Wish Upon a Christmas Star (9 page)

“I think I’ve got one of those bottles,” he murmured.

“You do,” she said. “A vase. It’s hand-painted, yellow with
orange-and-red streaks.”

“That’s right.” A nearby streetlamp cast enough light into the
car that she could see his brow furrow. “I didn’t buy it from you, did I?”

“No, my mother.” Kayla had been running late that day, almost
six months ago, and had been kicking herself ever since.

“Then how did you know I bought that particular vase?”

“My mother tells me everything,” she said.

“About me?”

Kayla cringed inwardly. He was good at picking up on her verbal
slips, darn him. She really needed to keep her mouth closed. “Good question,”
she said vaguely and pointed through the window. “Hey, the rain’s letting
up.”

Not the smoothest transition from one subject to another, but
it was the best she could do.

“So it is,” Alex said. “I should get going, then.”

Without thinking—again—Kayla reached across the seat and
grabbed his arm. “You don’t have to go.”

They stared into each other’s eyes. A warm thrill ran through
her. Her eyes dipped to his lips. Was he going to kiss her? Should she kiss him?
She did nothing, and the moment passed.

“I do have to go,” he said. “The restaurant opens in less than
five hours.”

She let her hand slip away from his arm.

“You need your beauty sleep,” she told him, a dumb thing to
say.

“Will you be here all night?” he asked.

“All night,” she said. “Can’t have anything happening to
Santa.”

He put his hand on the door handle, then turned to her. “Do you
play darts?”

“Yes.” She’d played once three or four years ago.

“You should stop by Estrada’s tomorrow night,” he said.

Kayla tamped down her thrill of excitement so she wouldn’t
scare him. “I just might do that.”

“Good night.” He smiled at her and got out of the car.

Kayla watched him in her rearview mirror until he’d put enough
distance between himself and the car that she could squeal without him
hearing.

She’d been cool and told him she might go to Estrada’s.

She was definitely going.

“You just might be my ticket to a Christmas romance, Santa,”
she said aloud, all of her attention once again on the statue.

One hour blended into the next. The rain stopped completely,
the sky got incrementally lighter and it became harder and harder to stay awake.
At one point Kayla closed her eyes, thinking if she could rest them for a few
seconds, she’d make it through the night.

A horn sounded.

Her eyes snapped open. A guy on a moped was at the stop sign,
making an obscene gesture to another guy on a bicycle. The sun was up. People
walked on the sidewalks. Not tourists. Locals going to work.

She’d fallen asleep.

A small crowd had formed in front of Santa. A woman was
gesturing and laughing. Kayla hopped out of the car, her right knee almost
collapsing. She was awake but her leg was still asleep.

She shook off the pins and needles and hurried over to the
statue. Her stomach fell as though weighed down by a lead balloon. Somebody had
given Santa black plastic Groucho glasses and darkened his bushy eyebrows,
moustache and beard, as well.

With waterproof marker, she surmised.

* * *

A
FEW
HOURS
LATER
ON
THE
second floor of the souvenir
shop across the street from the statue, Maria bent over a wireless security
camera, with Kayla so close their shoulders brushed. Maria adjusted the lens
until she was satisfied with the view of Santa.

“That should do it,” she said. “Now you won’t have to spend
every night watching the statue from your car. You can do it from the comfort of
your own home.”

Maria straightened and stood back from the small table where
she’d set up the camera. The motion made her head throb. Nothing new. Operating
on short sleep always gave her a headache. She’d tossed and turned last night
after Logan left, then awakened with the sun to get an early start on the day.
And to avoid him.

“Are you sure the camera can penetrate glass?” Kayla stood
beside her, chewing her lower lip and twisting her hands. The P.I.-in-training
had called Maria the instant the camera arrived and begged her to help get it
set up.

“Positive,” Maria said. “But let’s check it out.”

They’d already hooked into the store’s computer network and
assigned the camera a web address that could be accessed wirelessly. The second
floor of the shop was being used primarily for storage, so they picked their way
past stacked boxes to the computer, breathing in a slight musty smell along the
way. Maria quickly navigated to the website with the video stream.

“There he is,” she said. “There’s Santa.”

The picture was so clear they could see the grin on Santa’s
face, the bills in his hand and the lettering on the ’tis the season to spend in
Key West sign. People walked by, some gesturing at the statue and others
ignoring it.

“The best part is I don’t have to sit in front of the
computer,” Kayla said. “It’s really cool that I’ll be able to access the website
from my smartphone.”

“It has a recorder, too,” Maria said. “So if you miss anything,
you can rewind and catch whoever’s doing this red-handed.”

“Are you two done yet?” the salesclerk who’d let them in called
from the bottom of the stairs.

“What’s this guy’s problem?” Kayla asked under her breath. “Did
he swallow a couple lemons for breakfast or what?”

The clerk, a painfully thin man in his thirties who was wearing
plush, light-up reindeer antlers, had openly scoffed when Kayla told him they
were private investigators. Even after a phone call to his boss verified that
they had permission to set up the camera, he’d muttered something about privacy
laws. Never mind that it was perfectly legal to install a camera that monitored
a public area.

“Watch this,” Kayla told Maria with a mischievous gleam in her
eyes. She raised her voice, calling, “Not finished yet. We’re looking for a
place to install a second camera to monitor the downstairs of the shop.”

“What?” The booming sound of footsteps on the stairs followed
his exclamation. He appeared in the doorway of the room, his reindeer antlers
incongruous with his pale, gaunt face and pursed lips. “Where is it? Where’s the
other camera?”

“She was kidding,” Maria rushed to assure him, sending a
warning glance at Kayla and hoping she got the message to keep quiet. “We only
installed the one camera.”

He shook a bony finger at them. “You shouldn’t joke about
spying on people.”

“Who said I was joking?” Kayla retorted.

“She was joking.” Maria raised a hand. “I give you my word on
that.”

A bell sounded below, announcing that a customer was entering
the store. With a final glare at Kayla, the clerk pivoted on his heel and
descended the steps.

“You shouldn’t have teased him, Kayla,” Maria said when he was
gone. “What if he comes up here and disables the camera?”

She huffed in a breath. “Oh, crap. I hadn’t thought of that. It
just made me so mad when he refused to believe we were private
investigators.”

“You have to let stuff like that roll off your back,” Maria
advised. “The truth is, most P.I.s are men.”

“So how will we women ever get respect?”

“By doing a good job,” Maria told her. “That includes being
nice to the unpleasant man who was ordered to help us.”

She sighed aloud. “You’re right. That’s why you’re the pro and
I’m the one who falls asleep on surveillance.”

Kayla had filled Maria in on what had happened the night
before, from Alex Suarez’s unexpected visit to her mad dash to use the hotel
restroom to falling asleep and waking up to discover somebody had gotten to
Santa.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Maria said. “It wouldn’t have
occurred to me to run to the drugstore to buy toothpaste and baking soda.”

“I’m lucky I was able to wipe off the marker before more people
saw Santa looking like Groucho Marx.” Kayla’s whole body suddenly seemed to sag.
“As soon as we’re done here, I need to catch some sleep. You don’t think the
prankster will strike during the day, do you?”

“No,” Maria said. “There are too many people around. Chances
are much better he’ll use the cover of night.”

The video stream of the Santa statue was still playing on the
computer screen. Two middle-aged women stood in front of it, their arms crossed
identically over their chests, their heads shaking.

“They don’t approve,” Kayla said. “I don’t blame them. That is
one tacky statue.”

“That’s what the owner of The Flying Monkey said last night,”
Maria said. “He’s in the merchants association. He said he spoke out against the
statue from the very beginning. Your friend Alex did, too.”

“I knew that about Alex. But, hey, maybe the bar owner is the
prankster,” Kayla said, sounding hopeful.

“I doubt it,” Maria replied. “He also said he wished he’d
thought of the pranks. If it was him, he’d admit it.”

“Yeah. The same with Alex.” Kayla shook her head. “What about
your investigation? You haven’t told me yet whether you’re making headway.”

“Not much,” Maria said. “We had a lead that Mike might be
playing his guitar at the Flying Monkey. It didn’t pan out. A guy showed up, but
he only looked a little like my brother.”

“We?” Kayla pounced on her use of the pronoun. “Aren’t you in
Key West by yourself?”

“N... Yes,” Maria said. “It was a slip of the tongue.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t.” Kayla pointed a finger at her. “I might
have a lot to learn, but I can tell you’re not being straight with me.”

Maria couldn’t very well deny Kayla’s observation when she was
trying to help her become a better detective. “Okay, you’re right. My
ex-boyfriend followed me to Key West.”

“And the plot thickens.” Kayla crossed her arms over her chest
and stretched her legs in front of her. “Spill, girl. You better. Especially
after I told you all about my crush on Alex.”

“There’s not much to tell.” Maria realized how misleading her
statement was, considering she had yet to mention 9/11 to Kayla. She sighed.
“Actually, there is. You don’t know my whole story.”

She proceeded to fill her in on everything that had happened in
the past and present. Kayla didn’t interrupt, listening intently, the way any
good private investigator would. She was silent when Maria finished the
story.

Maria didn’t blame her. It was a lot to process.

“Logan is sure Mike is dead,” Maria added. “He thinks I’m on a
wild-goose chase.”

“Did he come to Key West to talk you out of looking for Mike?”
Kayla asked.

“At first, I think he did,” she said. “But I explained that if
there was even the slimmest chance Mike was alive, I needed to look for him. Now
Logan says he wants to help me.”

“He sounds like a good guy,” Kayla said.

That was the problem, Maria thought. Logan wasn’t only nice to
look at, he was honest and decent. She’d been hurt last night when he’d put the
brakes on their kiss but only until she’d had a chance to think about it. She
hadn’t changed very much since her teen years. She still needed to envision a
future with a man before she went to bed with him. No matter what his motives,
Logan had done her a favor.

“He is a good guy,” she said grudgingly. “He always has
been.”

Yet she’d set her alarm clock for an early hour, dragged
herself out of bed and slipped away from the hotel without contacting him.

“So where is Logan now?” Kayla asked.

She was about to say he could be headed back to New York City,
for all she knew. Except that wasn’t true. Logan wouldn’t abandon her like that,
not after he’d flown twelve hundred miles to help her.

“I don’t know where he is,” Maria said. “I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Striking out,” she said. “I stopped by a couple of those local
breakfast spots, and then I went to that hotel in Old Town to talk to the
concierge you told me about. Nobody recognized Mike.”

“How about the sunset celebration?” Kayla asked. “Have you
tried your luck there?”

“Not yet,” Maria said. “We meant to go yesterday but got
sidetracked.”

“Oh, my gosh.” Kayla fluttered her hands. “I should have
stressed that was the place to go to talk to locals. Almost everybody
there—street performers, musicians, artists, vendors—has been around for a
while.”

“That sounds promising,” Maria said.

“Make sure you talk to my mom,” Kayla said. “She knows lots of
people in Key West. I need to crash, so I won’t be there today. I’ll let her
know you’re stopping by, though.”

“Thanks,” Maria said. “It sounds like there will be a lot of
people there to talk to.”

“There will be a lot of people, period,” Kayla said. “It would
help if you had someone with you to lighten the load. Maybe you should think
about taking that Logan guy.”

Last night, before Logan left her hotel room, he had said he’d
see her in the morning. He had neglected to ask for her cell number, though.
She’d bet he’d rung her room bright and early to make arrangements to meet,
although not early enough.

“I might have burned that bridge,” she said.

“Maybe,” Kayla answered. “But even if you did, what’s to say
you can’t rebuild it?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

L
OGAN
PICKED
UP
HIS
smartphone that
afternoon, called up an internet browser and clicked through to the website of
the airline he’d flown to Key West. Because it was overcast, he didn’t even have
to duck under one of the poolside umbrellas to protect the display screen
against glare. He kept his sunglasses on, though, the better to cover his black
eye.

He’d been sitting beside the diamond-shaped pool at his hotel
for the past ten minutes, nursing a tall, cool glass of lemonade. The blue water
sparkled and soft island music drifted from an outside speaker, yet Logan was
the only person here. The other guests either had more interesting things on
their agenda or didn’t consider a temperature in the low seventies warm enough
to sit by the pool.

Logan wouldn’t be here, either, if Maria hadn’t shaken him for
the second day in a row. He’d phoned her hotel room at eight that morning,
believing that was plenty early enough to catch her after their late night.

He’d misjudged her again.

She hadn’t answered the phone. Kicking himself for not thinking
to get her cell number, he’d gone over to the Blue Tropics and knocked on the
door. She hadn’t answered that summons, either. He’d even hung around the
lobby—again—for nearly an hour before he finally gave up waiting for her.

He’d told Maria she needed to accept that Mike was dead. Logan
needed to accept that Maria didn’t want him in Key West, no matter how willingly
she’d kissed him last night.

His body stirred. If he’d thought to buy a swimsuit yesterday,
he’d jump in the pool to cool off.

On his smartphone he pulled up tomorrow’s schedule, locating a
noon flight that would get him into the city in time for dinner with clients on
Saturday.

He anticipated having an airline representative on the phone
within moments to take his reservation. But before he could punch in the number,
he picked up movement out of the corner of his eye. A woman was coming into the
pool area. Not just any woman. Maria.

Years ago his heart had sped up whenever he saw her. It still
did.

She walked toward him, her shapely legs bare under her casual
summer dress. Her silky hair was loose and spilled down her back. A touch of
pink tinged her fair complexion, as though she might have gotten too much sun.
Sunglasses covered her striking blue eyes.

“I’m glad I found you.” She stopped a few steps shy of him,
twisting her hands together. She wet her lips. “How’s the eye?”

He lowered his sunglasses so she could see for herself. As far
as black eyes went, it was mild, but the area under the socket had some
discoloration.

She wrinkled her nose. “Does it still hurt?”

“Applying the ice right away was a good idea.” He put his
sunglasses back in place and held up his cell phone. “We should have exchanged
numbers, but that might not have worked for you. Makes it harder to avoid
somebody.”

She had the decency to look embarrassed. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Give me a chance to explain.” She sat down in the pool chair
next to him, moving this way and that until she settled into the seat. She still
didn’t seem comfortable. “I came to apologize for last night.”

“Last night?” He frowned. “It wasn’t your fault I got
punched.”

“No, not that.” She wrung her hands some more, barely meeting
his eyes. “I kind of threw myself at you.”

He wouldn’t have put it quite that way. Whatever she was
tossing he’d been glad to catch.

“I appreciate how, um, gentlemanly you acted.” She must have
rolled her eyes, because her brows briefly appeared above her sunglasses. “I
should have told you that this morning, but the truth is I was embarrassed.”

He cocked an eyebrow, still saying nothing. He was curious as
to where she was headed with this.

“With the history between us, I should have known better than
to try to start something up. So this morning, well, I couldn’t face you.”

“You’re facing me now,” he pointed out.

She rubbed her forehead and gazed out at the pool. She’d never
looked more vulnerable.

“I realized I was being a jerk,” she said.

“Whoa,” he said. “That’s taking it too far.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, you came all this way to help me,
even going so far as taking a punch for me, and I keep ditching you.”

“When you put it that way,” he said slowly, “maybe you have
been a jerk.”

Laughter erupted from her in a quick, joyful burst. When they
were teenagers, her unrestrained laugh was one of the things he’d liked best
about her.

“So we’re good?” she asked.

“That depends on whether you plan to keep ditching me.”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m taking you up on what you’re
offering, even if it is for only one more day.”

“One more day?” he asked.

“I figured you’d leave tomorrow, so you’re back by the
weekend,” she said, and he thought about the web browser on his smartphone
parked at the airline site. “Here’s how you can help out today.”

She told him about the sunset celebration at Mallory Square,
where musicians, street performers, artists and food and drink vendors gathered
nightly.

“If you come with me, you can help show the age progression and
ask the locals if they recognize Mike.” She paused and licked her lips. “You can
also keep an eye out for him.”

“I can do that,” Logan said. “And who knows? We might spot
somebody else we recognize.”

She tilted her head. “Come again?”

“You’re keeping your mind open to the possibility that someone
besides Mike contacted Caroline Webb, right?” he asked.

“Of course. But are you keeping yours open to the possibility
Mike is alive?” she retorted.

Logan hesitated.

“Listen, I know where you stand,” she said. “If you think
showing his photo around is a waste of your time, I’ll accept that.”

“I don’t.” He decided to be straight with her. “I’ll admit I
don’t believe for a minute that Mike’s alive. The longer we go without finding
him, however, the closer you’ll be to accepting he’s dead.”

She drew in a quick breath, as though his words had wounded
her. “I’ve been an investigator long enough to know not everything is exactly
what it seems, Logan. Not even 9/11.”

“Nothing would make me happier than being wrong.” He stuck out
a hand. “So we’re in this together for as long as I’m in Key West, right? No
more giving me the slip?”

She slid her hand into his. Like last night, he felt an instant
connection. “Deal.”

Her cell phone rang. She let go of his hand and reached for the
phone, checking the display. “This is a San Francisco area code. It could be
Billy Tillman. His mother promised she’d have him call.”

Logan recognized the name. Billy had been Mike’s best friend
growing up. When Logan and Maria were dating, Billy had been a frequent visitor
to the DiMarco house.

“Can you put him on speaker?” Logan asked before she could
answer the call. “Then you won’t have to repeat what he says.”

She nodded. “Hello.”

“This is Billy Tillman?” It sounded as if Billy was asking a
question. “My mom said you wanted me to call?”

“Thanks, Billy.” Maria met Logan’s eyes. “She said you moved to
San Francisco.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked. “Are
you thinking of coming to California?”

“No,” Maria said. “I need to ask you about Mike.”

“Your brother Mike?”

“Have you heard from him?” she asked.

There was silence at the other end. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m exploring the possibility that he wasn’t at work the day
of the attacks,” Maria explained.

“You mean you think he’s alive?” Billy exclaimed. “No way. I’d
know it if he was.”

Logan’s contention exactly. Maria cut eye contact with him.

“Maybe not,” she said. “Mike could have had a reason for
disappearing. Like, maybe he owed money or he’d gotten on the wrong side of
somebody.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about anything like that,” Billy
said.

Maria’s chest rose and fell, as though she was taking a deep
breath. “I need you to think, Billy. Did Mike have any connection to the Florida
Keys? Did he ever talk about coming here? Do you know if any of your friends
moved here? Or even visited?”

“No,” Billy said. “I don’t understand why you’re asking me this
stuff.”

“Caroline Webb thinks she might have heard from him,” Maria
said.

“That bitch who dumped him in high school?” Vitriol filled
Billy’s voice. “You can’t listen to anything she says.”

“Would you do me a favor, Billy?” Maria asked, ignoring his
outburst. “Would you call me if you hear anything?”

“What am I gonna hear?”

“Thanks for your help, Billy. Just please call me if you hear
anything at all,” Maria said and hung up before he could say anything else.

“Well, that was enlightening,” Logan said.

“What do you mean? Billy didn’t know anything.”

“Don’t you think he would know if Mike was alive?” Logan said.
“Wouldn’t Mike confide in his best friend?”

“Interesting questions,” Maria said. “Here’s one of mine. Since
Billy hasn’t heard of any of their friends coming to the Keys, doesn’t that make
it more likely that Mike was the one who contacted Caroline?”

Logan blew out a breath, realizing they were at an impasse. He
was afraid she was so emotionally involved that she wasn’t thinking clearly. But
he knew better than to bring up that theory. At least, not yet.

“There’s still a few hours before sunset,” he said. “Need help
with anything before then?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “Kayla gave me the names
of some valets and concierges who work at the hotels in Old Town. She thought it
might be worth showing them Mike’s photo.”

Maria rose, reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a thin
stack of age progressions along with another sheet covered with handwriting. “I
took down some names and addresses. I’ve already talked to the ones that are
crossed off. If you take the top half, I can take the bottom.”

“Will do,” Logan said, getting to his feet.

She laid a hand on his arm, her eyes lifting to his face. “I
appreciate your help. Truly I do. Especially after last night.”

“I should admit something about last night,” he told her,
keeping his gaze steady on hers. “It just about killed me to leave you.”

“Excuse me?”

He captured a few strands of her hair between his fingers and
slowly rubbed them together. “If I hadn’t thought you’d regret it in the
morning, you couldn’t have pried me away,” he whispered.

Her lips parted, but no words escaped. He released her hair,
letting her off the hook and leaving her to face an uncomfortable truth.

The attraction that had been so strong when they were teenagers
wasn’t only still there, it was more potent than ever.

* * *

W
ITH
AT
LEAST
ANOTHER
hour remaining before the sun sank below the
horizon, the celebration on the Mallory Square dock was in full swing. Knots of
people, most of them tourists, surrounded the buskers. The largest crowd
gathered around a man with a team of trained house cats that could do everything
from walk a tightrope to jump through hoops. No street performer lacked an
audience, though.

As far as Maria could tell, her brother was neither a performer
nor a spectator. He wasn’t hawking wares, selling refreshments or reading tarot
cards, either. Worse, not one of the local exhibitors she’d spoken with had
recognized him.

She checked the display screen on her cell phone. Time to meet
Logan beside the frozen yogurt stand and compare notes. She spotted him
immediately, even though there were taller men around him wearing brighter
colors. Few of them looked as good in shorts and a T-shirt as Logan did. His
legs were long and muscular and his shoulders broad. The slanting sun shone on
him, bringing out the golden highlights in his hair and defining the angles of
his face.

She raised a hand and waved to get his attention as she walked
toward him. His white teeth flashed below the dark sunglasses covering his black
eye. In his hands were two containers with spoons protruding. He met her halfway
and handed one to her. “I thought you might need fortification.”

That didn’t sound promising. “I take it you haven’t had any
luck, either?”

He shook his head. “Nobody thought the age progression looked
familiar, and I haven’t seen anybody I recognize.”

“Thanks for the frozen yogurt.” She took a mouthful of the
sweet concoction while she planned the next move. “There’s still one section of
the dock we haven’t covered. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“How about we hit that after we take a break?” Logan gestured
to where a small crowd was gathering around a middle-aged Hispanic man on a
unicycle. He kept upright by pedaling backward, then forward. On top of his head
were about a dozen plates, a two-by-four, some books, a couple of VHS tapes and
assorted household items. “We can watch the balancing man.”

“I don’t think so,” Maria said.

“How about the comic magician?” Logan asked. “Or the
contortionist? When I was walking by earlier, he was folding one of his legs
over his head.”

“You go on,” she said. “I’m going over to that last section
now. And I still haven’t talked to Kayla’s mother.”

“Hey, we’re in this together,” Logan said. “I’ll come with you
and show Mike’s photo to the merchants neither of us have hit yet.”

She nodded. Considering she knew he didn’t expect to find
anybody who recognized her brother, it shouldn’t matter what he did. Although
with Logan beside her, she didn’t feel quite so alone.

She found Helene Fryburger at a stand crammed with bottles of
all shapes and sizes. Photo holders, drinking mugs, terrariums and hand-painted
bottle vases occupied the table in front of her. Wind chimes made of bottle
fragments fluttered above her head in the light breeze.