Darlene Gardner - Wish Upon a Christmas Star

“It wasn’t only the pictures,” Caroline said. “Mike called me, too.”

Maria shook her head. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming in here and lying to me like this, especially eight days before Christmas.”

“It’s not a lie!”

“Oh, no? What did Mike do? Leave a message on your voice mail that he wasn’t dead, after all?”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” Caroline said.

But she did. Even though eleven years had passed, the pain of losing her brother was still so raw Maria could barely stand it when someone mentioned his name. Of all the DiMarcos, he’d been the most like her, in both looks and temperament. That hadn’t always been a good thing.

“What would you have me do?” she asked.

“Hear me out,” Caroline said. “Can you at least do that?”

Maria’s law enforcement training kicked in. She’d been a dispatcher and a police officer before she’d become a private investigator. She knew not to discount anything, no matter how preposterous, before hearing the entire story. She nodded once.

“Thank you.” Caroline took an audible breath. “I got the first call about a week ago on my apartment phone. It was a man. He said in this whispery voice, ‘I miss you, Caroline.’ I asked who it was. ‘How could you forget me?’ he said, and hung up.”

It sounded like a classic prank, although more insensitive and cruel than most. “What came up on your caller ID?”

“It said Wireless Caller but didn’t give a name or number,” she said. “I only picked up because Austin was asleep and I didn’t want the ringing to wake him.”

Maria’s eyes dipped to Caroline’s ring finger. The overhead light glinted off a pear-shaped diamond that appeared about two carats in size.

“Austin’s my fiancé,” Caroline explained. “We’re getting married on Valentine’s Day.”

Mike’s impassioned voice insisting that Caroline would be his wife someday came to mind, along with her own, telling him he was being a fool. Maria couldn’t bring herself to offer congratulations.

“Why did you leap to the conclusion the caller was Mike?” she asked.

“I didn’t, not then,” Caroline said. “After a while, I even started to forget about it. But then Saturday, the day the photos arrived, I got another call. I probably shouldn’t have picked up, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was the same man. Again he told me he missed me.”

“Is that all he said?” Maria asked.

Caroline shook her head, her teeth worrying the red lipstick off her bottom lip. “I demanded to know who it was. He said it was Mickey. And that’s when I thought it really might be Mike.”

“Mickey?” Maria repeated.

“We took a shortcut through an alley once when we were in downtown Lexington. A mouse darted out from behind a Dumpster and Mike screamed,” Caroline said. “So I started calling him Mickey. You know, short for Mickey Mouse.”

Maria refrained from saying she thought the nickname was mean-spirited. If she tallied up the transgressions Caroline had committed against Mike, that one might not even make the top five. Dumping him in the cafeteria in front of all his friends topped the list.

“I never heard anybody call him Mickey,” Maria said.

“Nobody else did, only me, and only when we were alone,” she stated. “You know how macho Mike was. He hated the nickname, because he didn’t want anyone to know he was afraid of mice.”

That sounded like Mike. He’d projected a tough-guy exterior that only those closest to him knew shielded a vulnerable heart. Maria could feel her own heart speeding up, thumping so hard she thought Caroline might hear it. “Are you sure nobody else knew about the nickname?”

“Positive.”

Mike’s remains had never been found. They’d never spoken to anyone who had seen him go into the World Trade Tower that day. They’d never buried him.

“Did the caller say anything else?” Maria asked.

“No,” Caroline said. “He hung up. And Saturday I got the pictures in the mail, just like I told you.”

Maria felt almost dizzy. That wouldn’t do, not if she was going to get to the bottom of this. She tried to shut off her emotions and think like the private investigator she was. “Do you have the envelope the photos came in?”

“I do.” Again Caroline dug into the side pocket of her handbag. “Here it is. And here’s a printout of my phone record I got off the internet. I circled the two anonymous calls in red pen.”

The envelope was plain and white, with what appeared to be a computer-generated typed address. Handwriting comparison, then, wasn’t a possibility. There was no return address. The postmark was from last Wednesday in Key West, Florida.

Think, Maria, she commanded herself before looking back up at her visitor. “Does anyone you and Mike went to high school with live in Key West?”

“I don’t think so,” Caroline said.

Something to check out, Maria thought.

“How about Mike?” she asked. “Did he ever talk about going there?”

“I don’t remember,” Caroline said. “But I do remember the warmer the weather, the better he liked it.”

That was true. Even during light snowfalls, about the only kind they got in Lexington, Mike had complained as though they were enduring blizzard conditions. The climate in Key West would appeal to him.

If he were alive. Oh, God, could her brother be alive?

Maria was holding Caroline’s phone records. That was the place to start. She’d just finished a background check she was running for a client, leaving her free to unravel the mystery. She got up from the chair, went to her desk and picked up a pad and pen.

“After I look into where the phone calls came from, I’ll be in touch,” she said. “What’s a number where I can reach you?”

Caroline crossed one long leg over the other. “I’d rather you didn’t call me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll contact you.” She tapped a manicured finger against her lips. “Here’s the thing. I don’t want my fiancé to know about this. I don’t want anything to interfere with the wedding.”

“Why would it?”

“Austin’s last name is Tolliver,” she said. “His father, Samuel, is the former governor.”

Caroline could have added that the family was rolling in cash. Maria seemed to remember the Tollivers had amassed their fortune from tobacco and horse racing. She recalled that Samuel Tolliver had provided the bulk of the financing for his campaign for governor.

“Austin’s following in his father’s footsteps. He’s a state senator. This fall he’s running for Congress. I can’t take the risk the press will pick up on this story.” For the third time, Caroline rummaged in her handbag. This time she pulled out a checkbook. “I can pay you.”

To find her own brother? Maria’s stomach turned over at the thought. “I don’t want your money, Caroline.” She was surprised her voice was even. “The question is, what do you want?”

“If Mike is alive,” she said, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, “I just want him to leave me alone.”

When Caroline was gone, Maria tried to call up the routine steps she took on missing person cases. She heard blood rushing in her ears. Her heart beat so fast she couldn’t concentrate. After all this time, could Mike really be alive?

She got up from her chair and stepped outside, hoping the cool, fresh air would enable her to think more clearly. A chill ran through her and she hugged herself. At five-thirty, and almost the shortest day of year, it was already dark. A thin streak of light slashed through the sky.

A shooting star!

Shooting stars were magical, her mother had claimed when Maria was growing up. If you saw one before Christmas and wished upon it hard enough, she used to say, your wish would come true.