Darlene Gardner - Wish Upon a Christmas Star

“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.”

She picked up a thin wooden stick and stirred her coffee, watching the circular pattern as she thought about what Logan had said. Finally, she looked up to find his hazel eyes trained on her.

“What if he didn’t go to work that day?” she asked, the idea gaining momentum. “Mike never could stick to anything. He quit a ton of summer jobs for one reason or another.”

“Okay, let’s go with that,” Logan said. “Then why didn’t he come back to my apartment and get his things? Why didn’t he let anybody know he was alive?”

Very good questions, Maria thought. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

“Listen to yourself,” Logan argued. “You sound like you’ve already convinced yourself he’s alive.”

“I’m a private investigator,” she said. “I know enough not to jump to conclusions before I have proof.”

“You’ll never find proof, Maria. I know you want to believe Mike’s out there somewhere. Hell, I’d like to believe it, too. But he died that day.” Logan ran a hand over his mouth, a gesture that used to mean he was upset. His brows drew together. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She was almost afraid to hear it. This time she was the one who crossed her arms over her chest. “What?”

He pursed his lips and blew a breath out through his nose. “You know I was the one who got Mike the job at Windows on the World?”

Maria nodded. Logan had also given her brother a place to stay in Manhattan. At first she had been angry about that. She’d told her parents that Mike might have come home if Logan hadn’t let him sleep on his sofa. Her folks had countered that Mike might just as likely have lived on the streets.

“He didn’t much like being a busboy,” Logan said. “The morning the towers fell, he talked about quitting.”

“I knew it!” Maria cried.

“Hold on.” Logan put up a hand. “I hadn’t charged him anything up to that point. I told him he needed to help with rent.”

“So he was going to quit,” Maria said, her mind spinning. This revelation made it more likely that Mike was alive.

“You’re not hearing me,” Logan said. “He couldn’t help with the rent if he was unemployed. I told him he needed to keep the busboy job until he found another one. I talked him into going to work that day.”

“You don’t know that,” Maria retorted. “Mike was bullheaded. If he wanted to quit, he would have.”

“I don’t think so,” Logan said. “Even if that’s true, he would have gone in to work and given notice.”

“Not if he phoned,” Maria said. Something else occurred to her. “Maybe he didn’t feel any loyalty to the people there. Maybe he just didn’t show up.”

Logan shook his head. “You’re grasping at straws. No way would Mike let your family believe he was dead.”

“He dropped out of high school and ran away from home, Logan,” she said. “He was on the outs with us.”

“He wasn’t a vindictive kid,” Logan said.

“He was a rebellious one,” Maria countered. “My parents caught him drinking or skipping school or staying out all night lots of times. He wanted to do his own thing without getting hassled.”

“It’s one thing to be rebellious,” Logan said. “It’s another to let your family go through the heartache of believing you’re dead.”

Logan probably thought he sounded like the voice of reason. It wouldn’t do any good to tell him she couldn’t rest until she’d eliminated any chance that Mike was alive. Logan was just as closed-minded as always. If he’d been able to open his mind to possibilities, they’d be married right now.

“I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective.” She pretended to look thoughtful. She had to wrench the next words from her mouth. “Perhaps you’re right.”

His mouth dropped open. He closed it and let out a heavy breath. “Believe me, that doesn’t bring me any happiness.”

She nodded.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“What do you think I should do?”

“You should drop it,” he said. “It’s a cruel trick that isn’t worth your time.”

Maria tried to look pensive. “You’re probably right.”

“So you’re not going to Key West?”

“What would be the point?” She put her credit card inside the leather billfold the waitress had dropped by their table, and rose. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”

He hesitated only a moment before answering. “Sure.”

On the way to the restroom, Maria stopped at the hostess stand and placed a request. Within minutes, she rejoined Logan. Her credit card was on the table, but nothing else.

“Didn’t the waitress bring me a receipt?” she asked.

Logan said, “I switched out our credit cards and went ahead and paid the bill.”

“Nobody asked you to do that,” she said.

“I wanted to.”

Because he was flaunting what a success he’d made of himself? Even as the thought came into her head, she knew it wasn’t true. Logan had always been generous with what he had, even when he was a broke high school kid.

“Thank you,” she managed to say. “We should go. You won’t be in town long. I don’t want to keep you from your family.”

“My parents like you,” Logan said. “They won’t mind waiting while I drive you back to your office.”

“They won’t have to wait,” Maria said on the way to the coat rack. He helped her on with her coat, brushing against her in the process. A shiver ran the length of her body.

“Oh?” he said. “Why’s that?”

She pointed through the glass doors to where a taxi idled at the curb. “I had the hostess call a cab.”

He looked wounded. “I would have driven you.”

“I know,” she said. “Have a nice Christmas, Logan.”

“You, too,” he said.

She pushed open the doors and hurried to the cab, forcing herself not to turn around for a final glance at him. When she closed the taxi door behind her, she felt as though she were shutting out a past that included Logan. Once upon a time, she never could have fooled him with that guileless act. The fact that she had done so proved they’d become strangers.