The cold hit her like a fist, stealing her breath, raising gooseflesh on every inch of exposed skin.The space was dark save for the strip of light from the kitchen beyond, the shelves stocked with supplies for a restaurant that no longer existed.Frost clung to the walls like crystal webbing, and her breath came out in pale clouds that seemed to hang in the air.
Thornton followed her in.
He was silhouetted in the doorway for just a moment—a dark shape against the relative brightness of the kitchen—and Isla used that moment to move.She ducked behind a shelf stacked with boxes, her hand closing around something cold and heavy.A frozen leg of lamb, vacuum-sealed and rock-solid.
Thornton fired again, the muzzle flash strobing in the darkness.The bullet went wide, shattering something glass on a shelf to Isla's right.She heard him curse, heard his footsteps shuffling across the frost-slicked floor as he tried to locate her in the darkness.
"You can't save them," he said, his voice echoing strangely in the confined space."Not really.They'll just burn, in the end.Everything burns.Everything but the cold."
Isla moved.
She came around the shelf low and fast, swinging the frozen lamb like a club.It connected with Thornton's gun hand with a crack that might have been bone, might have been frozen meat meeting flesh.The weapon went flying, disappearing into the shadows somewhere behind him.Thornton cried out, clutching his hand to his chest.
Isla didn't give him time to recover.
She drove her shoulder into his midsection, using his own momentum against him, propelling them both toward the freezer door.Thornton's back hit the frame, and he tried to grab her, his injured hand scrabbling weakly at her coat.
She was smaller than him, lighter, but she had training and desperation on her side.
With a final surge of effort, Isla shoved Thornton fully into the freezer and threw herself backward through the doorway.Her hand found the door handle as she went, and she pulled with everything she had.
The door slammed shut with a sound like a coffin lid closing.
Isla fumbled for the locking mechanism—a simple latch designed to prevent accidental opening from the inside.Her fingers were already going numb from the cold, her breath coming in ragged gasps, but she found the latch and threw it home just as Thornton's weight hit the door from the other side.
"No!"His voice was muffled by the steel, but the desperation came through clearly."No, you can't—you can't leave me in here—"
Isla slumped against the door, her heart pounding, her hands shaking from more than just the cold.Through the small window set into the freezer door, she could see Thornton's face—pale, terrified, already beginning to shiver as the zero-degree air wrapped around him like a shroud.
She pulled out her phone.Her fingers felt thick and clumsy as she dialed, but the call connected on the first ring.
"Rivers?"James's voice was tight with worry."I'm at The Copper Kettle—it's empty, power's been cut for weeks.Tell me you found something."
"Maison Laurent."Her voice came out steadier than she felt."I've got Thornton.He's secured in the walk-in freezer.I need backup and medical—there's a victim, she's alive but injured."
"On my way.Fritz is five minutes out."
"Make it three.And James—" She paused, looking at Thornton through the window.He'd stopped pounding on the door, his energy already fading as the cold began its work."Thornton's going to need medical attention too.The freezer's at zero degrees.We can't leave him in there long."
"Understood.Hold tight, Rivers.I'm coming."
The line went dead.
Isla pushed herself away from the freezer door and turned toward the kitchen, toward the woman who was still lying on the tile floor, one hand pressed to her bruised throat.She was breathing—ragged, painful breaths, but breathing—and her eyes tracked Isla's approach with a mixture of fear and relief.
"It's okay."Isla dropped to her knees beside her, her training taking over, her hands moving to check for additional injuries."You're safe now.I'm FBI.What's your name?"
"Grace."The word came out as barely more than a whisper, scraped raw by Thornton's fingers."Grace Hyland.He—he came into my office, said he needed to talk, and then—"
"Don't try to talk.Save your strength."Isla could hear sirens now, distant but growing closer."Help is almost here."
Grace's eyes drifted toward the freezer door, toward the small window where Thornton's face was still visible, pale and staring.
"Why?"she asked."Why me?"
Isla thought about the magazine in Thornton's apartment, the wall of photographs, the careful documentation of women who looked like his dead wife.She thought about grief that had curdled into obsession, about love that had twisted into something monstrous.
"Because you reminded him of someone," she said finally."Someone he lost."
