She remembered a course she had taken in college on human adaptation to physical and psychological stress. Soon it wouldn’t matter when he returned, because the cold would lower her body temperature until she went into shock, slowly freeze each and every cell as hypothermia set in. If she didn’t die, she would lose her hands and ears, maybe her feet.

It was time to fight for her life.

She scanned the shed carefully for any way out. The door was to her right, and she grasped the handle firmly and yanked and pushed. It held solid, either locked or snowed in. Think. It couldn’t be snowed in yet, because he had to have gotten her in here somehow, and if she had been unconscious more than a few hours in the cold air, she would have never opened her eyes again. So it must be locked. Yes, she heard the padlock rattling against the wood when she shook the handle.

It was a fairly heavy door made from large boards and braced with crosspieces. She searched the tiny room frantically for anything that could help her, feeling the cold creep up her legs, numbing them past the calf. Then she heard what sounded like an engine growling through the howling wind. She hobbled back to the crack again and peered out, and this time she saw something moving up near the house, close to the ghostly, snow-covered shape of the U-Haul. It looked like a truck. She was about to scream out for help and then held it back, biting her tongue. It could be the man who put you here. Don’t let him know you’re awake.

A figure got out (it was some sort of Jeep, she saw now) and ran up to the front door. A moment later, it opened and the figure moved inside. She studied the vehicle carefully. It was towing something, but she couldn’t make out what it was through the snow.

Then the door opened again and two people ran out into the storm to the Jeep, and she saw David’s red jacket and blue gloves, it was him, and she screamed with all her strength. The figures didn’t come running over to rescue her. They didn’t even stop. They hadn’t heard her at all. The wind was too strong. Still, she screamed again and again until her throat was raw and her voice hoarse with fatigue, rattled and shook the door, kicked at the walls until her legs gave out.

She crawled back to the crack and watched them unload a snowmobile and heard it start up. Then they climbed on and sped away down the driveway.

They had been less than fifty yards away.

She slumped against the wall, tears freezing against her eyelids. The reality of what had happened forced itself on her like a rape. Her daughter was gone, and she was locked inside a frozen coffin.