Alice twisted the key in the ignition and gave a deep sigh. The car idled with a soft purring noise as she considered what her next options might be. It made more sense to go straight home, but home after so many days of being locked indoors was beginning to give her cabin fever.

Her quick trip into her workplace had turned out to be less of an emergency than she had expected. Upon entering the office, she had been greeted by shocked expressions on the faces of her workmates who had been engaged in conversation rather than working. Her boss wasn’t even on site when she had entered the building.

What she assumed to be an issue with an upcoming audit turned out to be a missing key for the office petty-cash tin. A tin that was only needed today as the office air conditioning had shorted out and they had agreed on compensatory ice creams to stay cool while working.

A pigeon walked around on the paving near her car, occasionally pecking at unseen morsels. It felt like a metaphor for her life. Was she really so desperate to return to normality that she had rushed into work based on a few missed calls? Surely it would have made more sense to wait until she had spoken to someone before setting off.

Still, the ice cream and friendly catch up with friends at the office had brightened her day.

A thought occurred to her that Jess was probably feeling the same way. She had been out of the house for nearly an hour and a half now and Jess still hadn’t called or texted to see where she was. Alice tsked out loud and leaned over to the glove box. She hadn’t brought her purse with her but perhaps she might be able to find some emergency parking change. She rooted around until she heard the familiar rustle of the plastic sandwich bag with jingling coins within.

“Score,” she whispered aloud before pulling it free.

She jangled the meagre offerings to separate the coins for counting. It wasn’t enough for the nice ice cream parlour in the town centre, but it was enough for a pair of drive-through sundaes.

It took only a short drive to be able to claim the frozen confections, and the drive home from there felt shorter still.

Alice balanced the two large ice creams in their cardboard cup holder as she locked the car. Her mood was still sunny as she reached the front door, keys in hand. She was beaming with a grin as she stuck the house key into the lock. It was a rare thing for Alice to be able to surprise Jess with goodies. So often it was the other way around.

She turned the key, but the door wouldn’t unlock. With a grunt and a deepening scowl on her face, she turned the key to-and-fro, attempting to unlock the door again. Nothing. She banged on the door hard, hoping for an answer.

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“Jess?” she called out, before ducking down and lifting the letterbox cover. “Jess. Open the door,” she hollered through the opening.

“Shit,” whispered Alice. She darted back a couple of steps and surveyed the garden and front of her home. Now was not the time to be locked out of her own home. Bad enough that she was standing with steadily melting ice creams, but when there was a stalker on the loose? Her breath came in quick pants as the tightness in her chest intensified.

Should she run back to the car? Her phone was in her back pocket. She could call the police for aid.

Alice forced herself to take deeper, slower breaths. All she had to do was get inside and she hadn’t tried the back door yet. She sucked in one long inhale of breath until she thought she might burst, before letting it whistle out slowly through pursed lips.

She scuttled around the edge of the house, making sure to continuously check back over her shoulder in case she was being observed or followed. The garden was clear and remained devoid of threats. A pair of sparrows flitted from the grass and over towards the roof of a neighbour’s home as she rounded the corner. The sudden movement made Alice jump back a step and she fumbled with the ice creams, almost dropping them.

As she adjusted her grip on them, she noticed the quiet gurgling of her drain indicating that water was running in the house. Sure enough, when she looked up, she could see that the light of the bathroom was on, despite the hour of the day. The window was open a crack and steam rose gently out from it.

Alice huffed an exasperated laugh, realising her folly. She hoped that Jess hadn’t left keys in the back door as well when she went in for her shower.

The key chinked with an unpleasant grating noise as Alice forced it into the lock, but with some effort the door was unlocked. She stepped through and set the ice cream down before relocking the door behind her, then breathed a soft sigh of relief.

With a bit of luck, Jess would be almost done in the shower and not indulging in some extended pamper session. Alice contemplated leaving her ice cream in the freezer but decided to carry it through instead. It was always nicer to eat when a little bit melted anyway. She exchanged the terrible plastic spoons for metal ones out of a kitchen drawer before making her way through the house.

“Jess! I’ve got ice cream waiting for you when you’re done!” she called up the stairs. She cradled Jess’s pot in the crook of her arm to free up a hand so that she could eat a spoon of her own. There was no answer, but Alice ignored this and made her way to the living room.

As she rounded the doorway, the ice cream pots both hit the carpeted floor with a wet thud. Spatters of the melted cream arced across the plush material towards the focus of Alice’s attention.

Jess.

She sat bound and gagged upon a wooden chair from the dining room. Her face was mostly hidden under thick wadding of cloth and duct tape, but her eyes, wide and reddened with tears streaming from them, were left clear.

Alice stood in the doorway. It felt as though time had frozen in place.

She tried to raise her arms, but her muscles felt sluggish, as though she were caught in tar. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest. A sensation that only seemed to make everything else seem painfully slow by comparison.

Jess’s eyes flitted from Alice’s face and focused on the space behind her. She tensed, readying herself to turn and face her opponent, but it was too late. A strong hand clamped over her mouth, jolting her head back painfully until it hit the shoulder of her attacker. Something sharp touched her neck and she flinched away from it, yelping in fear into the palm of the aggressor.

“Glad that you could finally join us,” a sinister, male voice whispered into her ear.