Chapter 4

The other officers exchanged glances with each other when they heard what I said.

Officer Yoder also stared at me for a full ten seconds before finally saying very slowly, "Fine. I'll give you a chance to prove yourself."

He then turned around and told the other officers to begin setting up for the test.

I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

My AC unit was installed on my own balcony, with the piping running along the exterior wall. There was absolutely no physical connection to Freddie's home. No matter how high I cranked the AC, it shouldn't have had any impact on the temperature in his place—let alone freeze him to death in his home.

It was simply impossible!

The officers were soon done preparing. They placed a thermometer in the center of Freddie's living room.

At Officer Yoder's command, the officer inside my home pressed the power button on the air conditioner.

A few minutes passed.

While my own home had become quite cool, the air inside Freddie's place remained hot, stuffy, and sweltering.

I let out a long breath and turned to Officer Yoder to plead my case.

But the next second, the officer monitoring the thermometer shouted, "The temperature is actually dropping!"

I looked up sharply. The officer was staring fixedly at the thermometer, his voice filled with disbelief.

"Look! 90… 88… 86… It's dropping, and very quickly too!"

Officer Yoder strode over to the thermometer, leaning in to watch the numbers flicker on the screen. His pupils contracted sharply.

"82… 80…"

I watched, stunned, as the numbers on the thermometer plummeted and the surrounding air turned abruptly biting cold.

But it didn't stop there. Within minutes, the thermometer hit the freezing point.

Wisps of white mist began to curl through the air from our breaths, and a layer of frost rapidly formed on the living room floor, spreading outward through the gaps.

Since none of us could endure the freezing temperatures, everyone scrambled to get outside.

In just a little over ten minutes, the temperature inside the house had plummeted to well below -20 degrees. Even the cold radiating from within through the door made everyone shiver outside.

Officer Yoder was the first to react. He turned toward me, his gaze even colder than the room itself.

"What else do you have to say for yourself, Timothy Russell?"

I opened my mouth, but not a single word came out.

How could turning on the AC upstairs cause the temperature downstairs to plummet to -20 degrees? What on Earth was going on here?

Two officers stepped forward and clamped cold, metallic handcuffs around my wrists. Officer Yoder then gestured at them, signaling for them to take me away.

But just as they were about to lead me off, a question suddenly flashed through my mind.

Even if the temperature in the room had dropped so suddenly, why hadn't Freddie just run outside to safety instead of staying inside his unit to freeze to death? It wasn't like he was tied up or held against his will, was he?

With that thought, I immediately looked toward a corner in the unit.

The moment I found what I was looking for, everything immediately fell into place in my head and became as clear as day.

I straightened up abruptly and yelled, "This has nothing to do with my air conditioner! I know why the temperature dropped so drastically! And I know why Freddie froze to death!"