That's Not My Suitcase

by Laina Turner

  I opened the door and Steve was standing there. I felt relief, I had been a little afraid of who it might be and even though I was happy it was Steve and not someone else, I really didn’t have time for him right now either. I needed to get these diamonds to the police.

  “Steve, right now isn’t a good time.”

  “Sterling, let me explain, I …”

  “Listen, it’s not that I don’t want to hear what you have to say, just not right now.”

  “If you’ll just give me five minutes,” he pleaded.

  “It’s not a good time. I’m sorry,” I said shutting the door on him. I could only deal with a few things at once and right now, he wasn’t on the short list.

  A few seconds later came another knock on the door. Boy, that man didn’t take no for an answer. I couldn’t help but feel a little pleased, it had been a long time since a man had been this persistent to talk to me, but nice or not, I just didn’t have time for this right now.

  I flung the door open. “I told you not … right … now…” trailing off when I saw it wasn’t Steve but Tom.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Enough playing around. Where are the diamonds?” he asked pushing his way into my room. His playful flirtatious demeanor gone and a cold mean one in its place.

  Hopefully there were no holes in these pockets. I doubted he would suspect them being on my person, at least not right away.

  “What are you talking about, Tom! You have no right to just barge in here. How did you even know what room I was in?”

  “I followed your friend Steve. He likes you. Too bad you’ve had to interfere with my business, or you could be with him right now.”

  “Tom, I have no idea what you are talking about. What diamonds, what business?” I found myself almost yelling. It was out of fear but I was hoping he would think it was out of anger. At the very least maybe someone else might hear me and come to my rescue.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Sterling! You’re not a stupid woman! You turned my statue over to the police and I know you have the diamonds.”

  “That was your suitcase?”

  “Yes, it was the perfect plan until the damn airline lost the luggage and switched yours and mine upon the return. You really shouldn’t have gone through that suitcase. Don’t you know it’s not nice to look through other’s things?”

  I wanted to retort, questioning the wisdom of putting something valuable in a suitcase for the airline to handle but thought I’d better not. Tom seemed pissed enough as it was. I was absolutely wishing I had not looked through that suitcase and, even more so, wished I hadn’t ripped apart the seams to find the diamonds. It would only be a matter of moments before he noticed. Luckily, I had closed the lid and zipped it back up the first time someone knocked on my door which might buy me a few more seconds before he saw the evidence of what I had done. Though it seemed odd he hadn’t immediately gone over to the suitcase to get them. Why hadn’t he? I then realized he probably didn’t know the hotel had brought me my original room contents back. He paced around the room which made me even more nervous.

  As I was trying to figure out how to get rid of him, there was another knock as the door.

  “Don’t answer that!” Tom yelled but I ignored him. Oh, please let this be Steve coming back!

  I opened the door and it wasn’t Steve. “Roberto!” I said confused as he too pushed past me.

  “C’mon in,” I said sarcastically, but neither of them was paying attention to me. They were staring angrily at each other.

  “You think you were going to double cross me and get away with it?” Roberto yelled at Tom.

  Tom looked worried and I was confused for a moment. Clearly Roberto wasn’t trying to find the diamonds to return to their original owner. I kicked myself for being so gullible.

  “They belong to me, Roberto. This was my score. You’re not taking them!”

  “Tom, without me this wouldn’t have even happened. You made the choice to leave the group and try to do this on your own.”

  They were so engaged into their argument they weren’t paying any attention to me which was to my advantage. I slowly turned the handle on the door, thinking if I could just get out of the room and make it to the elevator and down to the lobby, I would be safe. The door opened with a click, which to me sounded like a thunderclap, but neither one of them even noticed. I opened the door wide enough for me to slip through and let the door close behind me. I started running down the hall towards the elevator and heard a door open. I glanced back and it was the door to my room, Roberto and Tom came running out.

  “Sterling! Wait!” Tom called out. “We’re not going to hurt you, we just want the diamonds.”

  Ha! I thought. I wasn’t going to fall for that. I had already been fooled enough. I reached the elevator and pressed the button a million times, willing the elevator to hurry up before Tom and Roberto reached me. Tom could say they weren’t going to hurt me all they want and maybe they weren’t lying, but I wasn’t about to take that chance. Like Tom said, I wasn’t a stupid woman.

  “Sterling! Wait!” Tom called out again, as the elevator doors opened and I jumped in and pressed the lobby button and the close doors button.

  The doors closed just as they reached the elevator bank and I heard them banging on the doors but they didn’t open.

  My heart was racing. I just needed to get to the lobby and grab a hotel employee to get me security or call the police, or both. Even if they made it down to the lobby at the same time, there would be people around and they couldn’t hurt me in broad daylight. I hoped anyway.

  The doors slid open at lobby level and I rushed out. I looked around for a second so freaked out I had a hard time getting my bearings. I ran over to the check-in desk where there was one employee working.

  Before I reached the desk I heard my name being called and even without turning around recognized Tom’s voice.

  “Excuse me …” I started to say to the young lady at the desk.

  “There you are, darling,” Tom said, as he and Roberto reached me. They were breathing heavily like they just ran down the stairs. He put his arm around me and squeezed making it look like we were a couple. “I told you I already had the information we needed,” he said, smiling broadly at the young lady, watching us from the desk.

  I could feel Roberto behind me and as Tom was charming the hotel employee. He whispered in my ear, “Keep your mouth shut. We just want those diamonds.”

  Tom, with his arm still around me, turned me away from the front desk and was propelling me back towards the elevator. I knew I should start screaming but I couldn’t get sound to come out of my mouth.

  “That wasn’t very nice, Sterling,” Tom said to me once we were out of earshot. “We just want the diamonds! Now be a good girl and let’s go back to your room and you can give them to us.”

  He pushed the elevator button and when the doors opened, Steve got off. Tom’s grip tightened on my shoulder as if to say, I better not say anything.

  “Sterling,” Steve said, looking from me to Tom. By the look on his face I could see he wondered what was going on.

  “Steve,” I said weakly, staring at him, hoping he would notice that all didn’t seem copacetic here.

  “Hey buddy, good to see you again,” Tom said, holding out his hand to shake Steve’s as if nothing was amiss. He was doing a great job making it look like we were great friends. Though why was I surprised? I had fallen for his entire nice guy routine. “Can’t stay and chat. We’ve got plans.”

  “OK …” Steve said slowly. “Everything OK, Sterling?” I think Steve was picking up on the fact that there was something off about this situation.

  “She’s fine. See you around, Steve,” Tom said dismissing him and walking me on to the elevator. When we turned around, I could see Steve looking at me, brows furrowed. I wanted to jump out of this elevator. All of a sudden Steve started walking toward us and jumped back in the elevator.

  “Can you believe it
, I forgot something in my room,” he said, and I could tell neither Roberto nor Tom believed him. I didn’t either but I felt some relief wash over me, that he was here with me. At the same time I felt bad that Steve now inserted himself into this mess. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for dragging an innocent person into my problem if something bad happened.

  The doors slid shut and as soon as they did, Roberto started speaking.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with the three of you, but enough playing around. Where are the diamonds?”

  I could have given the diamonds to them right then and there, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t just let us go and move on as they were trying to lead me to believe. I was done being trusting and it was time to go on the offensive.

  Tom had hit the buttons for my floor, but the elevator came to a stop three floors below. The doors opened and another couple started to get on.

  “Here’s our stop, honey,” Steve said loudly to me and grabbed my hand, practically jerking me off the elevator. It happened so quickly, Tom and Roberto didn’t have time to react and the door closed with them continuing on their way up.

  I grabbed Steve and hugged him.

  “You’re amazing. I was so freaked out, I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. They will just get off at the next floor and come looking for us again.”

  “We need to get back down to the lobby and to security.”

  Steve looked down at my feet.

  “What?”

  “I was seeing what kind of shoes you had on.”

  I looked confused.

  “To see if we could take the stairs. They wouldn’t expect that.”

  “I will probably fall down them, but who cares as long as we make it down.”

  We made our way to the end of the hall where the stairwell was. When we reached the door, I slipped off my shoes and put them in my hand. I figured it was better to chance it barefoot.

  After about three flights, my feet hurt and I was winded. Who knew walking down flights of stairs would be so hard. I couldn’t even imagine how I would feel if I was walking up them. My legs were already feeling like Jell-O. I was regretting my lack of any exercise routine more than usual.

  “You OK?” Steve asked as he noted my pace slowing.

  “I might die before we reach the bottom,” I said panting.

  “You can do it!” he said encouragingly, and I gave him a dirty look.

  A few minutes later and we hit the landing for the lobby. I started to reach for the door and Steve stopped me. They’re going to expect us to come back to the lobby. Let’s go down one more flight to the parking garage. I think the employee entrance is down there too, so there should be people around and we can get someone to call security for us.”

  I was so happy Steve was with me. “I’m so sorry I involved you in all this.”

  “Don’t be. Think of it as an adventure.”

  “I think I would rather sit at home and be bored,” I said. We reached the next floor just as I felt I could go no further.

  We opened the door and there wasn’t a person in sight.

  “Dammit,” Steve said, “I thought there would be people around. I’m sorry, Sterling. Coming down here was a mistake.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s not like you could have known. And you are still right that they won’t suspect us coming down here. I say we make our way to the shuttle stop. They leave every fifteen minutes. We can take one into town and find the police station.”

  “Good idea.”

  With my shoes still in my hand, we cautiously walked out of the parking garage and headed toward the shuttle stop, which was in front of the main floor of the hotel. It was about a hundred yards away and there was a small embankment so even if Roberto and Tom were looking for us in this direction we wouldn’t be super visible.

  We reached the gravel path and I slipped my sandals back on just as the next shuttle was pulling up.

  “Just in time!” I said to him.

  We started to form a line with the others waiting to go into town.

  “Look,” I said to Steve, motioning back to the hotel. Roberto and Tom were on the patio looking around presumably for us.

  “Sterling! Is that you?” the voice calling out made me jump but it was a woman’s voice.

  “Sterling, over here! Are you going into town?” I looked back over to the path between the patio and where we were. It was Wendy calling to me. She was half way down the path, coming toward the shuttle. No, no, no. Stop yelling my name, I said silently, not wanting any attention to be brought to us.

  “Sterling! Can you hear me?”

  Not only could I hear her, but so could Roberto and Tom. If only my name were Amy or Sue, they might not have noticed.

  They could hear her calling to me and started looking in our direction.

  Steve noticed at the same time I did.

  Taking the bus was no longer an option, They would be down here before it left.

  Wendy had reached us and Tom and Roberto were on their way down.

  “What are you guys up to?” Wendy asked.

  “Listen Wendy, I need you to do us a favor.”

  “What’s wrong?” she could hear the alarm in my voice.

  “I don’t have time right now to explain but I need you to go in to town and find the police station and tell them to send someone out here. That the ring of thieves who were stealing in Miami is at this hotel and I’m in danger!”

  “You’re in danger! Sterling, what is going on?”

  I ignored the question. “Can you do that, Wendy?”

  “Yes! Yes! I can do that!”

  “Then go. Get on the bus.”

  I pushed Wendy in the direction of the bus and turned around only to bump right into Tom. I saw Roberto standing next to Steve.

  “Interesting how we keep running into each other.”

  “Yes, what a coincidence,” I said sarcastically.

  Tom grabbed my arm hard and walked me over to where Roberto and Steve were standing.

  “So, let’s try this again,” Roberto said with a hard edge to his voice. “You two are going to tell us where the diamonds are. I’m done playing games,” he said, and pulled a gun part way out of his pocket to show us he wasn’t joking around.

  My heart sank. This was bad. I just hoped Wendy was able to get to the police and convince them to get out here fast. That was our only hope.

  Steve and I walked up the path with Roberto and Tom right behind us.

  Steve grabbed my hand and I could feel his hand tremble. He was as worried and scared as I was.

  I kept racking my brain to try and figure out how we were going to get out of this alive. I could feel tears welling up in the back of my eyes and I squeezed Steve’s hand in an attempt to hold them back.

  We had to do something! We couldn’t let them get us back into my hotel room. I wasn’t stupid enough to think they would just take their diamonds and then let us go. We needed to stay in sight of people.

  We reached the hotel lobby and I thought our only chance was if I just started screaming bloody murder. Surely they wouldn’t shoot us in the hotel lobby in front of a bunch of witnesses and people would hopefully come over to see what I was screaming about.

  I took a deep breath, filling my lungs to get ready to belt out a life-saving scream, when all of a sudden we were surrounded by police.

  “Hands up!” one of the officers barked.

  My hands shot up in the air immediately and four policemen quickly rushed to Roberto and Tom, disarming and handcuffing them.

  Two more rushed over to myself and Steve, telling us to put our hands down and asking if we were OK. We both nodded and one of the officers asked us if we felt up to answering some questions, while things were still fresh.

  I was more than happy giving them whatever they needed and I had questions of my own. Like how they got to the hotel so fast.

  The police had already known that members of the
thieving ring from Miami were here and they had been watching the hotel. Wendy had been so freaked out when she got on the bus, she told the driver what was going on and he called the police from his cell phone. I made a mental note to thank that bus driver for believing her and making that call. Since there were police already on the hotel premises it didn’t take long for them to find us.

  When I gave the police the diamonds I had in my pocket, they explained to me that Tom had tried to double-cross Roberto, and the third member of the group, by taking some of the diamonds out of the Buddha and hiding them in the lining. He had planned on leaving the statue at the pre-arranged drop and then take off with the rest. Apparently, Tom thought they wouldn’t notice they were missing or maybe he just thought he would be long gone by then.

  I didn’t understand how they knew not all the diamonds were in the Buddha so I asked and the police told me Roberto had flirted with one of the hotel employees and got her to count them for him. She then felt guilty and told the police what she had done, which is how they had confirmation he was at the hotel and something probably was going to happen. The police had just been waiting for concrete evidence to make arrests.

  The police had been searching for this group for the last twelve months and this had been their big break. Seems for once, lost luggage was worth it, at least for the police. Personally, I just wanted to get my shoes back.

  After about an hour of questioning the police let us go, although they said they might be in touch if they had any further questions.

  “Sorry you got involved in all this,” I said to Steve, feeling bad that knowing me had brought all this drama to his vacation.

  “Don’t be, it was fun! I got my money’s worth out of this trip.”

  “You sir, have a twisted sense of what is fun.”

  Steve laughed, “At least it will be a vacation I won’t easily forget. Because of this and meeting you,” he added, looking at me intently.