Key West Gone into the Night Elizabeth Hilleren (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

Rex took a break and poured two cups of coffee from the carafe in his study.

“Wow.  That’s a lot to take in,” Sharkey said, taking the cup and sniffing the Cuban blend coffee. He smiled with satisfaction and leaned back in the high back chair. “I’m starting to understand your need for caution. We’ve been trying to track him down since we found Susan’s body.”

“There are some very sticky problems here. One, Vasquez is threatening Javier with the life of Harris’s grandson Tyler if he betrays Vasquez. He’s forced him to help take Javier’s baby back to Chile to be raised as Vasquez’s son. He has no idea where his uncle is, but he knows that he’s in Key West.  Vasquez has Javier in hiding until he can get a passport for Mateo to get him out of the country.”

“So, what does Vasquez plan to do with Tyler?”

“Javier doesn’t know. Right now, he’s the lever used to threaten Javier.”

“So why did Javier want to contact Harris?”

“He’s having regrets working with Vasquez. He says Susan was not to be harmed in this process. He had feelings for her and was angry with Vasquez when he discovered her dead after returning to where she jumped out of the car, to take her back into town.  She bolted from his car and refused to get back in. He thought giving her a cooling down period would make her reasonable again.”

“Who told him?”

“He knew nothing about her death, except that he found her dead when he returned for her.  Javier thinks that Carl killed her in a fit of rage.”

“That makes the feelings of Carl make more sense. He and Stephanie Williams didn’t think much of Susan getting pregnant by another man, particularly this foreign man.  I appreciate you telling me this. So where is Javier now?” Sharkey said.

“Harris is with him. Javier believes that no one knows where he is. They keep in touch with him through his cell phone.  They will contact him when they’re ready to move.”

“Okay. Thanks for the information. The Chief and I have talked. He knows Harris is off the radar. As far as the Chief is concerned, Harris is on bereavement leave.”

Rex stood. “The most important thing is that those two kids survive this unharmed.”

“I agree and so does the Chief.  I’ll keep you informed. At some point we will have to make our move.  Hopefully at that time we will have more information.”

“Take care, my friend, and if I hear anything else, I’ll be in touch.”

    Thursday  Morning 

“You ready, big guy?  The doctor says you can go home,” Cynthia said.

“Yeah,” said Alex, “I sure am.” She helped him into his clothes and then into a wheelchair.

“I’ll have Terry take you down after you sign out. I’ll go get the car and pull it around to loading zone.”

Cynthia clocked out and headed for the employee parking lot. She pulled her car up to the hospital patient pick-up area and met Alex at the curb and helped him into the car.

“Okay, here we go. I’m sure glad you’re coming home. Buckle up,” she said. “I don’t want anything else to happen to you.”

“I love you.” He leaned over and kissed her and then buckled his seatbelt.

“You guys take really good care of your patients, but I prefer my own nurse, the blonde and gorgeous one.”

Cynthia smiled and started up Roosevelt Boulevard. Up the road she accelerated and changed lanes as a black car came up fast behind them, swerved out, and caught the back end of their car. Cynthia pressed on the brakes but they didn’t work and the accelerator was stuck, pressed to the floor. As the car accelerated through a red light, Alex reached over and turned off the engine just as their car slammed into a car pulling out of a stop sign making a right-hand turn. Cynthia screamed just before her car collided with the car.

The car behind them disappeared down a side street.

Sam Cutter had just gotten off work on a fishing boat and jumped out of his car and raced to the wreckage.

A woman ran over to the car that had been turning the corner. The woman was shaken but didn’t appear hurt, just very drunk.

Cutter called 911 as he crossed the street and tried to see into the damaged car.  The woman was unconscious and the man on the passenger side was not moving.

“You all right?” Cutter yelled, banging on the window. He pulled on the driver’s door to see if he could turn off the engine. It was already off. He couldn’t smell gas and tried to find a pulse on the woman’s neck. Thank God, he said. He reached over to the man and checked his pulse. Okay, that’s good.

A medic came up beside him. “We’ll take over now.”

“Thanks,” Cutter said.

Medic Dylan Striker went to the driver’s side and Max Saxton went to the passenger side.

Dylan reached in and felt Cynthia’s neck. “I’ve got a pulse.”

“It’s Alex Sloan and Nurse Cynthia from the hospital,” Dylan said.

“Okay, let’s get them out. The car is stable, but it could go.”

They carefully lifted Cynthia out of the car after putting on a neck brace.  Cynthia’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey, Beautiful,” Dylan said.

“What happened? Where’s Alex?”

“They’re putting him on a gurney. He still has a pulse.”

“Can you feel this?” Dylan asked, as he touched her rib cage.

“Yes.”

“Good. Anything hurt?”

“Yeah, everything. It’s a little hard to breathe.”

“Okay, they’re waiting for you at the hospital. Let’s load up.”

Max called for help to get Alex out of the car. He was put on oxygen and loaded into the medic van. “His pulse isn’t steady.  Start an IV. Heart rate