Page 63 of Santa Daddy
The hallway felt longer than last time. The recessed lights were too gentle, too flattering, like they were designed to make marble and art look good instead of people.
I stopped in the blind spot.
Up close, the “wall” wasn’t even trying that hard. The faint line of a doorframe. A keypad recessed into the paneling. A lock that didn’t go with the rest of the designer hardware in this place.
Last time I’d just rattled the handle like a raccoon and given up.
Today, I had a bobby pin and no adult supervision.
“Bad idea,” I muttered.
I stuck the pin in the seam anyway.
It wasn’t like the movies. There was no magical click after five seconds and a witty one-liner. My hands shook. My knuckles scraped the metal. Sweat gathered between my shoulder blades.
One tiny click.
Nothing exploded. The building didn’t slide into the earth.
Okay. One more.
Second click. Louder. The faintest give under the lock.
You could stop. You could put the bobby pin back in your hair, go sit under the white Christmas tree and pretend you’re not locked in a murder penthouse.
Third click.
The lock disengaged with a soft mechanical sigh. A light next to the keypad went from red to green.
I froze.
Then I pushed.
The door swung inward on silent hinges.
Cold air brushed my face. Not outside cold. Refrigerated. The kind of chill that lived in morgues and expensive wine cellars.
I slipped inside and pulled the door mostly shut behind me, heart pounding so loud it felt like it should set off some other alarm.
No windows. No soft lighting. Just strip LEDs in the ceiling casting everything in harsh white.
The room was bigger than I expected.
And very, very wrong.
Stainless-steel table in the center, bolted to the floor. A drain grate beneath it. Hooks in the ceiling. Metal shelves along onewall stocked with neatly labeled bottles and packages—bleach, plastic sheeting, medical tape, gloves. A rolling cart with tools lined up in precise rows.
Not knives.
Not exactly.
But things that could become knives if you got creative.
The smell hit me next. Not strong. Hidden under industrial cleaner. But there.
Iron. Old and faint. The ghost of blood that wouldn’t quite leave.
The kind of room people disappeared into. The kind things got done in that never showed up on security footage because the cameras didn’t point here.
