Wish Upon a Christmas Star

by Darlene Gardner

  Kayla broke speed records getting to the small hotel a half block up the street. She’d noticed it earlier because its exterior and the palm trees flanking its entrance were done up in multicolored Christmas lights. The sleepy employee at the desk tried to tell her the facilities were for guests only.

  “I really have to go!” she shouted.

  He directed her to the restroom off the lobby, where she finally found relief. After thanking the desk clerk, Kayla jogged up the now-deserted sidewalk through the light rain and past the Santa statue to her Civic.

  Alex was leaning against the passenger side, his legs crossed at the ankles, her keys dangling from his fingertips. The rain had turned his shirt a darker shade of red and dampened his hair, calling into prominence his olive skin and chiseled features. Even wet, the man looked fine.

  “Now will you tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

  The skies opened up with fat, drenching drops.

  “Let’s get in the car!” Kayla called over the pounding rain.

  They entered from opposite sides, slamming the doors at the same time.

  Kayla’s hair felt plastered to her head. She nearly groaned. Here she was, in close confines with Alex Suarez, and she probably looked like a drowned rat.

  “I think I’ve got a beach towel.” At least she hoped she did. She’d gone swimming at a friend’s pool last week, and tidying up after herself wasn’t her strong suit. She reached into the backseat, feeling around for the fluffy towel. “Here it is.”

  She mopped her face and hair before handing it to Alex.

  “Thanks.” He wiped himself off, starting with his face and hair, then running the towel over his arms. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing the ripple of his forearms. She wondered if he lifted weights.

  “So?” he asked.

  Yikes. Had he caught her staring? Probably. She doubted she’d been subtle about it. “So, what?” she asked slowly.

  He laughed. “So, why did you run past me and throw me your keys?”

  “Oh, that.” She picked up the empty thermos from the cup holder. “When I started the surveillance, this was full. The coffee ran right through me. I’m starting to wonder if other private investigators bring a jar with them.”

  “You’ll say anything, won’t you?” he asked, laughing again.

  “Sorry.” She felt her face reddening. “I try to think before I speak, but it doesn’t usually work.”

  “I think it’s refreshing,” he said.

  “You’re only saying that to be nice,” she told him.

  “I’m not that nice.”

  “Yeah, you are,” she said. “What about that time at Mallory Square when you helped the old lady who fell down? You stayed with her until the paramedics came.”

  “You remember that?” he asked. “Wait a minute. How do you even know about that?”

  She sucked in a breath. She’d done it again—run off at the mouth before engaging her brain.

  The rain was coming down pretty hard, pounding on the roof of the car, so she could possibly get away with pretending she hadn’t heard him.

  “What about you?” she asked, raising her voice like someone hard of hearing. “What are you doing on Duval Street at two in the morning? Especially since it doesn’t seem like you’ve been drinking.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it, as though he hadn’t expected the question. No wonder. He must have anticipated she’d answer the question he posed.

  “I was practicing for the Christmas dart tournament tomorrow night at Estrada’s Pub,” he said. “On the walk home, I decided to take a detour and check on you.”

  “Really?” If Alex had been thinking about her today even half as much as she’d been thinking about him, things were looking up. Her heart beat faster. “How did you know I was here?”

  “You hire a private eye to look out for Santa, you figure that’s what she’ll do,” he said. “Have you got an update for me? Noticed anybody strange hanging around the statue?”

  Disappointment cut through her. Alex had stopped by not to see her but to get the latest on the case.

  “This is Key West,” she said. “I noticed lots of strange people but nobody in particular.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” he admitted. “Getting back to that old woman you mentioned, how did you know I helped her?”

  Kayla would have to answer, after all. For once, however, she wouldn’t say what popped into her brain: I’ve been watching you for years.

  “I’ve seen you sometimes at the sunset celebrations,” she said. “I used to help my mother make and sell bottle art.”

  If Kayla didn’t crack this case, she’d be going back into business with her mom. That wasn’t the kind of thing you said to a client, however, even when you did have a big mouth.

  “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 se
conds, 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.”