I knew this sauna intimately because I had designed it myself during the complete renovation of the house three years ago. I had specifically disabled the automated daily heating cycles months ago when my obstetrician warned me that even brief exposure to extreme heat could trigger premature labor.
Someone had gone into the system settings, overridden the safety lockouts, and programmed the heating elements to fire up right after they left for the airport.
They didn’t just lock me in here to teach me a lesson.
They didn’t expect me to survive five days.
They were never planning on coming back to a living daughter-in-law.
“No, no, no…” I scrambled toward the control panel on the wall.
I pressed my thumbs against the digital interface, frantically tapping the power button. The screen beeped stubbornly, displaying a flashing padlock icon.
Access Denied. Administrator Pin Required.
I punched in my birthday: 0-8-1-4.
Invalid PIN.
I punched in Elliot’s birthday.
Invalid PIN.
I tried the house code, the anniversary date, our gate code.
System Locked for 60 Minutes due to Multiple Failed Attempts.
The timer continued its relentless countdown in bright red digits now.
08:45… 08:44…
A dull clunk resonated from beneath the volcanic rocks piled inside the heavy stainless-steel heater box in the corner. The internal relays clicked into place. The heavy electrical coils deep inside the unit began to hum, drawing immense voltage directly from the main breaker panel.
A wave of dry, warm air began to bleed out from the top of the heater.
Panic surged through me like an electric shock. I spun around, scanning the small room. The benches were smooth, planed western red cedar, tightly bolted to the framework. There were no loose boards, no heavy tools, no exposed pipes. The air intake vent near the floor was a narrow four-inch slit covered by a solid brass louver screwed into the wall studs.
My phone was gone. Diane had slapped it out of my hand during our argument in the kitchen, watching with spiteful delight as it skittered across the tiles and shattered against the baseboard.
I was completely trapped.
A sharp, stabbing pain ripped across my lower abdomen. My breath caught in my throat as my belly hardened into a tight, agonizing knot. A Braxton Hicks contraction—or worse, real labor triggered by sheer, unadulterated terror.
I dropped to my knees on the wooden duckboard floor, clutching my stomach with both hands, panting rapidly through my nose.
Think, Maren. Think!
My father’s voice suddenly echoed through the haze of my racing thoughts.
Thirty years as a senior municipal building inspector in Chicago had turned my father into a man obsessed with safety redundancies. When other kids learned how to ride bikes, my father was teaching me how to read architectural blueprints and identify fire-code violations.
“A beautiful building is worthless if the people inside can’t escape it,” he used to tell me, tapping his heavy red pen against my childhood drafting table. “Never trust a lock you can’t break from the inside. Never build a room that can become a coffin.”
When I designed this house after my father passed away, Elliot had fought me on every single safety feature. He had complained about the cost of the commercial fire suppression system. He had called me paranoid when I insisted on hardwired emergency landlines in three different rooms.
And he had thrown an absolute tantrum when I spent an extra four thousand dollars customizing the luxury sauna door assembly.
The contractor had wanted to install a standard magnetic latch glass door. But I had refused. I had specified an industrial-grade, custom-engineered pivot hinge system with an integrated mechanical emergency override—a failsafe required in high-end commercial spas to prevent guests from being trapped if a locking mechanism jammed.
Elliot had laughed at me. He had called it an absurd waste of money.
He had forgotten it existed.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Where was it?
I dropped down onto all fours, the cedar floorboards pressing painfully into my knees. The air near the ceiling was already growing thick and warm, the faint smell of heated pine beginning to fill the enclosure.
06:12… 06:11…
I crawled under the lower cedar bench, reaching blindly into the narrow, shadowed space between the wooden support structure and the exterior wall. Dust coated my fingers. My hands swept frantically over the smooth cedar framing, searching for the mounting plate.
Nothing. Just smooth wood and structural screws.
“Come on,” I sobbed, my voice trembling. “Please, God, please.”
