She paused twice to adjust her grip, breathing through the burn in her arms. Had a fleeting thought that she really needed to hit the gym more.
She smiled at that. Gallows humor, she supposed.
The old service path behind the locker was narrow, overgrown, barely visible unless you knew it was there.
She did.
Thanks, Dad, she thought.For the tour of your “smart investments.”He’d called the lockers a just-in-case asset. A way to further get his name out there and an in with the federal government. He’d never imagined how useful they might actually be.
Branches snagged Roy’s clothes. She shoved them aside and kept going until the air changed, damp and sharp. The water was close now. Brackish.
She rolled him the last few feet.
Then sent him over the edge.
There was a splash. Then ripples.
Dana stood there until the surface smoothed and the water looked the same as it always had.
She turned back toward the lot. By the time she reached his truck, she was calm. Focused. Already thinking ahead.
Behind her, the locker thudded once.
She didn’t look back.
Dana climbed into Roy’s truck, started it and drove away from the old lakeside lot. Half a mile down the road, she turned into the woods and stopped. She stepped out and, with the same cloth, wiped the steering wheel, gearshift and door handle.
Mia’s purse lay on the passenger-side floor where it had fallen. Dana didn’t touch it. She left his phone where it was.
Then she locked the truck, walked the half mile back to her car and drove home, already thinking about a hot shower and a clean night’s sleep.
The darkness slammed into Mia.
Cold metal bit into her as she hit the floor, the air knocked from her lungs.
The smell followed next. Rust, old water, something chemical and stale.
Her palms slid on the floor, grit grinding into her skin. Her heartbeat thundered in the small space—too loud, too fast. She pressed her ear to the door.
Nothing. No footsteps. No voices.
Mia stopped banging on the door, the cold settling into her bones. Disbelief hit next. Dana killed Roy and locked her in here. Never in her life had she been exposed to such violence.
She slid down the side of the locker, shaking now, unable to stop. No sense of time. Just the faint hum of music and laughter drifting across the water, as if nothing had changed.
Panic crept in then. Slow and insidious.
She slapped the door once. Hard.
Nothing.
Then she remembered her phone.
She fumbled it from her pocket with trembling fingers. The screen lit the space with a weak, sickly glow. She unlocked it and hit call.
Nothing.
No bars. No spinning wheel. Just an unforgivingNo servicestaring back at her.
