Wish Upon a Christmas Star by Darlene Gardner Read Free Book Online Page B

high school,
then married quickly. Even though things had worked out great for her sister,
Maria had been determined not to repeat that mistake. She’d wanted to wait, and
Logan had respected her wishes. If she was having erotic dreams about him,
seeing him again 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.
    * * *
    I NSIDE 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