Kurt's late to their second murder mystery dinner party. Where is he?
Adam opened the door and let Sam step inside. "You look great, Sam. I'm sure Kurt was impressed with the outcome."
"Was?"
"He texted me that he went to meet you about a half-hour ago. He said got a text from you claiming a wardrobe malfunction that only he could fix."
"I didn't text Kurt. I haven't seen him since early this morning when I brought over those props he had left behind to dry after we finished working on them yesterday—before the two of you left for the NYADA costume ball."
He pulled his phone out. "I'm sure he said it was you that had texted." He nodded as he showed Sam the text.
Sam shrugged. "Maybe he made up the story about the text so that he could sneak off and get something to surprise you with?"
"I guess that's possible, but I wasn't home until about an hour ago. He had plenty of time to get something without me knowing. His shift at the Vogue office ended at 3:00."
Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Let's just text him." He turned back towards the door. "I'll have to go get my phone, though. I left it in my apartment since this is an old-fashioned murder mystery. No cell phones in the 1930s."
"Definitely not. I'll keep working on getting the food that's not in the oven ready to serve."
"Jared?" Kurt said, surprised to see his fellow NYADA classmate opening the door to the Town Car that pulled up to pick him up at 3:00.
"In the flesh," he said. "In you go, sir," he added somewhat sarcastically.
Kurt chuckled. "Thanks."
"Sure. We all have day jobs, right?"
"That we do."
Jared pushed the door closed and got into the driver's seat.
About 10 minutes later, Kurt looked up from the work he had been doing on his phone. "Jared? This is nowhere near the photo shoot location I'm supposed to be at in five minutes."
"It's the address I was given. I'm not sure what to say. I just pick people up and drive them to where I'm told to. Maybe they moved the photo shoot?"
"I guess they could have."
Jared pulled over to the curb. "This is it." He pointed to a fairly dilapidated walk-up apartment building. It says apartment 3B on my itinerary."
"Got it. I didn't think this was some sort of grunge shoot."
"Who knows?" Jared got out to open Kurt's door. "Maybe the apartment looks great on the inside or they're using it because it's cheap and they've got big green screens in there."
"Could be. Thanks again."
"Just doing my job. See you tomorrow in class."
"Yeah. See ya," Kurt said as he eyed the building nervously.
Jared looked up and down the street before walking around the car to get back in. He stopped before opening the driver's door. "Since this is kind of a sketchy neighborhood, I'll wait 10 minutes. My next pick-up isn't for 20 minutes, and I can get there in 10. If you get up there and this isn't the right place, just come right back down. You can just ride up front with me, even though it's against the rules. I don't want to just leave you stuck here. You look like you're wearing a thousand-dollar suit, and I don't see any taxis just milling around."
"Thanks, Jared."
"Yeah, sure. No problem." He went back around to the driver's side and got in to wait.
Kurt wondered why Jared wasn't hired to just wait for him since it was only supposed to take about 20 minutes for them to use the necklace he had brought with him, but he approached the building anyway.
Not everything made sense in the world where rich people and corporations paid for drivers. He stepped inside the building to find that the stairwell was dimly lit by a single bulb hanging from a bare socket on the landing of each level. He walked up to 3B and knocked. The door opened and he stepped inside. The instant he was in far enough for the door to be closed, a cloth bag came down over his head and his right arm was pulled up behind his back, immobilizing him.
"Ow!" Kurt yelped as his arm was pulled up behind his back. His heart was racing so loud he could hear it. He did his best not to panic, knowing that he would need his wits about him if at all possible. All of those what-to-do-when-you're-grabbed articles flashed in his mind. He knew his main goal was to prevent himself from being transported to a second location. "What do you want?" he asked, trying to stall for time to think of something to do.
"Just keep it down. I'm going to take the pillowcase off and you're going walk out of this building with me like you're happy about it."
"Or what?"
"Adam will pay."
Kurt's heart sank upon realizing that this wasn't a random attack. His captors knew him well enough to threaten the man that he loved. He couldn't risk Adam getting hurt as well. Having no other option open to him since he was completely immobilized, he said, "Fine. Lead the way." He did his best to focus on what he could hear since the bag over his head blocked out what little ambient light there was.
The man kept Kurt's arm in a lock behind his back and used his other hand to pat Kurt down. When he found Kurt's phone, he pulled it out of his pocket and powered it down, then put it in his own pocket.
He walked over to the window, pushing Kurt in front of him as he went. He saw the Town Car Kurt had come in idling out front. He kept his tight hold on Kurt as he watched for another car to pull up. Once it did, he said, "Now, let's go. Do not look back as we walk out. There's a car waiting downstairs. Get it in like that's what you planned to do. No funny business."
Kurt did his best to not sound frightened, despite fearing for his life. The man hadn't assaulted him.
"Alright." He hoped that by cooperating he could manage to stay uninjured, increasing his chances of escaping at some point.
The man tightened his hold on Kurt's arm, causing pain in his shoulder. He kept his voice low and calm. "I'm going to take the pillowcase off. And you're going to walk in front of me."
"I got it. Don't cause a scene. Get in the awaiting car. Look normal."
The man removed the pillowcase but didn't let go of Kurt's arm. "Let's go."
They had made it outside just in time for Kurt to see the tail lights of the Town Car Jared was driving at the end of the block, having turned the corner already, leaving no one as a witness to see him getting into the awaiting car.
"Get in and kneel facing the window on the other side of the car."
Kurt did as he was told. The instant he was inside, the pillowcase was put over his head again. His hands were bound behind his back, then he was manhandled into the seat. After his seatbelt was fastened in place, his captor got into the passenger seat, and the car pulled away from the curb.
Tears silently streamed down Kurt's cheeks as he wondered whether he would ever see the people he loved again.
By 5:00, everyone had arrived for the murder mystery dinner, except Kurt.
Callie came back down from changing in their study and crossed the room to where Adam was standing.
"Where's Kurt?"
Adam shook his head and shrugged. "I have no idea. I got a text about 4:00 saying that he had gotten a costume emergency text from Sam, but Sam came here a half-hour later, saying that he never texted Kurt. We've both tried texting him since then and gotten no response."
"That's really weird."
"It is. But Sam suggested that perhaps it's part of the game for tonight?"
Callie thought about it for a few seconds. "Like he's planning to arrive late? Like his character is supposed to show up late?"
"It's the only thing either one of us has come up with. I already called the Vogue office. Isabelle said that he left at 3:00 to take something to a photo shoot in Midtown. She even called the car company, which verified that a car picked him up and dropped him off."
"So should we just get started without him?" Callie asked.
Adam's phone pinged and he pulled it out immediately only to find that it was someone from the coffee shop asking him to trade shifts. He quickly responded saying that he couldn't. Working late the next afternoon wouldn't work because was going to Kurt's opening of Once Upon a Mattress. He looked up.
"Not Kurt."
"Oh," Callie said disappointedly.
"Without a text from him saying for us to wait, should we just go ahead and start?" Sam asked as he approached the two of them.
Adam shrugged. "I'd hate to do that if this isn't part of the mystery of the murder mystery. Starting without him could ruin the storyline."
"You don't know the story at all?" Sam asked.
"I don't. Kurt wanted it to be fun for me too this time since the first time I helped him get everything planned."
"Oh," Sam said. "That makes sense."
Callie shrugged. "I guess we should just assume that this is part of his plan, then. The food is all done
and ready to eat. Shall we sit down then and get started?"
Adam sighed. "Yes, I guess so."
Sam followed Callie to the kitchen counter and they moved the dishes to the center of the table.
As they sat down, Adam got another text from Kurt.
-Start without me.
"Give me the passcode for your phone," Kurt's captor said abruptly.
Kurt didn't answer immediately.
"Tell us or Adam pays."
Tears streamed down Kurt's cheeks, wetting the pillowcase that was still over his head, as he gave his captor the passcode to his phone under threat of bodily harm to Adam.
He could hear his captor typing out a text to someone using his phone.
His mind raced.
No one would even look for him if his captors continued to use his phone to text people.
He did the best he could to stay calm and listen to what his two captors were talking about, but it was either some kind of code or they were just chatting about mundane stuff, nothing personal that would help him identify anything about them.
His hands had gone numb and his shoulder was killing him. He rearranged a bit to try to get some blood flow to his hands.
It had been an hour since the group of nine had finished playing through the mystery and Drew had correctly identified Callie as the murderer. Adam had convinced everyone except for Sam to leave.
"Let me see the last text?" Sam asked between answering the door and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters.
"Sure." Adam pulled his phone out and showed it to him.
"Is he usually that short with you?"
"No, not really. But it has happened before when he was in the middle of something and realized that he was running late. But I always get more texts once the crisis has been averted and he's actually on his way to meet me."
"Yeah. Me too. This just isn't like him."
"I know, but we both know that going to the police won't do any good when he's technically just a few hours late."
"Yeah, I know, but I can't stand just sitting here. Let's call Isabelle back," Sam suggested. "I don't know where else to start."
"Sure. Maybe we can go to wherever he went this afternoon?"
A few minutes later, Jennessa knocked on the door, which Sam opened since Adam was texting back and forth with Isabelle.
"Hi, Jennessa."
"Hi, Sam. Where's Kurt? Me and Benny want to see his costume."
Benny peeked around behind her. "Adam's too. You're not dressed up." He looked Sam up and down. "Well, I guess you are dressed up like an old man, sort of."
Sam laughed. "I'm dressed up like someone from the 1930s. It was for the party Kurt had."
"He had a party?" Benny asked.
"It was just for grownups."
"Boring," he said. "Where is he?"
Adam approached the door and answered Benny when Sam didn't respond immediately. He didn't want to worry the kids, so he said, "He had to go out. But I have Milky Ways for both of you." He pulled two full-sized bars off the shelf and gave them to the kids.
"Oh, wow," Jennessa said. "No one else is giving out big candy bars."
Sam put his index finger up to his lips and whispered. "It's our secret. We only have a few for our friends."
Benny pretended to zip his lips, which made Jennessa laugh.
"We have to go or we won't get much candy," Jennessa said. "Maybe Kurt can show us his costume on Saturday."
"I think that's a great idea," Adam said. "Run along before the good candy is all gone."
"Come by my place Saturday morning. I have a big stack of paper for Benny."
Benny's face lit up "Paper! Paper! Paper! he chanted.
Jennessa laughed at his enthusiasm. "How early is too early?"
"After 8."
"We'll be there. Come on, Benny. I want more candy."
They waved and walked down the hallway to the next door with a Post-it note on it and knocked.
An hour later, Sam and Adam were standing outside the building where Jerod said he had dropped Kurt off. They went up to apartment 3B and knocked, but got no answer.
"This really doesn't look like the kind of place where there are photo shoots for Vogue," Sam said. "I've been to a few and they weren't this run down. One was industrial, but not like this."
Adam texted Isabelle.
-This place really doesn't look right. We came to the address Jerod gave us from his log.
-The errand he ran wasn't for me specifically. Someone who knew his shift was ending asked him to do it. Let me call around and get the photo shoot address from someone.
Sam was fiddling around and pulled his hoodie cuff over his hand to attempt to open the door, which turned out to be unlocked. He opened it but didn't go inside. He used the flashlight on his phone to take a peek inside. "This place is barren. Like completely empty. And everything looks dusty. I mean I guess they could have taken the photos in the dust, but it just doesn't fit." He pulled the door back shut.
"It doesn't. Let's just wait for Isabelle to see what she can find out."
"You're staying in the car," the driver told Kurt. "We're going to go in to get some food and drinks and pay to fill up."
The other man said, "We shouldn't leave him alone."
"His hands are tied behind his back and he's fastened in with a seat belt. Plus, the child safety locks are flipped on so he can't open the back doors. And I've gotta take a leak NOW. We've been driving for hours."
Kurt sat completely still as they argued. He had been slowly untying the paracord that had been used to bind his hands for the last several hours. He had managed to free one hand, but kept it in place, despite the pain it caused.
"Fine. He's not going anywhere. Let's go. We didn't plan to stop, but we're out of gas. Let's hurry up."
The instant he heard both car doors shut, he leaned forward and pulled his arms free, then undid his seat belt and pulled the pillowcase off of his head. Despite the burning in his arms, he climbed into the front seat of the car. He immediately pulled the lever to release the hood of the car and got out. He opened the hood deftly, found the fuse box, and pulled out the ECM fuse. He put the cover back on and let the hood down as discreetly as possible.
He scanned around the area as nonchalantly as possible, then took off jogging towards the darkest area away from the gas station. Once he was out of the parking lot, he ran and ran and ran until he couldn't breathe. He had never been more grateful for Cassie July kicking his butt in dance class until he took up conditioning training at the gym.
After 20 minutes of running, he was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. He slowed his pace to a jog, then to a brisk walk. When he came to a house that was completely dark, he stood near the driveway behind a bush to catch his breath and work his way through the knots on the paracord that was still fastened to his right wrist. Once he got it off, he rolled it up and put it in his satchel. He did some cool-down stretches to relax a bit more, then resumed walking along the sidewalk.
Adam knocked on the door, which was opened a few seconds later.
A tall woman with medium blonde hair in a robe answered the door. "You're not the delivery guy from the Thai place."
"I'm not. I'm Adam. This is Sam. We're sorry to bother you, but a friend of ours who works for Vogue was sent out with a necklace to deliver to a photo shoot at this address earlier this afternoon. We were wondering if he's still here."
"Oh, um. I don't know. There's about 20 people in here."
She looked at Sam again. "Weren't you in that shoot a few weeks ago?"
"Yeah. That was me."
She smiled. "Why don't you step inside? I don't remember anyone bringing a necklace, but you're free to look for him or ask around or whatever." She stepped back and let them inside.
"Thanks," Sam said.
"Yeah, no problem, honey."
Adam followed Sam inside, grateful that the model who opened the door recognized him and decided to let them in.
They split up and talked to people throughout the apartment, some of whom had been there all day.
Eventually, the person in charge approached Adam. "Can I help you with something?"
Adam texted Sam to join him near the balcony. Once he joined them, the two of them explained the situation to the man.
"Well, I'm certain that no one from Vogue brought a necklace over here today because I had to send a courier to the Vogue office to bring one back about 4:00 when my first request when unheeded."
"Well, to our knowledge Kurt left the office at 3:00 with the requested necklace but was rerouted to a sketchy neighborhood and hasn't been seen since. We've gotten a couple of brief texts, but that's it." Adam took his phone out and showed the man a photo of Kurt.
He looked at it and shook his head. "Well, I don't know what to tell the two of you. He hasn't been here. I'd like to get on with the shoot, and you two are distracting my models."
"We'll go," Adam said. "Thank you for your time."
After their visit yielded no results, they went back to the apartment in hopes that Kurt's phone had died and he had returned in the interim.
Just after Adam had locked the door and they had determined that Kurt was not in the apartment like they had hoped, Adam's phone began to ring with the default ring tone. He pulled it out of his pocket quickly.
Kurt didn't have his phone, but his captors hadn't taken his bag or wallet, which he found very odd.
He looked up when he heard laughing and saw a group of teens in costumes coming towards him on the sidewalk. He stepped to the side a bit, and when they got closer, he spoke up. "Would one of you let me make a phone call? And also tell me where I am."
"What happened to you, man?" one of them asked looking him up and down.
"It's a long story, but I really need to get someone to come pick me up."
"Halloween prank gone wrong? Or did you lose a bet?"
Kurt quickly decided that was as good of an explanation as any at the moment. "Something like that."
"Yeah, sure." One of the teens pulled his phone out. "I can't let you touch my phone, though, dude. My mom will kill me if I lose this or you steal it or whatever."
"No problem. Can you just call my friend Adam?" Kurt rattled off Adam's cell phone number.
The teen dialed the number and put the phone on speaker.
Kurt tried to quickly think of what to say when Adam answered.
"Hullo?"
"Hey, Adam. It's Kurt. I don't have my phone, but someone was nice enough to let me use his. You're on speaker."
"Where are you?"
"I'm not actually sure."
One of the guys in the group said, "We're in Bangor."
"Bangor?" Adam asked, having no idea where that was.
"It's a town in Maine."
"Maine?" Adam responded, completely flummoxed.
"Yeah, dude. It's a state on the East Coast, not all that far from Canada." one of the teens laughed. "Is your friend in England?" he teased.
"No," Kurt said. "He's from England, but he's in New York City, which is where I live."
"Oh, fuck. You're a long way from home."
"I am. What time is it?"
The teen turned the phone so that Kurt could see the time.
Adam answered as well. "It's about 10:00."
Kurt turned his attention back to the phone. "Alright. I'm going to hope that one of these guys will give me directions on where I can find a hotel for the night. I'll borrow a phone again when I get there and call to discuss arrangements to get back to the city."
Adam refrained from saying anything affectionate, afraid that he would cause the teens who were helping Kurt to turn on him. "Alright, then. I'll see what I can do about renting a car for the morning in case you can't get a train back."
"Thanks, Adam."
The teen disconnected the call.
"Well, you must have lost some hell of a bet or pissed someone off."
"Well, your guess is as good as mine on that, but can one of you tell me directions to the closest hotel, or what about Uber?"
One of them laughed. "Yeah, not here, dude."
Kurt opened his satchel. "How about you pull up a map and show me where the closest hotels are? I'll copy it down to follow."
"Sure, dude. You've had one fucked up day." He pulled up a map and let Kurt make a hand-drawn copy.
"That's putting it mildly." When Kurt finished, he put the notebook back in his satchel. "I can't thank you enough for your help."
The teen shrugged. "No problem, man. We better go, though. We're all under 16 and we have to be inside before 11:00. It's a school night."
Kurt nodded and watched them walk off. He took a look at the map, then folded it up and put it in his pocket. He walked to the corner, turned to the right, and picked up his pace. With the initial adrenaline rush of the need to escape draining away, he did his best to tamp down the fear of walking alone in the dark in an unknown town. He was thankful that there were sidewalks and streetlights in the neighborhood he was in.
He nodded slightly to a few straggling teens who had been out at parties and waited until no one was around to check his map again, putting it back into his coat pocket each time so as not to attract any unwanted attention. Once he got to Third Street, he relaxed a bit, realizing that he was over halfway to the hotel. He turned right again, then left on Buck Street, and could see the edge of Bass Park. He crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk on the side of the street with the park, then cut through behind the concert building. He crossed Main Street at the light and walked the last block to the hotel. He stopped in the parking lot and took a few deep breaths, doing his best to appear to be calm and collected as he entered.
Kadam Week 2023 Day 3 Prompt
Failed kidnapping