30. Runaways
Blood SisterThere was a heat wave in Jeju on the Friday, and just by walking the three hundred yards from the bus stop to the hotel entrance, Sehun had broken out into a huge sweat. He could feel his phone becoming slippery against his ear as he navigated his way around the mass of cars and people outside the hotel, but he could not have been more grateful to step into the air-conditioned foyer.
“I’ve just remembered,” he told Minseok as he headed over to the lift, “I unplugged the air-con in the apartment before I left. You might want to tell Taeyong that if he wants air-con in his room, he needs to plug in the air-con in the living room next door. It’s on the same circuit.” The doors dinged open and he stepped inside, pressing the button for his floor.
“I’ll pass that on.” Minseok sounded a little distracted. Sehun could hear a murmur of male voices in the background and figured that he must be in the office this time, because in the morning, there had been no background interference.
“And he’s straight on where to find the keys?”
“Yup, and you’ve given me the codes as well, so there shouldn’t be a problem for him getting in.”
“And if he wants to cook,” Sehun added as he stepped out of the lift again and headed down the corridor, “the hob’s fairly easy to navigate around. I managed it without setting the place on fire, so he should be okay.”
There was a slight chuckle from Minseok. Sehun fumbled with his room card and inserted it into the slot. The lights were already on and he kicked his shoes off as he went inside.
“You’ve probably already told me this, but is Taeyong just staying for the weekend or is he moving in?” Sehun automatically looked around for Weiyi to greet her, but the room was empty. His first instinct was the bathroom, but the door was wide open. He frowned. This was very unlike her. To be fair, it was fairly unusual for her to be lounging around with the lights on as she seemed to like natural light much more, but not to be in the room with the electrics still running meant—
“Hang on a second.” He turned back to the door and lowered his phone. Weiyi’s key card was in the electricity slot, which meant that she’d effectively locked herself out of the room. Maybe she hadn’t felt comfortable asking the staff at the desk for a new one, or possibly she hadn’t know where to go or how to. Sehun checked his screen for missed calls, but there wasn’t one. He wasn’t sure whether or not that was normal, since Weiyi wasn’t a great one for ringing up the entire time, but over the past few days, she had become a lot more forward and vocal, and he liked to think that if she had a problem she wasn’t sure how to solve, she’d try to contact him.
Then again, there was a strong likelihood she’d decided he’d be back soon anyway and had just gone down to the spa to while away the time. He put Minseok on hold – there was still more he needed to tell Minseok to tell Taeyong about his apartment that he’d completely forgotten about when Minseok had rung him during his lunch break – and dialled Weiyi’s number.
There was an answering trill from nearby, and he looked around. Weiyi’s phone was half hidden on the floor under her bed.
That was weird. Frowning, he stooped to pick it up. He wouldn’t necessarily have said that Weiyi was inseparable from her phone, but if she put it down somewhere, it wasn’t normally carelessly on the floor. Granted, there was a high chance she hadn’t taken her phone with her and had just locked herself out of the room, but she was a very neat and orderly girl.
There were fifty-four missed calls from Luhan. Sehun unlocked the phone screen – she still hadn’t changed the combination since he’d shown her how to set it up – and quickly went into her call history. Most of Luhan’s calls were only about thirty seconds apart, and that was also alarming. Weiyi didn’t reject calls from her brother.
Then he found one that had actually gone through, only about half an hour previously. The conversation with Luhan had lasted about three minutes.
The phone buzzed again with an incoming call. Sehun swallowed at the name on the screen. After some hesitation, he rejected the call and returned to his own phone to take Minseok off hold.
“Minnie,” he said, his mind going oddly blank, “have you got anybody who can get the hotel security tapes?”
There was dead silence at the other end.
“What’s happened?” Minseok asked him, and there was suddenly a blast of noise. Sehun figured he’d been put on speaker.
“I’m going to check in the spa and the restaurant,” he said, “but Weiyi’s vanished. She left the key card and her phone here and it’s blowing up with calls from her brother. It’s making me uneasy.”
“On it,” said a completely unfamiliar voice. “What’s the hotel’s address?”
Sehun gave it and sat down on the bed, toying with Weiyi’s phone. “And if it helps, there was an accepted call on the phone about half an hour ago.”
“Security feed from up to half an hour ago. Got it,” the unfamiliar voice said.
“What’s the state of your room?” asked Chen’s voice.
“As I left it,” said Sehun.
Lay was the next to speak. “Can you give us video?”
Sehun put his phone on speaker and opened it up to video call so that he could show them the room. It was immaculately tidy.
“Was there anything unusual or out of place when you went in?” Minseok asked. “Like an open window, broken lock...?”
Sehun got up to go over to the window and check it.
“That looks completely normal to me,” murmured Chen.
“Hey, can I have a picture of this girl?” asked the unfamiliar voice. “I’ve got security feeds and the room number but it would help immensely.”
Lay said something about giving him a second and he’d get one.
“The only unusual things were the light still being on and Weiyi’s phone and key card being here when she’s not.” Sehun could feel anxiety rising. He ought to have taken her into work with him. Just half an hour – that was the time it had taken for him to get from the last interview he had conducted back to the hotel.
“And where were they?”
“The key card was in the electrics and the phone was on the floor half under her bed.”
“And the room was tidy?” said Minseok.
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