Amaryllis had been singing for a good forty-five minutes. Logan didn’t imagine the impromptu event would last much longer, especially because the wind was picking up. The singer no longer lifted her arms. They were down at her sides, holding on to her skirt. Fifteen minutes later, the concert was over.
Maria and Logan stood their ground as people streamed toward them and around them. Logan dutifully kept an eye out for Mike but also watched Maria in his peripheral vision. He heard her gasp over the ambient crowd noise.
“Mike,” she said. Without another word, she gave chase after a man about the right height and weight, who was headed away from them. Logan followed.
She caught up to the guy in a few running steps and grabbed him by the arm. He spun around, his stance aggressive. Just as quickly, he relaxed. Maria staggered backward. Logan was still a few yards away, but he could tell from her body language that the man wasn’t Mike.
Logan lengthened his stride to eat up the ground between them. With a broad forehead and thick features, the man looked nothing like her brother. He was also about ten years older than Mike would have been.
“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.
* * *
MARIA LAY NEXT TO LOGAN 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
KAYLA 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 t
ime?” 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.
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