Chapter 2 - The Man Three Buildings Away
Mason Reed had made a career out of noticing things other people preferred to ignore.
A decimal in the wrong column.
A delivery truck arriving twenty minutes before its manifest said it should.
A warehouse supervisor who suddenly bought a boat after signing a suspicious contract.
That was why, at 12:14 in the morning, he was still sitting in a borrowed office three buildings from Mercer Cold Storage, surrounded by invoices and bad coffee.
The flickering lights should not have mattered.
They did.
Mason stood and walked to the window.
Mercer Cold Storage was a black rectangle beneath the snow. The parking lot was almost empty. A single sedan sat near the loading dock.
He recognized it.
Victor Carter’s.
Mason’s jaw tightened.
“Of course.”
He and Victor had spent six months fighting over a distribution contract that had somehow lost three hundred thousand dollars between signature and delivery. Victor blamed fuel surcharges. Mason blamed fraud.
Lena had blamed Mason.
The last time she spoke to him, she had stood in the lobby of a downtown hotel, eight months pregnant and furious.
“My husband is not your criminal.”
“I didn’t say criminal.”
“You implied it.”
“I said his numbers don’t work.”
“You always need to be right.”
“And you always need me to be wrong.”
She had stepped closer.
“Stay away from my family, Mason.”
He had.
Until tonight.
The lights inside Mercer flickered again.
Mason checked the time.
Then he saw movement near the side entrance.
A man walked quickly from the building to Victor’s sedan.
Even from a distance, Mason recognized the expensive camel coat Victor wore to nearly every winter meeting.
Victor climbed into the car.
He sat behind the wheel for almost a minute without turning on the engine.
Then he drove away.
Mason stared after him.
Something cold that had nothing to do with weather moved through his stomach.
He grabbed his own coat.
The front entrance to Mercer was locked. Mason walked around the side, snow grinding beneath his shoes.
The employee door was shut but not fully latched.
That was wrong.
He opened it.
“Hello?”
Silence.
The office lights were on.
A purse sat on a desk.
Mason recognized it immediately because Lena had carried it during their argument at the hotel.
His pulse jumped.
“Lena?”
No answer.
He walked deeper into the facility.
The hallway ended at the industrial freezer.
A red digital panel glowed above the steel door.
-50°F.
Mason approached slowly.
Then he heard something.
Not a voice.
A dull impact.
He put his ear near the door.
“Lena?”
Nothing.
He struck the metal with his palm.
Three quick knocks.
Inside the freezer, Lena thought she was hallucinating.
She had been counting backward from one hundred because her childbirth instructor once said focus could interrupt panic.
Ninety-three.
Ninety-two.
Ninety—
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Her head lifted.
She stumbled toward the door.
“Mason?”
Her voice barely existed.
Outside, he went still.
“Lena!”
She hit the door with both hands.
“Get me out!”
Mason grabbed the handle.
Locked.
“Who did this?”
A contraction hit her.
She cried out.
Mason’s face changed.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m in labor.”
For three full seconds, the world stopped making sense.
“You’re what?”
“Twins.”
“I know you’re having twins.”
“No, Mason. I am having them now.”
He looked at the door.
Then the control panel.
Then back toward the office.
“Stay with me.”
“Great advice,” Lena shouted weakly. “I was thinking of leaving.”
Despite everything, he almost laughed.
Good.
Anger meant she was conscious.
Mason pulled out his phone and called emergency services.
He gave the address, explained that a pregnant woman was trapped in an industrial freezer, said she was in premature labor, and asked for fire rescue and paramedics.
Then he called the emergency maintenance number posted beside the control panel.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
He swore.
Inside, Lena slid down the door.
“Mason?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t leave.”
The words caught him off guard.
Lena Carter had once told him she would rather negotiate with a shark.
Now she was asking him not to leave.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He removed his coat and pressed it uselessly against the steel, as if warmth could pass through.
“Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
“You’re still arrogant.”
“I know.”
“Your company stole the Norton account from me.”
“You stole it first.”
“I won it.”
“You underbid by twelve percent.”
“That’s called strategy.”
“That’s called losing money creatively.”
Another contraction hit.
Her breath turned ragged.
Mason stopped joking.
“Breathe slowly.”
“You don’t get to coach me through labor.”
“Fine. Continue doing whatever terrifying thing you’re doing.”
She made a sound that could have been a laugh.
Then she whispered, “Victor did this.”
Mason did not answer at first.
He had suspected.
Hearing it confirmed made anger travel cleanly through him.
“What did he say?”
“Insurance.”
Mason closed his eyes.
Of course.
The financial records.
The unexplained debt.
The new policy he had noticed in a disclosure package weeks earlier but had no reason to question.
“How long have you been inside?”
“Ten seventeen.”
He looked at the clock.
Nearly two hours.
“Emergency crews are coming.”
“He disabled something.”
“What?”
“The alarm. I tried the emergency button. Nothing happened.”
Mason looked down the hallway.
He would later remember that moment because it was when suspicion became certainty.
This was not a malfunction.
This was an execution dressed like an accident.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Inside the freezer, Lena screamed.
Mason put both hands against the door.
“Lena?”
No answer.
“Lena!”
Her voice returned faintly.
“I think one of them is coming.”
Mason’s stomach dropped.
The first fire engine turned into the parking lot.
Men and women in heavy gear rushed through the side entrance. Mason stepped back and gave them everything he knew.
A firefighter examined the lock.
“Mechanical override is jammed.”
“Can you open it?”
“We can open anything.”
“How long?”
The firefighter looked at the industrial hinges.
“Not fast enough.”
Mason hated that answer.
Inside, Lena curled around her stomach, shivering so hard her teeth clicked.
She could hear tools striking metal now.
Voices.
Real voices.
Help.
Her relief was so overwhelming she almost stopped moving.
Then the lights dimmed.
She forced one hand upward.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
On the other side of the steel door, Mason heard the pounding become louder.
He could not see her.
He could not reach her.
But for the first time in twelve years, winning against Lena Carter meant only one thing.
Getting her out alive.
The firefighters worked through the outer housing while the paramedics prepared a warmed stretcher. Mason answered questions until his throat hurt. He told them her gestational age, what he knew of the twins, and the exact time he had first heard her voice. He hated how little he knew about her medical history. He hated even more that Victor probably knew everything and had used that knowledge to choose the night.
A fire captain pulled Mason aside.
“Did you see anyone leave?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Victor Carter. Her husband.”
The captain’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t contact him.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
That was a lie. Mason wanted to call Victor and say exactly what he thought of him. He wanted the man to know the plan had failed before police reached him.
Instead, Mason put his phone back in his pocket.
For once, he understood that rage was not the same as action.
The cutting tool shrieked against metal.
From inside, Lena cried out again.
Mason pressed one hand to the wall.
“I’m still here.”
There was a long silence.
Then, faintly, she answered.
May you like
“I know.”
Those two words changed something he could not yet name.
