Arranged Abduction

Chapter 2

The suitcase wasn't hers.

Wren only figured this out at eleven forty-seven at night, standing in her hotel room in her coat, one hand still on the zipper, staring at a row of folded dark shirts that did not belong to her. Men's shirts. She could tell they were expensive ones, from the feel of the fabric. She quickly checked the tag on the nearest one out of reflex. Italian. Of course.

She sat on the edge of the bed and thought about this for a moment; mainly about whether Kasimir had discovered the embarrassing stuff she had in her suitcase and her work laptop. She had almost forgotten she had packed her laptop into her suitcase.

Her phone was still warm from the call she'd taken in the lobby, her assistant rattling off a list of things she needed to confirm for the wedding before Monday. She'd said yes to all of them without listening to a single one, because she'd been too busy stepping out of the elevator and locating her suitcase and going, and now she was sitting in a hotel room at midnight with a stranger's belongings and no idea how to find him.

She unzipped the front pocket in hopes she would find a hint or something that would help her locate Kasimir Hale. A flicker of hope fazed through her eyes when she saw a boarding pass, folded once. K. Hale. Seat 2A.

She turned it over but sighed when she found nothing else on it. She meticulously scanned the main compartment again, slower this time, not snooping exactly, more the way you look through a found wallet before turning it in. She was convinced that Kasimir Hale was definitely a control freak; the shirts were all the same brand with a colour range of blue, black, grey and white, Two ties, neither flashy. A book with a receipt tucked inside as a bookmark — a hardware store receipt, which was not what she expected. A sealed sophisticated toiletry bag. A phone charger, surprisingly the same model as hers.

She rezipped the suitcase, set it upright, and sat back on the bed after finding no hotel key, no name card or way to reach K. Hale of seat 2A tonight.

Wren was certain somewhere in the enormous hotel, a man was standing over her suitcase with the same expression she probably had right now. Either that, or he hadn't noticed yet. She thought about the man in the elevator, the one who had watched her fall apart over a flickering light without saying a single useful word. She thought about the particular quality of his silence, how it wasn't uncomfortable with itself the way most silences were.

She had no other option but to roll his suitcase beside the desk before changing into the hotel robe and telling herself she'd sort it out in the morning, at a reasonable hour, when she was less likely to knock on the wrong door and embarrass herself further. She was positive that her problem-solving skills were better in the morning. She was better at it than she was at elevators.

Fortunately, after calling the front desk, they confirmed a K. Hale was registered. They could not, they said apologetically, give her his room number, but they could let him know she'd called. Wren was confident that all the trouble she had caused in the past was catching up to her.

The sound of a sudden knock on her door disrupted her train of thoughts. She knew it was him before she opened it since the knock came fourteen minutes after she had made the call to the front desk. She hastily opened the door hoping it would reduce the aggravated expression that would be pasted on Kasimir Hale’s face. The door fell, revealing him with her suitcase at his feet, his face doing the same thing it had done in the elevator, which was essentially nothing. Fortunately.

"Ms. Calloway," His low-pitched was enough to send chills down her spine, especially with him calling her name.

"Mr. Hale," She replied with an obviously nervous smile spread on her face. "You can come in. I have your suitcase."

He came in exactly as far as he needed to and stopped as if acknowledging a boundary that was already there. His eyes went to his suitcase beside the desk, and he looked at it the way you look at something after you've confirmed it's where you left it. "You didn't open it."

"I did, actually. Looking for a name."

"Find anything useful?"

"K. Hale. Seat 2A. A hardware store receipt." Wren couldn’t understand why she was answering his questions like she was a military officer answering to her seniors.

Something crossed his face that Wren was sure might have been amusement if it had gone slightly further. "The receipt was a bookmark."

"I know. It's a strange choice."

"It was available." He picked up his suitcase and set hers down in the same motion, more like one clean exchange. His piercing blue trailed back at her once more, the same way he'd looked at her in the elevator, like he was running a private calculation she wasn't going to be told the result of. "Try not to take anything else that isn't yours tonight."

"It was an accident. I didn’t mean to–"

"Most things are," he responded without waiting for her to finish, already at the door.

"I am so sorry," Her hands subconsciously swept through her hair. "Genuinely. I was on the phone, and I wasn't looking, and they were the same suitcase."

He paused with his hand on the door frame. "They're not the same suitcase. Yours has a scratch on the left wheel."

He left her standing in the middle of her room as she looked down at her suitcase. There was, in fact, a scratch on the left wheel that she had never noticed before in her life. Kasimir Hale was indeed the weirdest man she had ever met in her life.

She opened her suitcase and pulled out the first thing on top, which was the pale green dress her stepmother had selected for the gala. She held it up after some of its designs caught her; the intricate beadwork on the dress and the amazing choice of fabric she hadn’t noticed when Celeste had selected it.

She placed it back carefully enough not to ruin it before getting dressed in the clothes she'd traveled in, and going down for breakfast.