And yet my hands were shaking, and they were also, I realized, already moving.

My body had apparently decided to investigate whether or not my mind approved.

I dropped to my knees beside the bed and swept my arm underneath the frame, feeling around in the dark space, and my fingertips struck something hard, a firm fabric edge, something large shoved deep against the back wall.

My heart lurched.

Whatever it was, it was big, and it was heavy, and it had been hidden all the way at the back where no one stripping a bed would ever ordinarily reach.

I got a grip on it and pulled, and it came grinding out from under the bed and into the pool of sunlight on the floor: a large, heavy, rolling suitcase, the kind you check at an airport, stuffed so full that the sides bulged.