Page 61 of Grant’s Blaze

“Which is true, to the best of my knowledge,” she asserted. “And before you ask, I totally checked all the outside doors first. You and Abbi have ingrained that part into me. They were all still locked when I got out of the cooler.”

“Are you absolutely certain it was locked when you were inside? Did you try your hardest to get out?”

Well, that pissed her off. Her twisted features told me as much. “I’m not a freaking idiot, Rio. Of course I tried to get out.” And then the biting syllables of her verbal assault. “I was freaking out and yelling and pounding on the thing like a maniac.”

She closed her eyes before a maverick tear ran down her cheek. When I reached out and wiped it away for her, she popped her eyes back open.

And…wow.

Gone was the capable, talented chef that worked for me on any other given day. The woman before me looked more like a seven-year-old little girl freshly woken from a bad dream.

“I was so scared,” she admitted with a shivering, tiny voice. “I almost had a panic attack until I remembered all my training and calmed myself down. It was truly terrifying.”

“All right, all right. I didn’t mean to insinuate you were dumb. I’m sorry. What are you talking about, though, remembered your training? Do you have a panic disorder?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything about that. It’s not what’s important here.” She waved her hand carelessly, like swatting away a fly.

“Hannah,” I insisted. “It is important, just like the rest of the story is. You’re trying to pull one over on the wrong person when it comes to a mental health challenge. I’m just saying.” But as soon as it was clear she wouldn’t elaborate further on the panic topic, I went back to the original issue at hand. “So someone has a key to our building who shouldn’t. I’ll have the locks changed on all the doors. We rent this space, so it could be any number of past occupants. I don’t know if the landlord really changes the locks between tenants, you know?” Now I was the one looking to see if I made sense—a feeling that worsened as soon as Hannah spoke up again.

“Wait. There’s more.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I groaned, feeling suddenly stuck in that damn Groundhog Day movie. But this version wasn’t cute or funny. “All right. What else?”

“When I came out of the cooler, I ran to my desk to get my phone. But it was already opened past the lock screen. I don’t know how, because I have a password on it.”

“Odd,” I muttered as I had to force my next question out. “Was it just basically open to your home screen? If that’s the case, maybe it was just a strange glitch from a provider update or—”

“Oh, no,” she interjected quickly. “It was open to my photos app.”

I gulped, though it did little to ease my suddenly dry throat. “Well, shit. Someone was looking through your pictures?”

“Not the pictures,” Hannah stated. Her throat convulsed, emulating my nervous action. “There was a video pulled up on the screen.”

“Of what? God, I’m already afraid to know.” I narrowed my eyes, knowing damn well it was going to be bad. The rush of fear to my brain and the pounding pulse in my throat already told me so.

“The video was of me, inside the walk-in. Whoever locked me in there was somehow videotaping it too.”

And damn my raging instincts for being so right this time.

“Do you still have that video? Is it still on your phone?” I asked.

“It should be. I didn’t delete it.”

“Okay. Don’t touch your phone at all. Don’t do anything with your phone at all. I realize you have since then, but don’t do anything else, now, okay? I’m going to call someone to come and get it.”

“Rio.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s more.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, praying to God and anyone like him that I had strength to deal with more. “Okay, tell me.”

I endured about twenty seconds of her skeptical stare, like she debated if I could really handle her new information bomb, before letting the wind have a good chunk of my cool.

“Hannah, stop fucking around and tell me. You have no idea the kind of morning I’ve already had.” But when hearing my own voice, I winced. “Shit. Sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Well, I might understand the kind of morning you’ve had,” she replied.