Wish Upon a Christmas Star. Darlene Gardner

must have affected her on a deeper level than she’d imagined.

      Maria hugged herself and rubbed her upper arms. She’d been right to get rid of Logan by telling him what he wanted to hear. Her entire focus needed to be on Mike.

      Although it was almost nine and she hadn’t bothered pulling down the blinds, no sunlight poured into the room. The only window faced a brick wall, which helped explain the relatively low price for a night’s stay. Since she wasn’t getting paid and didn’t know how long the search would take, cost had to be a consideration. She padded to the bathroom over thin carpet and splashed cold water on her face to dispel the cobwebs.

      By the time she’d showered and dressed, she was thinking more clearly. She’d been so eager to show around the aged photo of her brother when she got to Key West that she hadn’t done all the groundwork she could have.

      It seemed a fair bet that Mike wasn’t using his birth name, but there were other steps she needed to take before she was certain. Examining the Monroe County property records. Checking listings at the local Clerk of Courts office. Accessing the state of Florida’s criminal database.

      Maria pulled out her laptop from her bag, called the front desk for the hotel’s wireless access code and tried to log on. After three attempts, she finally connected.

      The wireless signal flickered in and out, making what should have taken twenty minutes stretch into two hours. Predictably, she turned up nothing. No property records. No addresses. No vehicles registered to him. No tax liens. The trail simply stopped dead. If Mike were alive, she was even more sure he wasn’t using his real name.

      The tone on her cell phone signaled she had a text. It was from Annalise. Again.

      Worried about you, it read. When will you call?

      Not yet, Maria texted back.

      She couldn’t call until she had information that would convince her sister she wasn’t spinning her wheels. Her next step was to visit the Old Town post office, although that was admittedly a long shot. The employees at the branch she’d already checked had been no help.

      After that, Maria needed a better strategy. The desk sergeant could be right about Mike not being a local, but she couldn’t ignore the possibility. There were undoubtedly people in town besides Sergeant Peppler who had a finger on the pulse of the real Key West.

      She sat up straighter, the name of a Key West P.I. popping into her head: Carl Dexter. Key Carl, everybody called him. A large bearded man in his sixties who came to the workshops at the national P.I. conferences dressed in guayabera shirts, shorts and sandals.

      With Key Carl’s help, she had no doubt she could come up with that better strategy.

      * * *

      INSIDE THE OFFICES OF Dexter Private Investigations later that morning, Kayla Fryburger stood back and admired the beaded white snowflakes she’d strung from monofilament thread in her uncle’s office. The dozen or so snowflakes looked elegant, although making them had been a simple matter of adding beads to corsage pins, poking the pins into cork and applying white glitter.

      Uncle Carl had nixed her Christmas tree idea so the snowflakes would have to do. Kayla only hoped someone besides herself saw them.

      Since Uncle Carl had left with his girlfriend earlier in the week to visit her family in Chicago, nobody had stopped by the office. That was partially due to Uncle Carl spreading the word that he was out of town until after Christmas. Still, a girl could hope for walk-in traffic.

      Dexter Investigation’s normal office hours were 9:00 a.m. to noon. Even though Uncle Carl had suggested she take some time off this week, Kayla had shown up each day just in case somebody stopped in.

      Granted, she wasn’t a skilled investigator, but she could make up for in enthusiasm what she lacked in experience.

      The past six weeks had been some of the most exciting of her life. Considering her previous line of work had been producing and selling bottle art with her mother, that wasn’t saying much.

      Kayla had come up with the idea of learning the ropes from her uncle a couple years ago. After much resistance, he’d finally agreed to an eight-week trial, providing she worked for a pittance.

      She’d messed up a few times, including on surveillance duty when it didn’t occur to her the subject might leave his house via a back window. She was getting better, though.

      If a client would walk through the door, she’d get a chance to prove it. Kayla stared at the entrance, willing somebody in need of help to materialize.

      Five minutes later, she sank into the orange-and-teal-striped sofa in the waiting area, wondering how to fill the time. In previous days, she’d tidied up the magazines on the coffee table, fluffed the pillows and swept the floor. All that was left to do was clean the baseboards.

      Minutes later, with a wet paper towel in hand, she gazed down at the short yellow skirt she’d paired with a white top. Not the best outfit for baseboard cleaning. She balanced on her haunches but almost toppled over on her wedged-heel sandals.

      “Forget that.” She got down on her knees and went to work.

      The swooshing noise was so unexpected it took her a moment to realize the door had swung open. Kayla got to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster and turned to greet the arrival.

      Alex Suarez. She fought not to sway. It was Alex Suarez, the object of her unrequited crush. A charming smile split his tan, handsome face. He was wearing sunglasses with silver frames and black lenses. He slid them off slowly and she noticed one of the lenses had a slight scratch. No surprise. She noticed everything about him and had for years.

      “Well, hello,” he said.

      She smoothed her skirt the best she could, terribly afraid the first thing he’d seen upon entering the office was her yellow rear end. This was why people didn’t take her seriously. Such things were always happening to her.

      “Welcome to Dexter Private Investigations.” Her voice cracked on the name. “How can I help you?”

      He walked deeper into the office, the smile still present. With his thick dark hair, high forehead and angular cheekbones, he looked almost exotic. She’d heard his given first name was Alejandro but that he’d started calling himself Alex after he emigrated from Cuba with his parents when he was a child. The name had stuck. An accent hadn’t. He sounded quintessentially American.

      He studied her. “I know you from somewhere.”

      She would have been flattered if she hadn’t been stopping by his restaurant regularly for nearly a year. The Daybreak Café operated from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. daily, serving both American and Cuban specialties for breakfast and lunch.

      “I’m a fan of the Cuban sandwiches at your restaurant,” she said. “I get one for takeout a few times a month.”

      He snapped his fingers. “That must be it. I didn’t know they let you leave school for lunch, though.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “You go to Key West High, right?” he asked.

      He thought she was in high school? She felt her face flame. “I graduated from there a long time ago. I’m twenty-five.”

      “Really?” His eyes widened. They were such a dark brown they were almost black. “I never would have guessed it.”

      She stood up to her full height of five feet two, taller if you took into account the heels of her chunky sandals. “I look younger.”

      “You look great,” he said, his smile widening.

      She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “How old are you?”

      “Thirty-five.”

      “Well, then, you look younger, too,” she said. “I wouldn’t have guessed any older than twenty-nine.”

      He laughed. “I’m Alex Suarez,