Wish Upon a Christmas Star
The pounding got louder.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” She got up from her chair and crossed the office, deciding not to say anything to Annalise about Mike. Not until she had hard evidence that he was alive. She composed her features and unlocked the door.
Her sister pushed it open, barely giving Maria enough time to back away. A blast of chilled air followed Annalise inside, and she rubbed her bare hands together. She was dressed more for fashion than function, in the black leather jacket she’d gotten from her husband for her birthday a few weeks before.
“I was freezing to death out there.” Her teeth were chattering. “For a minute I thought you weren’t going to let me in.”
“I was caught up in something, is all.” Maria maneuvered past her and relocked the door.
“You’re ready to go, though, right?” she asked. “I thought we could hit the electronics store before we go to the mall. That way, you can get your presents for Alex and Billy out of the way.”
How could Maria have forgotten? Annalise had offered to help her pick out Christmas gifts for her teenage nephews. They’d also planned to search for presents for their parents, their brother Jack and his girlfriend, Tara, before ending the evening at Annalise’s favorite restaurant.
Maria glanced back at the computer. Caroline Webb had left only forty-five minutes ago, not nearly enough time to make headway on finding out whether Mike could be alive. “I’m sorry, Annalise. I can’t go, after all.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She waved her index finger. “You don’t get to back out after I went to the trouble of getting a babysitter and dressing up. I even put on makeup!”
Maria’s naturally pretty sister always looked nice. She’d gone the extra mile tonight, letting her brown hair down from its usual ponytail and pairing her leather jacket with black dress slacks and heels instead of jeans and sneakers.
“I’m sorry,” Maria said. “Something’s come up and I need to work.”
“This close to Christmas? You said you were taking some time off, like you always do over the holidays.”
Maria glanced at the computer again. It seemed to be beckoning to her. Once she finished her searches, regardless of what she found, she intended to make an airline reservation to Florida.
“Things have changed,” she said. “I have to go out of town for a few days.”
“What? We have tickets tomorrow night to The Nutcracker,” Annalise protested. “And you said you’d help me out the rest of the week at the Christmas tree sale.”
The yearly sale benefited her youngest son’s baseball league. Annalise was one of the organizers.
“You’ll have to find someone else to take my place,” Maria told her. “This is important.”
“Where are you going?” Annalise demanded. It would have been difficult to tell that Maria was the only one in the room with training in interrogation. Then again, the two sisters were close. They never kept secrets from each other.
“Key West,” Maria said.
“Florida? I don’t ever remember you going that far for a case before,” Annalise said. “You’ll be back in time for Christmas, right?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know.”
Her sister narrowed her eyes, propped her hands on her hips and demanded, “What’s going on?”
Maria’s instincts told her to remain mum. However, that wasn’t realistic. If Annalise was reacting this badly to her possible absence at Christmas, other family members would, too. Maria needed somebody to smooth the waters and support her alibi.
“You’d better sit down,” she said.
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Then promise you won’t freak out.”
“You’re freaking me out by acting like this,” Annalise declared. “Just spit it out.”
Maria forced the words through her lips. “I think Mike might still be alive.”
Her sister shook her head. “No, he’s not. Why would you even say something like that?”
As succinctly as she could, Maria relayed the details of the visit from Caroline Webb. Annalise listened in silence, her expression giving nothing away even though she’d always been the most demonstrative of the four siblings.
“Say something,” Maria said when she’d finished.
“I’m thinking about how to phrase it.” Annalise scratched her head. “On second thought, to hell with tact. I’ll tell you how I really feel. I can’t believe you even let Caroline in the front door. Don’t you remember how she treated Mike?”
“Caroline’s not a high school kid anymore, Annalise,” Maria said. “She’s almost thirty years old.”
“Once a mean girl, always a mean girl,” her sister said heatedly. “Mike never would have dropped out of school if she hadn’t broken up with him in front of all their friends.”
One of the cafeteria workers had later provided their family with the details. Caroline had been cruel, saying she was sick of Mike and adding that he was worthless and stupid. She claimed she already had someone waiting in the wings to take her to the approaching homecoming dance.
Her words had hit the mark. Mike had rushed out of the school building and sped home, sideswiping a parked car on the way. Then he’d had another argument. With Maria.
Afterward, he’d packed a bag and split. Nobody had known where he was until Logan Collier called a few days later from New York City to say Mike was staying at his apartment.
“We don’t know that Mike wouldn’t have dropped out of school, Annalise,” Maria said. “His grades were so bad he barely made it through junior year. Remember how much trouble Mom and Dad had with him?”
“Most of that was because of Caroline,” Annalise said. “If I remember correctly, you thought so, too.”
Maria couldn’t dispute that. Over the years, however, she’d come to realize there were many factors in Mike’s disconnect from the family. That included Maria making it crystal clear she’d disapproved of his girlfriend.
“That’s water under the bridge,” she said. “The important thing now is to find out if Mike’s the one who’s been in contact with Caroline.”
“You said you were doing some online searches when I got here. You ran Mike’s social security number, right? Did anything come up?”
“Well, no,” Maria said. “But nothing would show up if he’s using an alias.”
“An alias?” her sister exclaimed. She shook her head and came forward, laying a hand on Maria’s arm. “Listen to me carefully, Maria. Mike’s dead. You know as well as I do that nobody in the restaurant survived that day.”
The hijacked plane had hit the North Tower a few stories below the Windows on the World complex. The official report was that all the restaurant customers and employees survived the initial attack, only to find the pathways that led below blocked by the impact zone. Everybody died, either of smoke inhalation or in the collapse of the building.
“Mike didn’t call any of us after the plane hit,” Maria said. “What if that was because he wasn’t there?”
“Oh, sweetie. Lots of other reasons make more sense. His phone might have been dead. Or maybe he was looking for a way out and couldn’t take the time to call.”
“His remains were never identified,” Maria reminded her.
“Neither were the remains of more than a thousand other people. That’s about forty percent of the victims,” Annalise said. “The authorities did the best they could, but it was an impossible task.”
“So we can’t completely rule out that Mike wasn’t at the restaurant that day,” Maria said.
“Yes, we can,” she insisted. “If he were alive, wouldn’t he have contacted us in the last eleven years to let us know?”
“I admit that part doesn’t make sense, but Mike was angry at the world when he left for New York. He wasn’t getting along with any of us.” Maria could tell that her arguments weren’t swaying her sister. She tried another tactic. “Don’t you want to know what I found out about the phone number?”
“Sure.” Annalise didn’t sound optimistic.
“The calls came from a prepaid phone, as if whoever made them doesn’t want to be found,” Maria said. “He must be in Key West, though. That’s where the envelope was postmarked.”
“I’ll admit the entire situation is strange,” Annalise said slowly, “but Mike didn’t make those calls or send those photos.”
“Then who did?” Maria asked. “It seems out of character for Mike to have given that nude photo of Caroline away.”
“C’mon, Maria. Someone else might be behind this.”
“Maybe,” she conceded, “but I think it’s worth looking into the possibility it might be Mike.”
Annalise held up a finger and got her cell phone out of her purse. She appeared to be scrolling through a list of numbers before she pushed one.
“Hey, this is Annalise,” she said after a moment and turned away, walking to the other end of the room so it was harder for Maria to hear her.
That was fine with Maria. She already guessed that her sister had Jack on the line. Their surviving brother had moved to Virginia’s Eastern Shore earlier in the year to be with his girlfriend. Maria suspected Annalise was trying to enlist Jack’s help in convincing her she was wasting her time. A part of her didn’t blame her sister for trying to protect her. If Maria raised her hopes too high and came up with nothing, it would be like losing Mike all over again. But if she found him...
She went back to the computer and entered her brother’s name in a search engine. She got quite a few hits, each one of which she’d need to check out. Figuring there was no point to delay in making her airline reservation, she called up another tab and went to a travel site.
“Promise me something.” Annalise suddenly stood beside her, looking over her shoulder at the computer screen. Maria hadn’t even realized her sister had gotten off the phone. “Promise me you won’t make that reservation until you talk to him.”
Annalise’s eyes looked tortured. She’d lost a brother, too, Maria reminded herself. All three of them had. If Annalise wanted her to talk to Jack before she started her investigation, it was the least she could do.
“I promise,” she said. “I won’t make the reservation until I talk to Jack.”
“Jack?” Annalise shook her head. “That wasn’t Jack on the phone. It was Logan Collier.”
CHAPTER TWO
LOGAN SPOTTED ANNALISE DiMarco the instant he entered the noisy Italian restaurant, which was decorated for the holidays with strung holly and tiny white lights.
He barely had time to breathe in the scents of spicy tomato sauce and baked bread before she sprang to her feet. After pausing to say something to her dining companion, a black-haired woman with her back to the door—who had to be Maria—rushed to his side.
“Hey, Annalise.” Logan leaned down to kiss her cheek. He’d barely connected when she grabbed his arm and dragged him off to the side of the hostess stand, nearer the exit and the coat rack.
“Hey, Logan,” she said conversationally, as though she hadn’t just hijacked him. “Thanks for coming.”
Annalise had the dark hair and light eyes common to the DiMarcos, except her hair was brown and her eyes green. The oldest sibling, she was also the only one with children. With Logan’s help, she and her husband had invested wisely enough that they should be able to fulfill their goal of paying for their two sons’ college educations.
“For a minute there I thought you were going to push me out the door.” He would have gone through it eagerly if Annalise had changed her mind about what she’d asked of him.
“Nothing like that,” she said. “I was getting you out of Maria’s field of vision. You know, in case she turns around to see if I really went to the restroom.”
He groaned. “I thought Maria knew that I was meeting both of you here.”
Annalise shook her head. “Not exactly. You know how I called and asked if you needed directions to the restaurant?”
“Yeah.” He’d thought that was odd considering Donatelli’s had occupied the same location for twenty years.
“I was supposed to tell you not to come. Maria practically ordered me.”
“Ordered you? That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not good,” she confessed. “Her exact words were something like, ‘No way in hell am I talking to him.’”
Logan winced. He should have anticipated that. The days were long gone when Maria would jump into his arms and kiss him whenever more than twenty-four hours went by without them seeing each other.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Annalise said. “Maria doesn’t want to talk to me about this, either. She hasn’t changed, you know. She’s still hardheaded when she makes up her mind about something.”
Logan cleared his throat, preparing to ask the question that had been uppermost in his mind since Annalise had phoned him. “Does she really believe Mike’s alive?”
His voice broke on Mike’s name. Logan hadn’t spoken the youngest DiMarco’s name aloud in years. He’d thought about him, though, especially when the anniversary of 9/11 rolled around. On those dates, Logan was consumed by memories of Mike DiMarco.
A teenage couple entered the restaurant hand in hand, their eyes locked on each other, the corners of their mouths lifted in smiles. It wasn’t only the girl’s long, straight black hair that reminded Logan of Maria. It was the way she looked at her boyfriend.
“She’s a private investigator,” Annalise said. “She has to know there could be another explanation. And the way she was talking, it sounds like she’s leaning that way.”
He nodded once, fully understanding why Annalise had phoned him. Mike DiMarco was dead. Period. Nothing but pain lay ahead for Maria if she let herself believe otherwise.
“Okay. I’ll do my best to convince her she’s on the wrong track.” He swept a hand to indicate Annalise should precede him into the dining room, where the young couple was following a hostess to a table. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Oh, I’m not going back in there.” Annalise walked past him to the coat rack and rummaged through a number of winter garments before pulling out a black leather one. “I left my jacket over here so I could sneak out.”
Everything inside Logan went still. “Maria won’t like that.”
“Maria hasn’t liked anything I’ve said to her for the past hour,” her sister said. “She wouldn’t have come to dinner if she hadn’t promised to treat me. If I stay, it’ll seem like we’re ganging up on her.”
“If you go,” Logan said slowly, “I won’t like it, either.”
“Thanks for coming to help out,” Annalise said, shrugging into her jacket, which looked too thin to keep her warm. She headed for the exit but turned before she reached it. “Almost forgot to tell you, I drove. Maria’s car is at her office. You can take her back, right? Thanks!”
She whirled and fled, leaving Logan to gather his courage for a conversation he should have had in the aftermath of the terrorist attack.
There was something about that day he’d never told anybody, something that had been eating at him ever since.
If the information would help Maria, it was time he got it off his chest, even if it made her dislike him more than she already did.
* * *
ANNALISE WAS TAKING AN awfully long time in the restroom. If Maria had insisted on them both driving, she could have jotted down an apology on a napkin and sneaked out.
She regretted coming to dinner at all. She itched to be at the computer, squaring away her flight, or on the phone working the case instead of listening to Annalise tell her not to go to Key West.
At least she’d gotten it through her sister’s thick skull that she had no intention of meeting with Logan Collier.
The text tone on her cell phone buzzed. She rummaged through her voluminous leather purse on her lap, annoyed at herself for not putting the phone in the zippered compartment. The text was from Annalise and consisted of one word: Sorry.
“Hello, Maria.”
Logan. She jerked her gaze from her sister’s apologetic text to the man she’d once loved with her whole heart. The breath left her, exactly as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
He wasn’t quite six feet tall yet seemed taller because of his excellent posture. He was nearly as lean as he’d been as a teenager but more muscular. His thick brown hair was shorter, although it still sprang back from his forehead and the strands at his nape still curled. Age lent his regular features character and added fine lines that bracketed the hazel eyes she’d always thought were so pretty.
Maria had to consciously tell herself to stop staring and start breathing again. “Hello, Logan.”
“Mind if I join you?” He nodded to the chair Annalise had vacated after their waitress had cleared away the dinner dishes. Despite the apologetic text, Maria didn’t want to believe her sister had cut out on her.
“Annalise is sitting there,” she said.
“Was sitting there,” he corrected. “She’s gone.”
“I can’t believe it.” Maria shook her head as it sank in that her sister had abandoned her. “I told her I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“For the record, I thought you knew I was coming.” He indicated the chair again. “So can I sit down? You might want to say yes, because I’m your ride.”
Maria’s pulse skittered. It was all her sister’s fault. Annalise was going to pay.
“By all means.” She worked on composing herself while he took off his black wool car coat. Underneath he wore a burgundy long-sleeved shirt that made him appear vibrant and engaging. He settled across from her.
Before either of them could say a word, their young blonde waitress arrived with two cups of coffee and two slices of chocolate cheesecake. Annalise had remarked earlier in the evening that the girl looked as if she was having a bad day. Not anymore. A smile stretched across her pretty face.
“Well, hello there,” she said to Logan. “You must have just arrived. I couldn’t have missed you.”
“You’re right. I just got here.” One corner of Logan’s mouth lifted in a way that used to make Maria melt when they were teenagers.
The half smile appeared to have the same effect on the waitress. It had been that way in the old days, too. Females found Logan attractive. Maria had always thought it was because he didn’t seem to realize exactly how good-looking he was.
“My sister left,” Maria announced to get the waitress’s attention. “We won’t be having dessert and coffee, after all.”
“Are you sure?” She tilted her head and chewed her bottom lip. “I’m not certain I can take them back. You did order them.”
“Then just leave everything on the table,” Logan said. “We’ll be here for a little while longer.”
“Great!” Her enthusiasm was out of proportion to the situation. “Hope you enjoy!”
“Didn’t mean to step on your toes there, but she doesn’t seem real experienced,” he said when the waitress was gone. “Besides, I can always go for a piece of cheesecake.”
He’d always had a sweet tooth. In high school, when they were dating, Maria used to make it a point to have home-baked chocolate chip cookies on hand when they studied together at her house.
“By all means, dig in,” she said.
He took a bite of cheesecake, and her eyes arrowed straight to his mouth. With lips that were slightly full for a man’s, he had a gorgeous one. She shifted in her seat, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. They hadn’t been alone since they’d broken up, senior year of high school. In all that time, she’d seen him only once, at her brother’s memorial service. If, that is, she didn’t count the time she’d spotted him at the mall and ducked into a children’s clothing store to avoid him.
“How long are you home for?” she asked.
“Just a few days.” He’d never had much of an accent—most people who lived in the Lexington area didn’t—but any trace of Kentucky in his speech was entirely gone. “My parents are leaving for a cruise on Wednesday and I’ve got to get back to work.”
Ah, work. It defined him. If not for his insistence on going out of state to the University of Michigan to get a master’s degree in business so he could make the almighty buck, they’d still be together.
She’d wanted him to stick closer to home—and to her—by pursuing his dream of becoming a painter at an art school in Louisville. They could have moved into an apartment together, with Maria getting a job that would have paid the rent.
He’d called her proposal too risky, refusing to consider art school and declaring that he needed to be financially secure before he’d live with anyone.
The fact that he hadn’t loved her enough to take a chance on them still stung.
“Are you at the same firm in New York?” She didn’t know why she asked when she already knew the answer. The financial giant had hired Logan right out of college, where he’d managed to get both his bachelor’s degree and MBA in four years. If he’d changed jobs, Annalise would have mentioned it. She and her husband still used Logan to manage their finances. Since the firm where he worked was such a powerhouse, Maria was sure Logan kept them on as a favor.
“The same one,” he answered.
“And still conscientious, I see.” Maria couldn’t hold back the rest of her thought. “You’re rushing to get back to work when most other people are going on holiday.”
His shoulders stiffened. “It’s a good job.”
“I’m happy for you, then.” She wanted to know if he was still painting, except that was another volatile topic of discussion. Better to leave it be.
“How are things with you?” he asked.
“Can’t complain.” She picked up her fork, then put it down. She’d barely been able to choke down dinner. She wouldn’t be able to eat the dessert Annalise had talked her into ordering. “I quit the police force four years ago to go into private investigation. I’m a one-woman show, but I like it that way.”
“I heard you got divorced,” he said.
She was probably imagining the edge to his voice. He hadn’t cared enough to hang on to her, so why would her ex-husband be a sensitive subject?
“That was a while back,” she said. Before she’d left the sheriff’s office but after she’d made the decision to quit. “We weren’t a good match.”
Logan nodded, saying nothing, and added two creams and two sugars to his coffee.
“How’s the family?” he asked before he took a swig.
She avoided looking at his mouth, determined not to get sidetracked. “Everybody’s good. You keep up with Annalise. My parents are still working, and Jack’s going back to school to work with developmentally disabled kids. I think he’ll be engaged soon.”
“Glad to hear it.” Logan licked a drop of coffee from his lower lip. He put down the cup and rested his wrists on the table. “Do they know you think Mike might still be alive?”
The conversation and background music that had created a constant hum since she’d arrived at Donatelli’s Restaurant seemed to fade. Her ears rang with the question. No way could she avoid the subject any longer.
“No,” she stated. “I thought it would be better not to say anything until I know something definite.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s pretty obvious. Losing Mike was hard enough the first time. I don’t want them to have to go through that pain again.”
“That’s why I agreed to talk to you when Annalise called.” Logan leaned forward slightly, pinning her with his gaze. “Mike’s dead, Maria.”
She dragged her eyes away from the certainty in his. “How much do you know about what’s going on?”
“I only know what Annalise told me,” he said.
“Then I’ll fill you in.” Once she shared the details, maybe both Logan and Annalise would leave her alone to conduct her investigation. She relayed the day’s events, omitting nothing.
He listened in silence with his arms crossed over his chest. When she was through talking, he released a harsh breath. “Someone’s playing a sick joke. But it’s not Mike.”
“How can you possibly be sure of that?” Maria snapped.
“I already told you,” Logan said. “Mike’s dead, Maria. He died on 9/11. You’ve got to accept that.”
“Did you personally witness him going inside the World Trade Tower that day?” she asked.
“No, but I talked to him that morning. He was up early because he was working the breakfast shift.”