“There might be some in the back?” Beck started searching again.
“Shove over.” Sierra jostled past to get to the chocolate mint she’d spied. It was a tight squeeze, with shelves on either side of them and Beck at the end.
“Oh, there!” Beck said cheerfully. “I think I can reach it—”
Sierra glanced toward the door. Her heart nearly shot out of her throat.
A figure dressed in black stood there, face covered by a balaclava. Sierra sucked in a breath to cry out when the figure shoved Carter in the back.
Carter stumbled into Adi and Sierra, who fell into Beck, who crashed against the rear shelving. The freezer door slammed shut, plunging them into darkness.
Sierra gaped at the heavy door, that breath still trapped in her throat.
“What the hell!” Adi roared, breaking Sierra from her shock.
She lurched to shove the door open. It was stuck. “Hey.Hey!Shit, I think they’ve padlocked it.”
Light flooded the room as Beck clicked the flashlight back on. His breath steamed before his face. “Is everyone okay? Carter?”
“I think so.” Carter’s voice was shaky. “Who pushed me?”
“I didn’t see,” Sierra said. “They were wearing a balaclava.”
“They werewhat?” Adi said as Beck hissed out a breath.
“What’s a balaclava?” asked Carter.
“A mask that covers everything but your eyes.”
“I told you I saw something,” Carter said. “In the bushes outside. I told you!”
“Maybe it was Jarius being an asshole?” Adi sounded like he didn’t believe himself.
“Jarius didn’t know we’d be out here,” Sierra said.
“Wedidn’t know we’d be out here,” Beck pointed out.
“So . . . someone was roaming around the complex in that mask for the fun of it?” Carter whispered.
Beck dug out his phone. “I’m calling Elijah.”
The line rang. And rang.
“He’s asleep,” Sierra said.
“Or lurking around the place in a balaclava,” Adi muttered.
“Could this be another attempt at sabotaging us?” Carter hugged herself as Beck tried calling Lisa’s number. “Like whoever spiked my drink? Maybe they were hanging around our villas, saw us heading in here, and decided to use the opportunity to their advantage.”
Beck gasped. “Maybe it’s the same person who put the cow heart in our fridge!”
Carter’s jaw dropped as Adi asked, “What cow heart?”
“Whoops. Sorry. We didn’t tell you because Sierra thought someone was trying to put us off our game.” Beck explained about finding the heart and the knife with the creepy note, finishing the story with a full-body shiver. “Jeez, it’s freezing in here.”
“Yeah,” Adi said. “It’s a freezer.”
But Sierra could see the worry behind his facade. Her own face was going numb from the cold.
