After breakfast, Tricia and Ethan assess how to escape Adrienne Hale’s house. The storm has dumped so much snow that Ethan’s BMW is nearly buried, they have no cell service, and there are no landlines, so their best hope is that a plow eventually arrives. Ethan stays practical and points out that they still have food, water, and electricity, but Tricia remains uneasy.

Ethan decides to trek out to the car to retrieve his laptop so he can work. Tricia does not want to be left alone and asks to go with him, but Ethan refuses because she is pregnant and not dressed for the snow. After he leaves, Tricia tries to calm herself, reminding herself that the house seems less frightening in daylight and wondering if the portrait incident from the night before was somehow unreal.

Once she is alone, Tricia’s curiosity about Adrienne Hale takes over. Realizing Ethan will be gone long enough, she returns to the hidden room behind the bookcase by pulling out The Shining. Instead of taking just one recording, Tricia gathers several EJ tapes recorded after the red-marked one, along with other tapes from around the same period, because she notices that none were made after Adrienne’s disappearance and believes these sessions may reveal what the police missed.

While scanning the shelves, Tricia is drawn again to the tape labeled LUKE. She wonders why it is marked differently from the patient recordings and whether it could involve Adrienne’s boyfriend, the man police suspected of killing her. Tricia adds the LUKE tape to her stack, hides all the tapes in the bottom drawer of Adrienne’s desk, inserts one into the tape recorder, and closes the office door before pressing play, preparing to investigate in secret before Ethan returns.