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‘But … why? Why would anyone want to do that to you?’
Ingrid’s eyes went wide. ‘I can’t say. I’ve said too much already.’
Olivia felt faint, unsure whether it was Ingrid’s words or the heat and claustrophobia. She needed to get out of the sauna.
She stood up and pushed on the door. But it didn’t budge.
She searched for a handle. There was a wooden one but there was no lever or lock. She rattled the door again – but it still didn’t seem to budge.
‘Did you lock this when you came in?’ She turned to Ingrid, who was still sitting on the bench.
The older woman stood up. ‘No. I didn’t think you could lock a sauna.’
‘You shouldn’t be able to.’ Olivia pressed her face up against the small glass window, rubbing the steam away. But she couldn’t see anything. She peered down and itlooked as if something was jamming the door – but she couldn’t be sure.
She slapped her palm against the wood. ‘Hello? Can anyone hear us? We’re trapped in here.’
Ingrid stood up now too, grabbing the handle and yanking hard, as if Olivia might not have been strong enough. But it wouldn’t open for her either. They exchanged a panicked look, and Ingrid added her voice to Olivia’s shouting.
From behind them, there was a hiss, as if someone had poured water on the heated stones inside the sauna stove. Steam began to fill up the room, and as the temperature rose – so did Olivia’s panic. She turned her palm to a fist and began to pound on the door.
‘E-emergency button,’ she managed to stammer out. ‘We need to find it.’
But the steam thickened, making it difficult to see her own hand in front of her face, let alone where the emergency stop button was. Her head began to throb. And her voice was getting more faint by the moment.
It was so hot; it was getting hard to breathe. Ingrid’s fingernails dug into her upper arm as the woman clung on tight. ‘I have a heart condition … I don’t know if I can take much more of this.’
As if on cue, she clutched at her heart and began wobbling at the knees, her hand sliding down Olivia’s arm. Olivia tried to guide her safely down to the bench, but she was feeling light-headed as well.
The humid steam was suffocating.
As Ingrid panicked, so did Olivia. They were trapped. And no one had any idea they were inside.
Except the person who had locked them in there.
34
‘Holy shit, what are you doing?’
Olivia blinked open her eyes at the sound of the voice. She was crumpled up on the floor of the sauna, Ingrid moaning beside her. She instinctively crawled out of the now open door, gasping for the fresh, cool air.
Liam helped her, then Ingrid, out of the sauna and on to one of the mudroom benches. ‘What happened?’
When Olivia gained back her breath, she tried to explain. ‘We were trapped! The door was locked – or something blocked the door from the outside and we couldn’t get out.’
Liam’s eyes widened. ‘Hey, it’s OK. You’re safe now.’
‘What was blocking it?’ asked Ingrid.
Liam shook his head. ‘I couldn’t see anything. And there’s no lock on the door. Far as I could tell, you could have walked out at any time.’
Olivia groaned, her face dripping with sweat. Sitting in the mudroom, she shivered. She wondered if she was cooling down too quickly. Beside her, Ingrid looked pale, her once carefully applied make-up now dripping down her cheeks. ‘We tried. We both did. We couldn’t get out.’
He put his hand on her knee. ‘Mate, I believe you. Why don’t you head upstairs, get yourself water and food, then try to rest. You’ve both had a bit of a trauma. I’ll take Mrs Hughes up to her cabin.’
Olivia’s heart was pounding. She was certain someone had tried to kill them.
But Sergei was locked up.