Katie tried to tell herself that she’d just been too busy in those last years of her mother’s life. Too busy to talk, too busy to listen. It sounded like a very poor excuse in her mind.
“It’s done, Katie,” she told herself. “You can’t have it back.”
Still, her hand lingered on that memory hanging on the wall. She decided that when she did leave this time, she was going to take all these photos with her.
In the kitchen, she set her plastic bag holding the styrofoam container of food down on the counter. It occurred to her that she didn’t have any silverware. Good thing she ordered the burger and fries, then.
As she was opening the package up she started humming to herself. It was an old tune that her mother used to sing to her whenever they were baking together in this kitchen. It brought a smile to her face.
It also brought her attention to the metal door to the walk-in freezer. All the things they used to make here, going back and forth from the freezer to the counters to the stove and back again.
The incident from earlier today--when she’d gotten locked inside--sprang to mind with terrifying clarity. She had been so sure that Riley had locked her inside, either as a joke or as some sort of power play, but thinking about it now that idea just seemed ridiculous.
But didn’t that mean there was something seriously wrong with the door? If it was going to latch and not open after swinging shut on anyone who went in to get out a tub of ice cream, that could really put a crimp in her attempts to sell the home.
She knew she had to check the door again. If that mishap from earlier was just a one-time event, then fine. If it was going to happen every time someone went in the freezer, then she needed to know. She stared at the door, knowing she had to go in.
Only, she couldn’t make herself go do it. Getting stuck in that freezer, all alone...just the thought of it made her tremble.
“Stop being stupid,” she admonished herself. “It’s just a door. A door in your own home. A home you’re trying to sell, if you remember.”
She did remember. That’s what decided things for her. So, going over to the freezer she pulled it open, stood there, and waited.
Nothing happened. The door stayed open.
“Okay, but what if the floor’s not level, Katie Pearson? Ever think about that?” She tapped her foot and wished she could stop being so logical. If the floor was unbalanced, there was a chance that her weight inside could tip things enough to make the door want to close. Couldn’t have that.
Old houses developed lots of little quirks like that but this quirk could be fatal until they put proper ventilation into the freezer. And, fixed the lock. So...inside the freezer she was going to have to go.
She took one step in, and then stepped quickly out again.
“Ha, almost got me, didn’t you?” She addressed the freezer as if it was a living thing. “Nice try, but I’m too smart for you!”
Going back to the counter, she took her receipt from the food bag--the burger smelled fantastic--and used a pen from her purse to write out a quick note for when Riley arrived later.
In freezer. If door closed, please save me!
She laughed at herself but, to be honest, she was still feeling a little nervous about going in there. She could wait for Riley and his crew to show up, couldn’t she? That way she wouldn’t be alone.
No. She wasn’t some scared little girl in need of a man to do stuff for her. Just...sometimes she needed a man to save her if the stuff she did went wrong.
Pen and note on the counter, she stepped into the freezer.
As soon as she was inside she turned to face the door. That way if it started to close she could catch it in time. She could see her breath with every exhale, and tendrils of misty frozen air were escaping into the kitchen.
That was all, though. The door didn’t move.
“Huh. Well isn’t that interesting.”
She experimented with pulling the door this side of midpoint, and then that side, and putting it just a few inches from closed. Nothing made the door want to swing shut. It stayed wherever she put it.
Katie stepped back again, hands on her hips, daring the door to move. Still nothing. Was it something she touched in the freezer earlier? Now that was a really ridiculous thought, but what if she was right? Trying to remember exactly where she’d been standing in here before the door closed on her this morning, Katie looked around at everything. She looked at the shelves. She looked at the metal walls and noticed just a few spots of rust that would have to be taken care of. She stood over the drain plate in the middle of the floor and looked down...
“Here now. What’s that?”
Down in the grate, she saw a little square of white. Paper, maybe?
Leaning down on her knees, she took a closer look. Yes. Definitely paper. It was caught on the bend in the pipe under the slotted metal cover plate. She found her fingers could fit through the grate, barely, and she could just reach the edges of the folded square. It moved under her groping touch, turned, and threatened to fall the rest of the way down the pipe.
Concentrating hard, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, she put her other hand in through another slot, as far as it would go, and caught the barest edge of the paper between her fingertips.
She tried lifting it up, only to have it slip and fall. This time it landed on the open edge, folded side up, like a tiny camping tent. After a moment to make sure it wasn’t going to just slip away entirely, she tried again.
“Why am I doing this?” Her fingers caught the folded edge. “It’s just a piece of paper. It can’t be that important.”
Then why was it here, tucked into this drain?
When she had lifted it up far enough, she held it against the fingers of her one hand until she could pinch it firmly between two fingers on her other. “Got you.”
Very slowly, she lifted it up through a slot.
It felt brittle, and it opened with a crinkling sound to the size of a few inches across and maybe a dozen high. The one side was colored, the other one white, and on the white side was faded handwriting.
Her mother’s handwriting.
Please don’t let them get away with this. Katherine. Please know that I love you. I won’t get to see you again.
Your mother Alayna Pearson
Then, at the bottom, were three little words.
I’m so cold.
Just those few sentences. Only that, and it sent shivers up Katie’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold inside the freezer. Her mother had written those words. Katie read them over again. They were terrifying...it was like her mom had written them just before she died.
“Mom?” Her breath plumed in front of her face again. “What’s going on?”
Behind her, the freezer door slammed shut with a resounding, hollow thud.
Chapter 5
She hadn’t turned the light on when she came in because the lights from the kitchen had been bright enough. Now she was plunged into complete, chilly darkness.
The sound that came out of her throat was hard for her to recognize as her own voice. It was a little child’s voice, a scared little girl who needed more than anything to find her mother.
Katie lurched for the door. Somehow she misjudged and ended up crashing into the set of shelves on the right...or was it the left? She was all turned around and she couldn’t find the door and she knew it wouldn’t do her any good to scream because no one would be able to hear it outside of this room anyway.
Then, just like that, the door opened.
Katie nearly fell through it, into the open and waiting arms of Riley Harris.
“Hey there, careful now. You almost fell.” He made sure that she had her balance, and only then did he let her go. “You should stop getting locked in the freezer, Katie. People are going to get the wrong idea.”
He was in a worn pair of jeans today and a cotton t-shirt that perfectly defined the lines of his abdomen and his chest. His smile was friendly...or was
it something else?
“You,” Katie accused him. “It was you! This morning and this time, too. You shut that door on me, didn’t you?”
“What? No, I most certainly did not do that.” He stared at her. His smile slid away from his face when he realized she was serious. “Katie, I thought we went over this already. I’m not locking you in the freezer. The door was closed when I got in here. If it wasn’t for the note you left me then I never would have gone looking for you in there.”
Katie didn’t believe him. He did do it. She knew he did. How else was it possible that every time she went in that freezer, he was right there? Every time that door closed on her and she felt cold and scared and alone--
The note. She remembered her mother’s note, and the dream she’d had while taking a bath. The one where her mother told her she felt cold, and alone.
Please don’t let them get away with this. That’s what the note said.
Someone had hurt her mother. Here. In that freezer.
She looked at the paper folded up in her hand. This was her mother’s last message. She needed to pay attention, because her mother was trying to tell her something.
Now Katie thought she might know what that something was.
“Um. Riley.” She forced her voice to be calm as she stepped away from the freezer and shut the door tight again. “Is your crew here with you? To start work on the house, I mean?”
“Yeah, they’re right outside. Are you sure you’re okay--?”
“I’m fine.” She said it quicker than she meant to, but she didn’t want him to suspect what she was thinking. “Really. I just got scared. Again. That’s all it was. So, um, if your crew wants to start on the outside that would be great. Maybe the roof?”
“We didn’t bring the stuff to do the roof,” Riley told her. When she didn’t say anything, he shuffled his feet and rubbed a hand at the back of his neck. “Well. I guess we could take some measurements to get started with. I mean, if you’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Let me know how things go out there, okay?”
He still watched her dubiously, like he didn’t believe her, but she really didn’t care what he believed so long as he left. She had something she wanted to do, and he didn’t want him seeing what it was.
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Riley shook his head. “You’re the boss. We’ll be outside. I guess.”
His eyes stayed locked with hers for another second before he turned away. He had nice eyes, Katie decided.
Could they be hiding something?
She waited for him to go. At the doorway leading out of the kitchen, he hesitated. Then he half-turned back to her. “If there’s something wrong, Katie, I’m not just good at fixing houses. I can fix other things, too.”
“I’m fine,” she said again, putting a little emphasis in her voice this time. “Just start work outside. I’ll be out later to check on how things are going.”
He nodded, obviously wanting to say more but respecting her privacy by not prying. Without another word he turned and walked out the front door.
Katie was getting some seriously mixed signals from Riley Harris. She liked him. It was obvious that he liked her, too, and if she wasn’t thinking some very dark thoughts about him right now she might have enjoyed some harmless flirting with him. No matter what her feminine instincts said about this cute guy from her hometown she could not forget that he was there both times she’d been locked inside the freezer.
The same freezer where she’d found her mother’s mysterious note.
So what if her mother hadn’t actually died of natural causes. What if, when she had been gone all that time, someone had hurt her right here in this freezer?
What if that someone, was Riley Harris?
When she heard the front door close behind Riley she immediately took out her cellphone and went to the first name on her speed dial list.
Her best friend Mel Wragg answered almost immediately.
“Hey there, chikiepoo!” That was Mel’s usual greeting for Katie. They’d been friends forever, and they’d been through some pretty hair-raising ordeals together, too. “What’s up? How’s the visit home going?”
“Not great,” Katie answered truthfully. “Is there any chance you can come out here? I know I’m springing this on you and I’ll understand if you’re busy...”
“Well, I do have a few things going on right now. A few pending sales and such. Oh, and Sebastian wants to take me out for our anniversary.”
Katie didn’t understand. “Anniversary? Uh, did I miss something?”
“Sure. It’s the sixth month anniversary of when we first decided we didn’t want to get married and just live together forever. Isn’t that sweet?”
“I guess?” Katie really didn’t know what to say to that.
“Don’t worry,” Mel chuckled. “I’m planning on wrecking this anniversary by marrying the boy first chance I get.”
“Wow. I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.”
“I know, right? Okay, okay. Enough about yours truly. Tell me why you’re calling. I’m not sure I can just drop everything for you unless it’s really serious.”
Katie swallowed and then made herself say the words. “I think my mother was murdered.”
Mel didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll catch the next flight. Where’s the nearest airport to you?”
“Eastern Oregon Regional,” Katie said, and then repeated it when Mel said she was writing it down. “You’ll still have a half hour drive to Fount Azure. Be sure to tell me when your flight’s going to land and I’ll be there to pick you up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I want my own wheels. I’ll just rent a car at the airport. Text you when I land.”
“Okay. Thanks, Mel. This means a lot to me.”
“Hey. What are friends for?”
She hung up, and Katie put her phone away. The burger and fries were still on the counter. They were cold now, and she had no appetite. She packaged them back up and put them away in the fridge.
Up in her room, Katie set the note from her mother down on the bed, smoothing it out, and reading the words again and again. They didn’t change, and they didn’t make any more sense to her now than they did the first time that she read them.
Turning the note over, she saw that the colored side was actually the label from a two pound can of coffee. Her mother used to buy stuff like that in bulk cans to save money. She kept the coffee in the freezer because it kept the beans fresher longer. Single parents had to use every trick they could to trim the budget.
She turned the scrap of paper back over to read her mother’s words again.
Please know that I love you Katie. I won’t get to see you again.
Tears blurred the words. Her mother knew she was going to die. That much was plain. Not in a someday-I’ll-die-in-my-sleep way, either. She was going to die because someone had hurt her.
The freezer. Something had happened in that freezer.
Then, at the end, the three words that scared Katie most.
I’m so cold.
Her mother, dying and cold. Why cold? How would she die when she was cold?
Oh, Hell. Katie knew. She suddenly knew. This note had been in the freezer. That’s where her mother had written it. When she knew she was going to die she’d ripped the label off a coffee can and written this note for her.
In the freezer.
The way that door kept closing on her and locking. It was what happened to her mother. That’s where she died.
Only... Her mother had been found dead in her bed. She was supposed to have died in her sleep, in her bed, peaceful, without any pain.
Now Katie knew that was a lie. Her mother had died suddenly, and alone, and afraid. So how did she get from the freezer to her bed?
“Mom...oh, Mom...”
This was too much. She should not have come back. This house and its secrets could all just go to--
“Hello?” a voice was calling downsta
irs. “Is someone here?”
Katie knew that voice. Of course! With everything else, she’d forgotten to tell Marlena Strohm that she wouldn’t have to come in this week. There’d been so much going on that she maybe could be forgiven for not firing the housekeeper.
She sighed, dabbing tears away from her eyes. “One more thing to add to my list. Guess I should take care of this now.”
Tugging her clothes into some semblance of order and wishing she could do something to cover up how badly she’d been crying, Katie rushed downstairs. “I’m here, Marlena! I’m coming.”
She met Katie at the bottom of the stairs with a broad smile. She was a short and stocky woman who had never been afraid of manual labor. Tight blonde curls framed a square, dark face lined with creases. A beauty mark over her lip had become much more pronounced since the last time Katie had seen her. The dress with the purple flowers on it was one she’d worn for years, however.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Marlena said, her voice holding traces of her Spanish accent. “It has been too long. Who are all those men outside?”
Katie sighed, putting her hands on Marlena’s arms and guiding her into the kitchen. “Come sit with me for a minute. I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you before but some things have been happening and...well, there’s no easy way to say this but I’m selling Mom’s house.”
“What?” The older woman was shocked. “Oh, no, Katie you can’t. Please don’t do this thing. This house has meant so much to you, and to me as well. We must keep the house. Please.”
Her reaction caught Katie by surprise. “No one has lived here since Mom died. It’s not even a home anymore. It’s just a house.”
Marlena tsked. “Just a house? There is no such thing. I have worked here for your family for such a long time. It would be so sad to lose this house. Please say you will reconsider.”
“I can’t. It’s a big expense keeping this house while I travel all around the country.”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 28