut through the small glass viewing port built into the door of Freezer 12.
Ethan’s face appeared in the tiny square window.
He looked pale in the blue emergency light. His eyes were wide, darting nervously around the interior of the freezer to confirm my body was slumped where he expected it to be. He couldn't see me clearly behind the high stack of scallop crates, but the shadow of my parka hanging near the control panel was enough to satisfy him.
A slow, ugly smile spread across Ethan’s face. It was a look of pure, unadulterated greed—the expression of a man who believed he had finally won the game without ever having to work a single day of his life.
He tapped twice on the glass window, a mocking farewell, and turned away.
I heard his footsteps fade into the distance, followed by the heavy metal exterior exit door slamming shut.
Five minutes later, my cell phone—safely stored inside a waterproof, insulated pouch in my inner pocket—vibrated silently.
I pulled it out and looked at the screen. A encrypted text message from Andrew: He just logged into the corporate master server from home. He’s manually disabling the remote emergency override for Freezer 12.
I tapped a quick reply: Let him finish.
By locking me out digitally from his home office terminal, Ethan had just crossed the legal threshold from negligence into intentional, premeditated homicide. Every keystroke he made was being recorded by our independent network proxy, capturing his IP address, his login credentials, and his explicit confirmation code.
He wasn't just sealing me inside a freezer; he was sealing his own prison cell.
At 3:45 AM, the temperature inside Freezer 12 dropped to minus twelve degrees as the secondary compressor kicked into high gear—a command Ethan had sent remotely to accelerate the freezing process.
May you like
My breath came in ragged, frosty gasps. Even with the thermal gear, the deep cold was beginning to bite through the fabric, aching in my joints and numbing my fingertips.
Hold on, Claire, I told myself, closing my eyes and visualizing the warmth of the courtroom where I would watch Ethan lose everything he had ever stolen. Just a little longer.
