Wish Upon a Christmas Star (16 page)

“Hey, pretty lady.” The man’s grin was lascivious. “You want
some of this?”

“Leave her alone,” Logan all but growled, drawing even with
Maria.

The other man put up his hands in a sign of surrender. “Hey, I
didn’t know she was with somebody. I don’t want no trouble.”

And then he was gone, melting into the crowd.

“Are you okay?” Logan asked Maria, his heart aching for her.
The scenario he’d witnessed kept repeating. Maria kept mistaking other men for
her brother, only to have her hopes dashed.

She blinked a few times—to dry tears of disappointment? But
then she raised her chin and balanced her hands on her hips. “It sounded like
you were fixing for another fight.”

“That’s not true,” Logan said, willing to go along with her
change of subject. If she found it too difficult to talk about Mike, he could
roll with that. “But I would have thrown another punch if I had to.”

“Your black eye from the first fight isn’t even healed,” she
said, gaining steam. “And did you forget again that I used to be a cop?”

“Can’t say that I did,” Logan said.

“So you understand I can take care of myself?” she
challenged.

“Yep,” he said and figured he might as well lay it on the line.
“But that doesn’t seem to matter.”

She was about to say something else, then shook her head and
grabbed his hand. They were only five or six blocks from their hotels. They
covered the distance in silence. Logan knew she had to be fighting
disappointment over another lead that hadn’t panned out. He didn’t say that,
though. It would have felt too much like rubbing salt in an open wound.

“The temperature’s dropping. Mind if I grab a jacket in my
hotel room?” he asked. The night was relatively young. He fully expected that
she’d suggest they show the age progression at another bar or restaurant.

“I’ll come up with you,” Maria said.

The silence between them continued, lasting until Logan opened
the hotel room door to admit them both and turned on the light. His jacket hung
from a hook in the narrow closet. He started to reach for it.

“You won’t be needing that,” Maria said.

Logan’s hand paused in midair. “Why not?”

“There’s not much else we can do until there’s a ransom
demand.” Her statement surprised him, even though he’d been thinking along the
same lines. Then again, he didn’t quite believe there would be a demand.

“Then what should we do?” he asked.

She anchored a hand on his shoulder and kissed him. The heat
was instantaneous, chasing away the slight chill of the night. She tasted of the
salt air and her own unique scent. He could get drunk on her, he thought. She
swept her tongue inside his mouth, taking the kiss from sweet to passionate in a
millisecond. Even as his body reacted, his mind rebelled. He couldn’t let this
go any further, not until he got an answer. He drew back, keeping her in his
arms.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought we weren’t going to
repeat what happened last night.”

“I changed my mind,” she said and kissed him again.

After that, he didn’t question his good fortune. He wasn’t sure
what had caused Maria’s change of heart. For now, it didn’t matter. Especially
because having her back in his arms verified what he’d begun to suspect last
night.

He’d fallen back in love with her.

* * *

M
ARIA
LAY
NEXT
TO
L
OGAN
in his hotel room
bed, listening to him breathe. Her eyes had been open long enough to adjust to
the blackness. The dim glow from the night-light in the bathroom was the only
illumination.

She was skin to skin with Logan, her entire left side flush
against his. Even while contentment filled her, she knew she shouldn’t be here,
not after telling him they had no future. She believed that. She couldn’t open
herself to heartache by agreeing to a long-distance relationship with a man who
wasn’t willing to take a chance on them. They’d been interrupted before she
could explain that the kind of arrangement he was proposing wasn’t a real
commitment. If things didn’t work out, he wouldn’t have lost anything. He’d go
on his merry way, she, on the other hand, would be devastated.

The operative question was what was she doing here? She’d made
the first move, not Logan. Part of it, of course, was fallout from the
frustration of not finding her brother. For a little while, at least, she’d been
able to lose herself in Logan’s arms.

If she was honest with herself, she’d admit that wasn’t the
entire reason. It was illogical, but back at the Southernmost Point, when Logan
had made yet another totally unnecessary attempt to protect her, tenderness had
risen up in her like the ocean at high tide.

Nestled against him as she was, she found the tenderness hadn’t
ebbed. That was why she needed to get out of bed. Right. Now.

Logan’s arm was around her even in sleep. Very carefully, so as
not to awaken him, she started to edge away. She hadn’t gotten more than a few
inches when his arm tightened around her, drawing her close.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, his voice heavy with sleep.

She was tempted to say she needed to use the bathroom, then
wait until he fell back asleep before she dressed and slipped out of the room.
But she’d never been a coward.

“I was going back to my hotel,” she said.

He didn’t tighten his hold or stroke any of the places he’d
learned would make her sigh with pleasure. He kissed her softly on the lips, the
contact brief and sweet.

“Don’t go,” he breathed against her mouth.

Maria’s will to get out of bed evaporated.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, because the time for them
to part ways was getting inexorably closer. “Okay,” she whispered.

His mouth found hers once again in the darkness. Her body
melted against his and she kissed him with everything she had, because she
didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

For now, however, they had tonight.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

K
AYLA
DRIFTED
IN
AND
OUT
of consciousness. Every time she felt herself start to surrender to sleep, worry
reared its ugly head, pulling her back to awareness.

Her continuing strategy was to stay awake all night and attempt
to sleep during the day, operating on the assumption that the prankster wouldn’t
strike in broad daylight.

The snag was that she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure of
that.

She flopped over in bed, only to get a blast of sunlight in the
face. One of the slats in the window blind was askew. Groaning, she sat up and
reached for her smartphone. The bedside clock showed that it was half past ten,
meaning she’d been trying to sleep for only a few hours.

She’d gorged on caffeine and scary movies last night, the
better to help her stay awake. She’d gotten a jolt of pure adrenaline early in
the evening when Alex called. After the dart tournament, she’d been full of hope
that he’d ask her on a real date. All he’d wanted, however, was a report on the
investigation. She’d told him about the anonymous texts James Smith had
received, her attempt to call the number from which the texts had originated and
her conclusion that the sender had used a prepaid phone.

Maybe Alex was waiting for her to make the next move. Yeah,
that must be it. He’d invited her to stop by the dart tournament. Now it was her
turn to reciprocate.

Feeling better, she pressed the keys that pulled up the website
she was using to monitor Santa. Once she checked on the statue, she’d go back to
sleep for a few hours and then call Alex. She could invite him to dinner and
make the chicken marsala her friends raved about. Except it seemed she had
something to do tonight... That’s right. Her mother was having a holiday
gathering at her house. Would it be too forward to invite Alex to come
along?

Kayla stared down at the phone, wondering why it was taking the
website so long to respond. With every moment that passed, she was becoming more
fully awake. She’d be a mess tonight if she didn’t get more sleep.

The screen remained completely black.

Kayla hit the refresh button. The website responded instantly,
as it always did. The result was the same. The screen was black.

Frowning, she brought the phone closer to her face for a better
look. The blackness wasn’t uniform; a sliver of the screen was darker than the
rest. It looked almost like a crease.

The cobwebs of sleep completely disappeared, leaving her with a
crystal-clear thought: Was it possible somebody had draped a dark cloth over the
security camera?

The bottom fell out of Kayla’s stomach. She was almost sure
that was what had happened.

She swung her legs off the mattress and got up, so quickly she
saw stars. Steadying herself on the bedpost, she searched for shoes. She spied a
pair of orange clogs peeking from under the bed and pulled them on. She’d fallen
asleep in a T-shirt and black spandex capris. No need to change clothes when
time was of the essence.

She rushed out of the house and hit the sidewalk running. The
soles of her clogs slapped against the pavement. She had a moment’s thought that
she could have made a better shoe choice, then it was gone.

It was vital that she get to the statue as soon as possible.
Even if she was right about the prankster striking again, she might be able to
minimize the damage. The merchants association didn’t have to find out. Neither
did Uncle Carl.

“Hey, Kayla!” The UPS driver who’d had the same route for the
two years Kayla had lived in the neighborhood raised a hand from beside his
truck. “Where you headed in such a hurry?”

“To Santa,” she answered as she zoomed by.

“He’s not making the rounds till tomorrow night,” the man
called after her.

Kayla couldn’t slow down to explain. Every minute was crucial.
She kept running, past pastel-colored houses decorated with Christmas wreaths
and holly and palm trees with giant red bows tied to their trunks.

The corner where the statue was located finally came into view.
Across the street was a marketplace called Truval Village and a welcome center
for the Conch Train, a popular attraction that took tourists on a ride past the
Key West sites. The main embarkation point for the tour was near Mallory Square
but Truval Village was one of the train’s regular stops.

A double-decker tour bus from a different sightseeing company
was waiting at the intersection for the light to turn green, blocking Kayla’s
view of the statue. The crosswalk was up ahead. She hesitated only a moment
before crossing the street in the middle of the block and weaving around the
stopped cars. She stepped onto the curb, finally with an unobstructed view of
the statue.

Somebody had dressed Santa in a Hawaiian shirt and perched
sunglasses on his plaster nose. Considering this was the tropics, that wasn’t so
bad. But the devil horns were.

Only a few people paid Santa any attention. One of them,
however, was a good-looking young guy holding a camera. Kayla did a double take.
It wasn’t just any guy. It was James Smith, the
Key West
Sun
photographer.

“Don’t take that photo!” she shouted.

James turned toward her voice, giving her the opportunity she
needed. She swooped in and knocked the devil horns off the statue. They were
made of black rubber with red tips and attached with an elastic band.

Feeling pleased with her quick thinking and more than a little
relieved, she walked up to James. He was dressed in khakis and a cream shirt
with the sleeves rolled up, looking far different from the surfer boy she’d met
with at the newspaper office the day before.

“You look good!” she said.

A corner of his mouth quirked. “You seem surprised.”

“No, I just didn’t expect...” She stopped. That didn’t sound
right. “I mean, with the hair and the tan, I didn’t think...” She let her voice
trail off again. “Help me out here, would you?”

“My six-year-old cousin was in a Christmas play at the church,”
he said. “He’s been talking about it for weeks.”

For the first time since she left the house, she became aware
of her appearance. Her hand flew to her hair. It felt tangled and frizzy. No
wonder. She hadn’t taken the time to run a brush through it.

“I must look a fright,” Kayla said.

He smiled at her. “I think you look kind of cute.”

He did? She still felt compelled to explain.

“I woke up and couldn’t see Santa.” She told him about the
video stream from the security camera. “I needed to get over here fast, before
somebody took an embarrassing photo.”

“Are you talking about me?”

“Yes.” She heaved a sigh. “But it’s okay. I got here in
time.”

His smile disappeared. “Sorry to break this to you, but I took
a bunch of photos before you arrived.”

The air left her lungs, deflating her spirits. Her short-lived
career as a P.I. passed before her eyes, probably over before it had barely
begun. “I don’t suppose you’ll sell them to me?”

He scratched the side of his nose, looking uncomfortable. “Are
you trying to bribe me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “No.
The answer’s no. You’re doing your job. I’m the one who messed up.”

“It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“It is,” she said. “This was my one shot to be a private
investigator. Uncle Carl won’t keep me on after this.”

“Hey, you don’t know that.” James looked genuinely
distressed.

“Yeah, I do,” she said. “He wouldn’t have taken me on in the
first place if I wasn’t his niece.”

James lifted his camera and snapped another photo of the
ceramic Santa. “I think the Hawaiian shirt and the sunglasses look cool.”

Kayla removed the items all the same. She didn’t mind the
tropical look, either. How the statue was dressed, however, wasn’t up to her.
She’d been hired to make sure nobody changed its appearance.

“How did you find out about the statue this time?” she asked.
“Another text?”

“Yeah,” he said and produced his phone. The message was from
the same number he’d given her, the one she’d determined came from a prepaid
phone that was untraceable to a specific user. The text was direct and to the
point:
Check out
Santa.

“Thanks for showing me the text,” Kayla said.

“Will it help you catch the guy?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Can you narrow it down to the people you told about the
camera?”

Kayla pressed her lips together. Maria had phoned her yesterday
to let her know the surveillance details were common knowledge. If only Kayla
had thought to mention to Alex Suarez to keep news of the camera under wraps. It
was no consolation that Maria claimed even a veteran P.I. could have made the
oversight. “An email went out about the camera to the merchants association.
Word could have spread.”

“Ouch,” James said.

She pasted on a smile she hoped looked brave. “Don’t worry
about it. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Positive,” she lied. “See you around. I need to check out what
went wrong with the security camera.”

“Good luck with that,” he said, as though he really meant it.
She felt a little better knowing he was on her side.

A half dozen or so customers milled about the gift shop. The
same rail-thin clerk who’d been on duty when Kayla and Maria installed the
security camera was helping one decide which T-shirt to buy. He wore elf ears
today instead of reindeer antlers.

Kayla decided against informing the clerk she was headed
upstairs. She hurried up the steps and found the door to the storage room open.
Just as she expected, the camera lens was covered with a dark cloth.

She whipped it off, feeling the rush of blood through her
veins. That salesclerk downstairs had probably put it there. She’d give him a
piece of her mind.

She was halfway across the room when a thought stopped her.

The second floor should be off-limits to everybody except
employees, but the clerk had been so preoccupied he hadn’t seen her come
upstairs.

Kayla wasn’t ready to rule him out as the culprit, but the fact
remained that anybody could have sneaked up and tampered with the camera.

* * *

T
HE
THEME
SONG
FROM
THE
old
Pink
Panther
cartoon played as Maria was getting out of the shower. Her
cell phone ring tone. She swore, grabbing for a towel and wrapping herself in it
before heading out of the bathroom.

Her phone kept ringing at the most inopportune moments. At
about eight this morning, when Logan was in the process of awakening her in the
most pleasurable way imaginable, Annalise had called.

Of course, Maria hadn’t known who was phoning until later. She
hadn’t asked Logan to stop. That would have been insanity. For his part, Logan
hadn’t given any indication he’d heard the phone until much later. He’d told her
about an off-Broadway play that was a takeoff of the old cartoon, which featured
a bumbling French police detective. He could get them tickets to see it, he’d
said. As though they were already in that long-distance relationship she’d
refused to enter into.

She would set him straight soon, maybe even when she met him
downstairs in the lobby in ten minutes. After their morning lovemaking, she’d
come back to her hotel to shower and dress. The conversation she needed to have
now, however, was with whoever was on the phone.

She picked it up from her bedside table and checked the
display. Not Annalise calling back to ask why Maria hadn’t returned the earlier
summons. Kayla.

Maria dialed her friend. “Kayla. What’s up?”

“Are you busy this morning?” she asked.

Maria had intended to suggest to Logan that they revisit some
of the local hangouts, hoping somebody might recognize Mike if she mentioned he
had a tattoo of a serpent on his arm.

“Nothing that can’t wait,” she said. “Why?”

“Somebody tampered with the security camera,” Kayla announced.
“If you could come down to the gift shop, I’d love a second opinion.”

“I can be there in twenty minutes,” Maria promised.

She and Logan made it to the gift shop in fifteen, with Maria
telling him what little she knew about the events of that morning along the way.
The first person she saw upon entering the shop was the disagreeable clerk who’d
been there the other day.

“Well, well, well.” The man propped his hands on his narrow
hips. “If it isn’t Mammary P.I.”

“Excuse me.” Logan stepped forward. “What did you say?”

The clerk seemed to grow smaller in front of their eyes. “I
said here’s the other half of
Magnum P.I.
It’s an
old television show. With Tom Selleck.”

“That better be what you’d said or you owe the lady an
apology.”

“Oh, it is,” the clerk lied. To Maria, he said, “Your friend is
upstairs.”

Maria waited until they were halfway up the steps before she
turned to Logan. “This chivalry thing you’re doing isn’t necessary. I told you
last night I can take care of myself.”

“And I told you I can’t seem to help myself from defending your
honor,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that you’re tougher than me.”

“Says the man who got a shiner in a bar fight,” she quipped.
The yellow-and-green blur under his eye was already fading.

“We make quite the pair,” he said, as though they actually were
a couple. It reminded her that she’d have to clarify her position on that very
soon. Not now, though. Kayla had already spotted them through the open door of
the storage room.

“Maria! Logan!” she called, leaping to her feet from the chair
where she’d been sitting. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Did you find out anything?” Maria asked.

“Nothing helpful,” she said. “At first I thought whoever put
the cloth over the camera had to work here. But the shop was so busy when I
arrived that I walked right upstairs. Nobody saw me.”