Chapter 10
COLD STORAGE
LILA
The hallway is dim and too fucking long when you’re this drained from the day, but I’m starving. My bare feet make no sound on the runner, and the polished wood walls reflect the faintest shimmer from the sconces, gilded and ghostly.
All I can think about are the tunnels.
Of course there are tunnels. Of course this place has secret goddamn passageways. I shouldn’t be surprised, and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t consider it an option sooner, as if I haven’t read every single Nancy Drew book.
There’s just something about seeing them on the blueprints, the crude outline of underground paths that bypass entire wings of the house.
It makes my skin crawl.
Not just because the tunnels exist—but because someone’s absolutely been using them.
The inconsistencies in the footage. The unexplained time gaps. The security system that never once triggered.
We pass a portrait of Henry Mayfair, and I swear his painted eyes follow me like they know I’m too close to the truth. Or maybe not close enough.
We tiptoe the rest of the way like criminals. Hungry, exhausted criminals with a vendetta against cheese puffs and a shared gastrointestinal weakness.
“We’ve been in the archives for, what, eight hours?”
“Give or take an eternity,” Theo groans. “If we find one more box labeled ‘Tax Receipts 2013–2014,’ I’m filing a missing persons report for my will to live.”
We reach the kitchen door—massive, carved walnut, unnecessarily ominous—and I ease it open with a creak that sounds like it belongs in a horror movie.
Inside, the kitchen is everything you’d expect from an estate that has live-in staff and a wine cellar with mood lighting: stark, a mix of modern and aged, aggressively curated. Matte black cabinets. Brass fixtures. Marble island.
And in the far corner, the mother of all fridges.
It’s sleek. Stainless steel. Probably smarter than both of us combined.
“I feel like it’s judging me,” I eye it from top to bottom.
“That’s because it senses you’re about to open it with the energy of a woman who’s planning to eat cold pepperoni straight from the package,” Theo says, heading toward the pantry.
He’s not wrong.
I tug the fridge open. The interior lights up like a spaceship.
Inside: rows of kombucha bottles, overpriced sparkling water, something called “bone broth concentrate,” a sad trio of apples in a linen hammock, and—blessedly—a stack of pre-cut fruit containers.
Theo appears at my side holding a bag of what looks like dehydrated mango slices and a box labeled “puffed ancient grain bites.”
“Rich people are exhausting,” he says, peering into the fridge. “Who alphabetizes their nut milks?”
“People who can afford to pay someone else to do it for them,” I say, grabbing two snack boxes and shutting the fridge with my hip.
We end up perched at the marble island, legs swinging like teenagers, eating artisan turkey slices and cashew cheese under soft pendant lighting.
For a minute, it’s… nice.
Unhurried. The kind of normal I forgot existed over the last few days.
Theo’s eyes catch mine as he bites into an oat cracker. “So. Lactose intolerant?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Have you ever gotten contaminated in public? Like, full system shutdown?”
I scrunch my nose. “Theme park. Churro stand. I asked if the cinnamon sugar had dairy. They said no. Thirty minutes later, I was crying behind a trash can outside an indoor roller coaster.”
He winces in sympathy. “Oof. I once got dosed at a coffee shop. The barista said it was for sure oat milk after I triple checked. Spoiler: it wasn’t. I made it halfway through class before I had to flee my own lecture.”
“That happened to my best friend once.” I say, fiddling with the cracker wrapper.
“Laurel. Except she made it ten steps before insisting she was fine while literally turning grey. Not the lactose thing, but from chemo. She was adamant about continuing things as they were even while she was sick. She said her work was too important, so she kept working for as long as she could.”
Theo’s chewing slows. “She sounds stubborn.”
“She was impossible,” I say, smiling even though it hurts.
“In every way. Though I suppose her work was important. I always admired her. She was a family court advocate and guardian ad litem trainer. It meant more to her than anything to be able to support women and kids in difficult custody or family situations. She did workshops for new foster parents, court-appointed volunteers, and social workers. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone as passionate about their work as she was.
Enough so that she was willing to barf a few times in front of a large group of people, explain that she wasn’t contagious, and keep going. ”
“It sounds like she mattered to a lot of people,” he says in a hushed tone. “Not just those she helped. You talk about her like she anchored you too.”
I huff a laugh. It comes out a bit like I’m trying too hard to sound normal. “She did. Or she tried to, anyway. Even when she probably shouldn’t have.”
Theo nods, watching me in that patient way of his—like he’s waiting for me to say the thing I don’t want to say.
“It wasn’t fair,” I add, quieter. “She kept everyone else in check, and I couldn’t seem to do the same for her. She never slowed down. Even when she was sick. Especially when she was sick.”
“I’m sure you did what you could to support her,” he says, nowhere near dismissive. “I know you did what you could. Seeing how driven you are to do the good and right thing in every other situation. I can’t even imagine what you’re like with someone who means that much to you.”
My voice catches. “It’s never felt like enough.”
He shakes his head. “It never does. That doesn’t make it untrue.”
I stare at a spot on the counter, willing myself not to fall apart in front of this man who simply refuses to stop being decent.
“I just—” I pause, then continue. “I miss her. And every time I talk about her, it’s…
I don’t know. It feels fresh all over again even two years later.
But not talking about her feels so much worse. ”
Theo shifts in his chair closer by an inch. It’s nothing dramatic, nothing invasive. Just enough for me to feel him nearer. “Then talk about her,” he insists, gently. “As much as you need. You don’t have to worry about keeping it together with me.”
It’s ridiculous how much that undoes in me. My eyes burn. A single tear falls free, traitorous and hot against my cheek.
Theo’s hand moves to my face, tentative. His thumb wipes the tear away, slowly and carefully.
I give him a sad smile. Let the weight of my face sink into his big hand just a bit. “Thank you.”
I go back to eating. Not to avoid the conversation, but because the moment that stretches between us feels easy, and I don’t know what else to add.
We fall into a lull, chewing and stealing pieces from each other’s snack piles.
The first boom cracks through the sky, a gunshot splitting open the clouds. It’s not a rumble so much as a detonation, abrupt and unforgiving. The windows rattle in their frames, and I flinch, half-expecting the power to cut out then and there.
Theo glances toward the nearest one, “Didn’t see that on the forecast.”
Lightning follows, white-hot and close, flaring so bright it briefly paints the marble counters in sterile light.
The downpour is instant and punishing, a snapped thread unleashing the full weight of the sky onto the estate.
Rain lashes the windows sideways and the wind whistles through the cracks in the ancient trim.
Somewhere deeper in the house, the power hiccups. The lights flicker once, twice, then surge back with an audible bzzt. The fridge clicks. Beeps incessantly, then stops. The recessed lighting above us pulses in rhythm, dimming unnaturally before returning to normal.
Then someone speaks, clear as day, “Would you like to hear a fun fact about decomposition rates?”
I go completely still. A single cracker halfway to my mouth. My breath stops in my throat.
Theo’s head jerks toward me. “Did you…?”
“I thought that was you,” I whisper, maybe a bit too aggressively.
The silence that follows is loud in its own right, wrought with confusion and the snap of my nerves lighting up.
Then, again—same voice, same unnerving calm, “Grocery list updated based on your recent conversation: bleach, duct tape, rosemary.”
We both sit up straighter.
“What the actual hell?” I whisper, still urgent.
Theo’s already halfway off the stool, eyes sweeping the corners of the room.
But I’m not moving. I’m staring at the fridge. “I think…it spoke.”
“Okay, nope. Absolutely not. I’ve seen this movie. The appliances become sentient and we die in the most absurd way possible,” Theo says.
He moves to try and unplug it.
“Wait,” I say, grabbing his wrist. “What if it’s a smart fridge?”
He blinks at me. “Isn’t that the problem?”
“No, like—what if it’s recording us? Not us-us. But conversations. In general. For, I don’t know… data? I’ve gotten ads for shit like this.”
I pull my phone out and Google the brand name etched near the handle: SilverChill UltraSmart+.
It takes thirty seconds to find the product page.
Another fifteen to wish I hadn’t.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. “It is recording us.”
Theo stares at the screen over my shoulder. “Real-time audio capture. Continuous voice command activation. AI-led grocery prediction?”
“And get this,” I say, scrolling. “It builds a health profile based on conversation patterns, food choices, and—wait for it—emotional tone.”
“Are you telling me this fridge has a better grasp on our mental health than we do?”
“Not hard,” I mutter.
The lights above us flicker again, a faint crack of thunder rolling in the distance.
“I didn’t want her to die,” the fridge says.
Theo backs up. “That is not a grocery list item.”
But I’m staring at the fridge now like it’s a witness.
Not just to us, but to everything. To conversations whispered when people thought they were alone. To the truths no one thought to hide from a kitchen appliance.
Another flicker. Another line, “Scrub your fucking hands. You touched the body.”
I squeak. Me—trained forensic professional, unflappable in the presence of actual criminals, corpses even—currently ready to lose my shit over a high-end kitchen appliance.
The screen flashes blue. “Initiate post-mortem protocol.”
“What does that even mean?” Theo hisses.
“I don’t know, but I’m not consenting to a protocol with the word post-mortem in it!”
And that’s when the door creaks open.
Giles enters like a bat materializing from mist. I instinctively snap upright and pretend I wasn’t just whisper yelling at the refrigerator.
He takes one look at the two of us—barefoot, snack boxes in hand, mid-crisis—and sighs. Deeply. Wearily. Like this is not, in fact, the first time this exact situation has occurred.
“Not this again,” he grumbles. Then, without fanfare, he strides over to the fridge and slams his fist against the stainless steel door.
The fridge beeps in protest. Then whines.
Then goes completely silent.
Theo and I just stand there, wordless, as Giles turns to us with an annoyed scowl.
“I told Madam Evelyn we didn’t need the upgraded firmware,” he says, picking nonexistent lint from his cuff. “But no, ‘It's cutting edge,’ she said. ‘It tracks allergens,’ she said. ‘It syncs with my iPad.’ Utter nonsense.”
Theo coughs into his fist. “So, uh. That’s... normal?”
“No,” Giles says flatly. “Madam Tillie sometimes forgets to turn off the function that suggests recipes based on what you’re talking about.
We’ve deduced that information overload occurs when she leaves it on while listening to true crime podcasts.
” He pauses, looks at us seriously, as if willing us to believe that load of bullshit.
“It sometimes blurts out completely out of context things it’s picked up over time.
We have been… unable to erase the memory. ”
He looks down at the mess we’ve made; half a cracker on the floor, a paper towel twisted into a knot, a granola bar unwrapped and abandoned mid-freakout.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he adds. “Guests do not serve themselves.”
“We were hungry,” I say quickly, like a kid caught with a cookie before dinner. “Tillie brought cheese puffs and we’re both lactose intolerant and we missed dinner because—”
He holds up a hand. “Spare me. I’ll clean this.”
I glance at Theo, who seems deeply invested in his cuticle.
“If you’re still in need of nourishment, I’ll have Tillie bring something to your room,” Giles says, already opening a drawer to retrieve a very professional-looking dishcloth. “Something you can digest without dramatics, if we’re lucky.” He turns back to us. “You may go now.”
I am almost affronted at the fact we are being firmly dismissed from the kitchen by a man who addresses humans the way he probably addresses misbehaving mop buckets.
I glance back at the fridge as we’re leaving.
It’s still dark. Still completely quiet.
But I swear I can feel it watching.