My belly brushed heavily against the floor, making it difficult to twist my torso. Another contraction seized my abdomen, tighter this time, radiating into my lower back. I grunted in agony, resting my forehead against the wooden slats for three agonizing seconds until the wave passed.
I pushed deeper into the dark recess beneath the bench, reaching toward the hinge-side corner of the doorframe.
My fingertips grazed something cold.
Not wood. Metal.
A surge of adrenaline hit my veins. I stretched my arm as far as it would go, my shoulder wedging tightly between the lower bench and the wall.
My fingers wrapped around a small, rectangular steel junction box hidden behind the main support upright. Mounted on the side of the box was a heavy, recessed toggle switch—a mechanical cable release designed to bypass the door’s magnetic strikes and physically retract the stainless-steel hinge pins from their reinforced sleeves.
04:30… 04:29…
The heater coils were glowing a faint, sinister orange in the corner of the room. The air was becoming noticeably heavier, dry and suffocating.
I wrapped my fingers around the steel toggle.
It was stiff, locked in place by years of disuse and light oxidation.
I pulled.
It didn’t budge.
“Move!” I screamed, digging my heels into the duckboard floor and throwing my entire body weight backward. “Move, damn you!”
A sharp pop echoed beneath the bench. The heavy steel cable inside the conduit shifted.
Across the room, at the base of the glass door frame, a loud, violent mechanical CLACK shattered the silence.
The heavy hinge assembly disengaged. The reinforced door dropped a fraction of an inch, shifting violently off its balance point.
I scrambled out from beneath the bench, lunging toward the glass. The exterior chain was still wrapped tightly around the outer pull handles, holding the door locked against the jamb. But the structural integrity of the frame was compromised. Without the hinge pins anchoring the glass, the door was merely leaning against the strike plate.
I drew back my foot and kicked the lower corner of the frame with the heavy heel of my shoe.
BANG.
The sound of shearing metal tore through the corridor. The exterior screws anchoring the steel hasp to the decorative oak trim ripped clean out of the drywall under the immense lateral leverage of the heavy door.
The glass door swung violently outward, the heavy chain and padlock clattering harmlessly to the marble floor.
A blast of cool, life-giving air rushed into the sauna, hitting my face like a physical embrace.
I stumbled out onto the marble hallway, collapsing onto my hands and knees. I dry-heaved, gasping for air, drinking in the cool sixty-eight-degree atmosphere of the house. Tears poured uncontrollably down my face as I rolled onto my side, wrapping both arms protectively around my stomach.
Beneath my hands, a tiny, firm kick pressed against my palm.
“We’re out,” I whispered, sobbing into the cold floor tiles. “We’re out, baby. We’re safe.”
I lay there for nearly two minutes, letting my racing heart slow, letting the trembling in my limbs subside just enough to stand.
Slowly, painfully, I pulled myself up using the corridor wall for support. My knees shook, but I was on my feet.
As I turned toward the kitchen to reach the hardwired landline, my foot kicked something on the floor.
I looked down.
Lying half-hidden beneath the lip of the entryway console table was a thick, manila legal envelope.
It must have slipped from Russell’s leather briefcase during the violent physical scuffle when he and Diane had forced me into the sauna.
Across the front of the envelope, written in Russell’s precise, arrogant handwriting, was a single word:
MAREN.
My breath caught. I bent down slowly, picking up the heavy envelope with trembling fingers.
The clasp was unfastened. I pulled out the thick stack of documents inside.
The first page was printed on heavy legal bond paper. The bold, capitalized header at the top of the sheet made the room spin before my eyes:
DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY — FULL PROPERTY, FINANCIAL, AND MEDICAL AUTHORITY
My gaze dropped rapidly down the page.
The document completely transferred all legal, financial, and medical decision-making authority over me—and all assets solely held in my name—to Russell Carver and Elliot Carver.
Underneath the primary declaration was my signature.
A clean, perfect, flowing cursive signature.
Except I had never seen this document in my life.
Beside the forged signature was a bright blue notary public stamp and an embossed seal dated exactly three days ago.
My hands shook so violently that the papers rustled like dry leaves. I flipped to the second document in the packet.
It was an expedited commercial mortgage loan application through an offshore private lending firm.
