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

“I’ll be right over.”

Burt went into the kitchen where Amy was making a key lime pie. He slipped his arms around her.

“Looks good.” He kissed her neck. “I invited Alex over to go through Susan’s boxes of letters.”

She turned in his arms and kissed him. “This will be ready in an hour.”

 “You’re always prepared for anything.”

“I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Thanks, Sweets.”

Alex arrived a few minutes later, followed by a cab that dropped Javier off.

“How you doin?”

Alex smiled and sat down on the couch. “Good. Pretty much healed up.”

“That’s great. How’s Cynthia?”

“Better than ever. She’s a real trouper.”

The doorbell rang and Harris got it. “Javier, come in.”

“Thanks.”

“Alex, this is Javier.”

“Good to meet you.”

Sharkey was last to arrive. “Thanks for including me,” he said.  “Javier, good to see you again.”

“We have our work cut out for us,” started Harris. The five boxes with red ribbons tied around them sat on the coffee table.

“Vasquez told me Susan had already gotten Mateo a passport,” Javier said, “so they rejected my application.”

“All I can think,” said Harris, “is that she thought she would take him to Chile at some point.”

“She never told me that,” said Javier. “I thought she didn’t want to come.  She said that Mateo would never leave the country without her.  Why didn’t she tell me?”

“It’s complicated, for sure,” Harris said, “and we may never know what she was thinking.”

“Any news on Tyler?” Javier asked.

“Nothing yet,” said Sharkey.

“Javier did connect with Sharkey,” Harris said to Alex, “and he has said he will cooperate with the police any way he can.”

“Good,” Alex said.

Amy appeared with a tray of sandwiches and cokes. “I made a little something to munch on.”

Alex laughed. “Amy, how did you know I didn’t have any breakfast today?”

“I knew Burt didn’t, and food always helps in an emotional situation.”

“Okay, five boxes,” Alex said. “This one is marked Mom.”

He opened the box and found it full of letters with no addresses on them. “That’s strange.” He opened an envelope and saw that the letter was addressed to Daddy.

“What?”  He looked at Harris.  “They’re to you, but they were never mailed. No address, no name…”

“She must have given them to her mom, and she didn’t address them or send them on.  That’s Stephanie for you.”

“Man, you should read them sometime,” Alex said, “but I don’t see anything but personal stuff in here.”

“Here’s a bunch of bills,” Harris said. He grabbed a handful and Alex took some. “She had plenty of these, along with overdue notices.”

They ate sandwiches as they worked.

“This one’s bigger than the others,” Burt said, undoing the white ribbon and removing the lid. A large white envelope under the other envelopes appeared. “It’s marked personal…”

“Open it,” Sharkey said.

Alex carefully cut the end of the envelope open and slid out a manila envelope. “Look here.” He pulled out a passport book for Susan and one for each of the boys.

Javier looked confused.

“One for Mateo, one for Tyler, and one for herself.  She was hiding them,” Harris said. “She must not have told anyone about them.”

“She certainly didn’t act like such a thought had crossed her mind,” Javier said defensively.

“Okay,” Alex said, “what now?”

Amy entered the room again.  “You find what you were looking for?”

“Susan had the passports for both boys hidden in a large shoe box.”

“That’s a good hiding place.” She smiled.  “Let me know when you want pie.”

Harris grinned. “Okay, will do.”

“How long did Vasquez give Javier?” Sharkey asked.

“Two days.”

“That will buy us a little time to plan. I wish we knew where they’re holding the kids. From what you said, he told Javier he’s ready to move quickly.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I want someone on Javier or move him to a safe house.”

“No,” said Javier.  “I want to stay with Harris. I want to try to do this, so you know exactly where I am. He will call me with his plan. He may not want us to fly out. It could be too risky. The passport people already know that there was a second request. That may throw up alerts at the airports. If I can get to Vasquez, I can maybe stop this whole thing.”

“Okay, but you can’t go rogue. You’ll need back up. I don’t want any more civilians killed.”

“I especially agree to that part,” Javier said.

“All right. Harris, you keep me in the loop,” said Sharkey.

Amy brought out the pie and coffee then cleared the dishes from lunch.

Eating pie seemed to break the tension.

“Javier, I’ll drive you home and bring you back here. You can use my car if you must go anywhere.”

Javier nodded.

Harris walked Sharkey and Alex to the door.

“I’ll talk to him again,” Harris said. “I want to see if he remembered any more information on Vasquez’s girlfriend.”

“Call before he goes anywhere,” Sharkey said in a grim voice.

“You got it. I sure don’t want anyone else hurt.”

“It will take a little time, logistically, to get us into place. I’ll check back with you when I get off duty. Let’s make the best of all the time we have. I want to be here when he talks to Vasquez.”

*    *    *

Harris took Amy’s car to take Javier back to pick up his belongings at his house.

Harris watched Javier’s face as he drove him across town and out to Stock Island.

“As soon as I let him know that I have the passport he will move quickly.  Manuel Rodriguez is his right-hand-man. He will accompany me back to Chile. He is not a nice man. There are a lot of people who work for Vasquez but this one does the dirty work for him.”