The Wedding Steal

by Layla Valentine

  Jenna stared up at me, her blue eyes reflecting the lights from the dance floor behind me, but didn’t say anything. It looked like someone had hit the pause button on her. She was frozen, her expression unchanging, and I almost wanted to reach out and wave my hand in front of her face to make sure she could see me and wasn’t having some kind of seizure.

  Suddenly, she blinked. “That’s okay.”

  As I watched her, she began to soften. The surprised look in her eyes turned to one of…intrigue. She was interested. Had I not been moments away from doing one of the worst things I’d ever done in my life, I would have smiled or felt flattered. She was a bride-to-be, after all. She shouldn’t have had eyes for me or anyone else. Instead, I just felt sick. She had no idea she was the prey, and I was the predator.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, aware of how much I’d be scaring her in a few minutes. When I’d stepped into her path, she had a strong, sudden reaction. I had a feeling that meant she wasn’t going to be the kind of victim who would come easily. She would fight.

  Jenna batted her eyes at me, her lips pouted out. “I know.”

  I needed this to be over. Every moment I stood there talking to her, she formed some idea in her head of where the night would lead. Would I buy her a drink? Ask her to dance? She probably thought I would be her last flirty encounter at a bar before tying the knot.

  “Are you…are you Jenna Kendrick?” I asked, getting straight to the point. If she got confused about how I knew her name, I could make something up. I’d always been a pretty good liar. I just needed confirmation that she was definitely my target before I moved forward with the plan—because kidnapping the wrong girl would be a disaster of epic proportions. At that moment, the plan was to get her close to the door and then snatch her. I’d drag her outside, throw her in my car, and flee the scene before the police could be called. It wasn’t intricate by any means, but it would work.

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, however, Jenna stiffened. Her lips parted in surprise and then pressed together in annoyance. Her eyes went glassy, as if she was about to cry, and before I could say anything to try to rectify whatever problem I had caused, she pushed past me and walked towards the dance floor.

  What had I done? All I’d done was ask for her name. If I got any reaction out of her, I expected it to be surprise as to how I knew her name, or suspicion. But anger never crossed my mind.

  I sat back down on my stool and the man sitting next to me gave me a sympathetic smile and raised his glass, clearly misreading the situation. He thought I’d tried to hit on a beautiful woman and been denied. If he knew the truth behind my motives, he’d probably crack his thick beer glass over my skull.

  Okay, I just needed to regroup. I’d never kidnapped anyone before, so the first time was bound to be a little rocky. The only time, I corrected myself. This would be the only time I ever kidnapped anyone, and I had to accept there would be a few issues along the way. Issue number one: I seemed to have enraged my target with my small talk, and now I had to figure out how to get close to her without her immediately shutting me out.

  I was plotting my next move, watching the front door to make sure she didn’t leave, when suddenly, Jenna came back to the bar. She walked to the far end, took the first thing the bartender pressed in her hand, and threw it back. Her eyes were red and glassy. Was that because of me? Had I somehow offended her so badly that she was near tears and alone at the bar? I still didn’t understand what I’d done, but the idea that I had somehow hurt her feelings propelled me out of my chair and around to where she sat.

  The conversation went poorly. I asked again whether she was Jenna Kendrick and she confirmed that she was, but then she went on a rant about the downsides of settling down before having time to explore herself. It was emotional and incredibly awkward. I just sat next to her, stunned and confused.

  From the sounds of it, Jenna Kendrick’s life was complicated enough without adding in a kidnapping. She was supposed to be getting married, but by the sound of it, she wasn’t too keen on the idea.

  Then, before I could find the words to respond, Jenna pressed her small, warm hand against my arm and got up and left. Once again, Jenna had left me speechless. And once again, I had failed my mission.

  Talking to her clearly wasn’t an option anymore. I’d tried twice and failed both times. Jenna was unlike anyone I’d ever met. She talked fast, and her emotions were impossible to read or understand. Talking to women had always come easily to me, but talking to Jenna felt like trying to haggle in a different language. Or play a game I didn’t know the rules to. If this was going to work at all, I would have to just grab her and run. No talking. No looking into her eyes. Just a snatch and grab. I paid my tab and walked outside, leaning against the brick façade of the bar to wait.

  I played through the scenarios in my head. If she walked out with her friends, I could follow them to the next location and hope there would be a chance to grab her when she was alone. Or, I could grab her and hope I’d escape before her friends could catch up to me. Either way, I would have to grab Jenna and there would be a lot of hope involved. I pressed my head back against the bricks and cursed under my breath. If I went to prison for this, I would be severely disappointed.

  The door opened, and I looked over lazily, expecting it to be another random bar-goer. Jenna walked through the doors and came to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk, the hem of her dress lifting slightly in the breeze. She looked around the parking lot for a moment like she was lost, and then pulled out her phone and began punching in a number.

  This was my chance. No one followed her out of the bar, the parking lot was empty, and the burnt-out street light just above me would help disguise what was happening from the road.

  I pressed away from the wall and balled my hands into fists at my sides. She looked so vulnerable standing alone in the dark. Her skin glowed pale in the dim lights from the street and her shoulders were shaking from the breeze. Actually, as I tip-toed closer to her, I could hear that her breaths were coming out quick and harsh, and she was sniffling. Was she crying?

  No. Not again. It didn’t matter what she was doing. What mattered was that I completed my mission and didn’t get killed by Tony Gambino.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I launched across the sidewalk, wrapped one arm around Jenna’s waist, pinning her arms down to her sides, and clamped the other hand over her mouth. Immediately, she screamed, but it was muffled against my hand.

  My car was only two parking spaces over, so I picked Jenna up and ran, ignoring the searing pain across my shins as her heels dug into my legs over and over again. She thrashed in my arms, her body writhing like a snake, but I held on. I pressed her against the car, pinning her down with my body while I opened the back door. As soon as it was open, I threw her inside, ran around the car, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Then, we were gone.

  Chapter 7

  Rachel

  As a single woman living in a big city, who frequently walked around late at night after the comedy bars closed, I spent a great deal of my time preventing myself from being attacked. I carried my keys between my fingers so I could scratch someone’s eyes out if they got too close, and I kept pepper spray and a Taser in my giant purse, which I almost never left home without. It was always a possibility that I could be attacked, so I never let my guard down, but I just hadn’t expected it to happen in Ohio.

  At first, when the man grabbed me, I thought Jenna had come outside to apologize, throwing her arms around me in a bear hug to be dramatic and try to make me feel better. It was only when his hand clamped down over my mouth that I realized something was wrong, but by then, it was too late. He overpowered me easily, pinning both of my arms to my sides with one of his arms. The hand over my mouth covered most of my face, making it impossible to scream while also obscuring my vision.

  I did everything I’d always imagined I would do in this situation. I thrashed and screamed as be
st I could against the gag of his palm. I dug my heels backwards, scraping them across his pants, hoping I was tearing skin. But none of it mattered. He was able to carry me to his car, pin me against the dusty blue frame while he opened the door, and then threw me inside.

  When I landed in the backseat, the air was knocked out of my lungs, and I paused for a second to take a rasping inhale. As soon as I could, I crawled across the seat and yanked on the handle. Nothing. It was child-locked.

  The car sputtered to life and just like that, he pulled out of the space and drove away.

  The man was just a shadow from behind. The lights coming through the windshield cast him in a silhouette, and I couldn’t tell anything about him aside from the fact that he was tall and strong. His head nearly touched the top of the car.

  He raced through the streets, swerving around cars and blowing through stop signs so fast that I was afraid to attack him from behind, lest he swerve off the road and smash into a tree or a telephone poll or a house. We could both be killed, not to mention any pedestrians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I reached over to the other door and pulled on that handle, hoping it would open and I could jump out. The fall from the speeding car might have killed me, but I much preferred that than whatever my abductor had planned. However, just like the other door, this one was locked.

  “Let me go,” I said, surprised by the sound of my own voice. I’d never heard myself sound so desperate. So afraid. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Just don’t kill me.”

  The man turned his head to the side slightly, allowing me to see the slope of his nose, though the rest of his face was still hidden in shadow. Something flickered in the back of my mind, but I was too frazzled to think on it. My body was in fight-or-flight mode, but I couldn’t do either without risking my own life. I was trapped and helpless.

  “Just relax,” the man said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  His voice made me freeze. I sat up straight and looked at him again, leaning to the right so I could see more of his face. Just as I leaned around, we passed under a street light, and the yellow glow filled the car. I gasped.

  “You!” Catching my breath felt useless. My lungs were exploding. It was the man from the bar. The beautiful stranger.

  If I hadn’t been so terrified, I would have laughed at my own bad luck. The first handsome guy I’d talked to in months and he turned out to be a complete creep. Go figure.

  “Don’t throw up in the car. Everything is fine,” the stranger said.

  I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud, but I also didn’t realize I’d leaned forward and rested my head on the back of the passenger seat’s headrest. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think, but I could barely hear my own thoughts over the sound of my heart hammering in my chest. Even breaths in and out, that’s what I needed. Inhale. Exhale.

  “Do you need a bag or something?” he asked, turning around to look at me.

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see my face. I knew it didn’t make any sense, but I was embarrassed for the attractive guy from the bar to see me heaving and sweating in his backseat…even though he was the reason I was there in the first place. How long did it take for Stockholm syndrome to set in?

  “I need you to pull over,” I said with as much force as I could muster.

  There was a long pause, and I actually thought he might be considering it. Then, “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Who are you? Were you following me?”

  I looked up and saw that his lips were pressed together, almost as if he was trying to force himself to stay quiet. Like he wanted to answer but wouldn’t.

  Had our meeting at the bar been random? Had I simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? He’d known Jenna’s name, so that seemed unlikely. It had to be a targeted attack. But why?

  Immediately, murder came to mind, but I dismissed the thought just as quickly. First, he didn’t tie me or drug me. Second, if I seriously considered the possibility that the beautiful stranger was a murderer, I would have a complete breakdown, and I didn’t have time for that.

  The man thought I was Jenna—partially because of my own stupid lie, which I now regretted terribly—so I knew I could always tell him he had the wrong girl and maybe he’d let me go. But then he would simply go after Jenna. I couldn’t tell him about his mistake until I knew what he had planned.

  “What are you planning to do?” I asked, my voice soft. If I didn’t scream or shout, perhaps I could figure out his plan and then convince him to let me go. I could reason with him, person to person.

  He sighed. “We have a long drive ahead of us, so just go ahead and get comfortable.”

  I couldn’t get past how ordinary he seemed. And how uncomfortable. When I thought of a kidnapper or a murderer, I thought of an overtly macho man. Someone who enjoyed the power they had over weaker women. But my abductor didn’t seem to relish it at all. He seemed more like a moody ride-share driver.

  “You aren’t very good at this,” I said. The “cool and calm” approach hadn’t worked, so I decided to try to provoke him. What did I have to lose?

  “This isn’t my regular gig,” he said, rather defensively.

  “Did you even check the front of the bar for cameras?” I asked. “Did you cover your license plate so the police can’t track you?”

  His shoulders stiffened.

  “Oh, so you weren’t kidding. Those are amateur mistakes.”

  “Are you some kind of expert on kidnapping?” he barked.

  “Between the two of us? Yeah, I’d say I’m the expert.”

  His hands tightened on the wheel until his knuckles were bulging and white. He released a sharp breath and then grabbed a cell phone from the center console. Seeing his phone made me remember my own. Slowly, so as not to draw any attention to myself, I lifted my hand and slipped it just under the strap of my bra where I had been storing my phone all night.

  “Your phone was slipping out when I grabbed you,” he said, patting his front jean pocket. “I’ll keep it safe for you.”

  My head snapped up and I saw his green eyes watching me in the rearview mirror.

  “The adjustment of your mirror is way off if you can see me in the backseat,” I said. “That isn’t safe.”

  He let out a soft chuckle as he began dialing a number. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Who could he be calling? Did he have an accomplice of some sort? What kind of business was Jenna involved in that she had a network of kidnappers after her, especially at her bachelorette party?

  I froze. Her bachelorette party. Jenna had a kidnapper after her on the night of her bachelorette party? A kidnapper who didn’t hurt her, tie her up, or even say a mean word to her? What were the chances of that? I’d bet almost zero.

  The man brought the phone to his ear and I smiled, wondering which of the other bridesmaids would be on the other line. Were they confused because Jenna was still at the club when she was supposed to be in the back of a strange car? I had to admit, this was a pretty elaborate bachelorette party shenanigan, but it was gold. I wondered if Lizzie had come up with it. I kind of hoped she hadn’t, because if so, I’d have to give her major props for creativity.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, stretching my elbows across the backs of both headrests, laying my head down on my arms.

  The man turned his head slightly and raised an eyebrow in confusion at the sight of me so relaxed. “You’ll find out when we get there.”

  “Are you taking me to a surprise party or something?” I gasped. “Will there be strippers there? I bet Evan would hate if there were strippers there.” I didn’t know Evan at all yet, but he looked like the kind of guy who would oppose strippers.

  “I’m on the phone,” he said, clearly irritated.

  I leaned forward so we were only a few inches apart and shouted into the phone. “Sorry to ruin your prank, ladies. Your kidnapper grabbed the wrong girl.”

  His head snapped around and
the car swerved slightly within the lane. I sat up and held onto the seat so I wouldn’t fall over. “Watch the road, bud. I’m sure they paid you to kidnap the bride in one piece.”

  “What do you mean, ‘grabbed the wrong girl’?”

  I smiled. “Were you supposed to pick up Jenna Kendrick?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I asked who you were in the club.”

  I shook my head, giggles bursting out of my mouth. “When you asked me who I was, I lied. We might look incredibly similar, but I’m not Jenna. You have the wrong girl.”

  Chapter 8

  Colton

  The call to Tony was still ringing, so I quickly ended the call and dropped the phone in my lap. “What are you talking about? You lied?”

  She nodded again, still laughing, not trying at all to hide her amusement. “It’s a long, pitiful story, but yes, I lied.”

  We were moving down the highway at a snail’s pace. I couldn’t drive and try to figure out her puzzle. Could she be telling the truth? Whoever “she” was.

  I turned around and looked at her again. It was too dark to see anything, so I reached up and turned on the dome light.

  The woman who may or may not have been Jenna squinted against the sudden light. As soon as her eyes adjusted, she looked at me, and I knew she was lying. Tony had given me a picture. I knew what Jenna Kendrick looked like, and this girl was Jenna Kendrick. Really, she looked even better in person. The photograph didn’t do her justice. I shook my head to refocus my thoughts.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder again for one final look, determined she was only lying to save herself from being kidnapped, and then clicked the dome light off again, plunging the cab of the car into darkness.

  She chuckled to herself and slouched back in the seat. “Talk to the girls. They’ll tell you Jenna is still at the bar with them.”