The Stranger

FOR ONE NIGHT — PART III: “What If He Isn’t Who I Want Him to Be?”

It started with the note.
Not the one on the breakfast tray.
The next one.
The one tucked inside the matchbook from the Jazz Bar in Naples.

She hadn’t noticed it at first. But when it fell out into her hand three days later, the handwriting was unmistakable.

“You shouldn’t look for me. But I hope you do.”

That’s when the fantasies started.

At first, they were romantic.

She imagined him as a composer who had fled fame and fortune after a tragic accident — a man who could no longer bear applause, only silence and strangers.

Or a war correspondent, hardened and haunted, who’d spent too long in places no one ever really comes back from.

Or a man married once, maybe even still married, to a woman in a coma somewhere in a forgotten hospital room. A man bound by loyalty, and slowly breaking free for one night, just one.

But then, slowly, the fantasies turned.

What if the sadness in his eyes wasn’t melancholy, but guilt?

What if the elegance was practiced? The piano just part of a performance?

“What if he’s dangerous?”

The question hit her in Berlin, in a museum café, where she’d found another envelope — no name, no message, just a sketch of a grand piano and the numbers: 12.9.3.

She stared at it for hours. Then, her brain began stitching together the worst of her imagination.

Fantasy 1: The Killer Pianist

He travels from city to city, always staying for one night, always in hotel suites with grand pianos.
He seduces women, learns their secrets, and turns them into songs — and then? He erases them.
He never kills the same way twice. But the pattern is always there.
Maybe Claire’s the only one who saw through it.
Maybe he’s testing her.

Fantasy 2: The Collector

Not a killer. Not violent.
Just… obsessed.
He finds women on the edge of their lives, women about to break or bloom. He gives them magic for one night, then vanishes.
He keeps pieces of them — photos, lipstick-stained napkins, broken bracelets — in a hidden room somewhere.
Maybe he’s building a museum of moments.
And Claire is Exhibit 12.9.3.

Fantasy 3: The Ghost

Not metaphorical. Not poetic.
A real ghost.
Dead twenty years. Only appears in Suite 9C.
The music wasn’t unfinished — it was never meant to be heard again.
She wasn’t supposed to see him. But she did. And now… she can’t stop.

Sometimes, the fantasies thrilled her.
Other times, they left her shaking, clutching the necklace her grandmother gave her as if it were armor.
She began locking hotel doors twice.
Walking faster in crowded streets.
Searching faces in cafés and windows and train reflections.

And still — she followed the notes.
The sketches.
The songs.

Because what if he was none of those things?

What if he was just a man?
One who’d seen her in a way no one else had?
And what if she let fear turn that into something ugly?

She didn’t know what scared her more:
That he might be a monster…
Or that he might be real.
And she might already be in love with him.

To Be Continued…

Perhaps in Vienna. Or Prague. Or back in the suite where it all began…

The Stranger in Suite 9C

The Stranger in Suite 9C – PART II

OR ONE NIGHT – PART II: “Echoes of 9C”

The story continues…

Claire hadn’t meant to return.

In the daylight, Positano looked nothing like the memory of last night — it was too bright, too loud, too full of tourists and questions. But something about that suite, about him, about her in that room — wouldn’t leave her.

So instead of flying back to Lisbon like she’d told her sister she would, she booked one more night. Then another.

But 9C was no longer available.

The receptionist — a girl with soft curls and an apologetic smile — told her it had been reserved for a private guest, “a week at least.” Claire tried not to show disappointment, but inside her chest, something curled in frustration. She hadn’t expected him to still be there.

But maybe, just maybe, she’d expected to feel something. Closure. A chance to thank him. To ask what that unfinished line of music meant.

She spent her second night in 7F. It was smaller, darker. She didn’t open the windows. She tried to forget.

But the next morning, on her breakfast tray — tucked between the linen napkin and the silver spoon — was a folded page.

A single bar of sheet music.

The same key. The same hand.
A note beneath:
“You’re not lost. You’re just not done yet.”

She stared at it for a long time.

He knew she’d stayed. Or someone had told him. Or — he was still watching. And instead of fear, she felt adrenaline.
Not the dangerous kind. The thrilling kind. Like stepping into a mystery that was choosing her.

She followed the trail.

Over the next two days, Claire began to find him again — not in person, but in signs.

• A matchbook from a jazz bar in Naples, placed under her espresso at a café she hadn’t meant to stop at.
• A hotel concierge who handed her a note when she checked out: “Porto. Two nights. Ask for Room 6E.”

Every time she followed the path, she arrived a step too late.

But every time, there was something left behind:

• A scribbled quote from a novel she once loved but never told anyone about.
• A photo of a moonlit street where she once kissed someone and thought it was love.

He knew things.
Things she hadn’t said aloud in years.

It was in Porto, on the third night, that she heard the music.

She had followed the final note to a rooftop bar — quiet, elegant, nearly empty. A pianist played in the corner, back to the crowd, lit only by a single overhead bulb.

The moment she stepped onto the terrace, her heart skipped.
The melody was hers.
The same unfinished line.
Now fuller. Wilder.

He didn’t turn to her, not immediately.
He just kept playing — each note a thread pulling her closer.

She sat near the piano. Waited. Listened.
And when he finally looked over his shoulder and smiled — not the way strangers smile, but the way only someone who’s been waiting does — she knew.

This wasn’t over.

To Be Continued…

In another room.
In another city.
But maybe — finally — in the same moment.

The Stranger in Suite 9C – PART III

FOR ONE NIGHT — “The Stranger in Suite 9C” – Part I

By a voice you’ve trusted in every good story you’ve ever read

It started with a mistake.
Or maybe it was fate dressed in coincidence.

Claire had been on the run — not in the criminal sense, but in the emotional one.
Three days ago, she walked out of her apartment in Lisbon, left behind a fiancé, a life, a future someone else had planned for her. She took only her passport, one carry-on, and the sapphire necklace her grandmother gave her when she was sixteen — the one her fiancé told her to “put away for special occasions.”

She was done waiting for special occasions.

So now she stood in the elevator of the Hotel Bellaria, a seaside jewel carved into the cliffs above Positano, gripping her keycard to Suite 9C, trying to remember how it felt to breathe without guilt.

The elevator chimed.
She stepped out.

The hallway smelled of citrus and something floral. Room 9C was the last one on the corner, ocean-facing. She pushed open the door and entered a suite so beautiful it made her laugh — high ceilings, tall windows thrown open to the sea, curtains dancing like ghosts in the breeze. She dropped her bag, toed off her shoes, and walked barefoot to the terrace.

And that’s when she saw him.

Leaning against the terrace wall — dark suit jacket slung over one shoulder, a glass of something amber in his hand. The man turned toward her, eyes unreadable.

“You’re early,” he said, a faint smile playing on his lips.

Claire blinked.
“I think… I’m in the wrong room.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t we all?”

They stood in silence. The waves crashed somewhere below.
She should have apologized, turned and left. But there was something in his voice — not flirtation, not danger — something slower, sadder. Like they were both ghosts in a room they didn’t belong in.

He finally stepped back, gestured toward the second wine glass already poured on the table.

“I won’t ask why you’re here if you don’t ask me.”

Claire hesitated… then walked over and took the glass.

They spent the next hours suspended in a bubble neither could name.
She told him her name, but not her past. He told her stories — some real, some not. He was a pianist, or maybe a private investigator, or maybe a widower who’d stopped believing in second chances.

She didn’t press. She didn’t want to know. Not yet.

They danced once — barefoot in the room, to an old jazz record that skipped every few bars.
She laughed.
He didn’t. But he watched her like she was the only real thing in the world.

They didn’t touch — not yet. But the nearness was electric. Like a storm waiting to strike.

At midnight, he asked her:
“If this were the only night we had, what would you want to remember?”

She looked out at the black sea, then back at him.
“I want to forget everything but this.”

He nodded slowly.
“Then let’s disappear together. For one night.”

The rest is blurred on purpose.
By design.
Their stories tangled in the quiet hours. Fingers traced skin, breaths whispered secrets. Nothing held back. Nothing taken beyond what was given.

No names beyond the first. No promises.
Only a shared understanding: we are each other’s escape tonight.

When Claire woke in the morning, the sheets beside her were cold.

The only trace of him was a folded note on the pillow.

It read:
“Suite 9C. Same time. Same night. In another life.”

And beneath it, a line of music — hand-written, elegant, unfinished.

To Be Continued…

Only if she dares to find him again.

The Stranger in Suite 9C – PART II