Page 18 of Stand By You
“My program. It’s bringing up satellite feed of the car on the interstate heading back toward… North Miami?” Swede explained.
“Are you sure?” Nick asked.
“Positive. I’m watching it happen as we speak.”
“That’s amazing,” Nick said.
“I’ll send the footage to your phone so you can follow,” Swede said.
“Thanks,” Nick said. “I’ll call if anything changes on my end.”
As soon as his call ended, he called for Jillian. “Hey Jillian, are you about ready to go? I have a new lead on that car that had Travis yesterday. I want to get on the road in hopes of catching up to it.”
“I’m coming,” she said, hobbling out of her room in a sundress. She headed over to the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of water and an insulated bag to put them in to keep them cold before they left. “It sounds like you have promising intel.”
“I do at the moment,” Nick said.
“But I thought we were going to go see Carlos first,” Jillian reminded him. “I really think we should talk to Travis’ buddy system friend before we do anything else. I have a feeling that Detective Simons hasn’t spoken to him. Carlos was in the reptile exhibit with Travis before he went missing. He might have seen something that could be essential in our finding those two guys who took Travis.”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. If we take the time to speak to Carlos we might miss out on finding those two guys. Won’t Carlos be at Playland Day Camp today?”
“Not today,” Jillian said. “I spoke to his nanny Monica. He was too upset about Travis to go today.”
“Okay then,” Nick relented. “But only for a few minutes.”
“Should we inform Detective Simons?” she asked.
“I’ll give him a call once we leave Carlos’,” Nick said as they headed to the main house. She slowly followed behind him as he walked to the front door where he’d left his car parked in the circular drive. After helping her into the car, she gave him the address to Carlos’ parents’ house and they headed to the Fuentes, who lived two gated communities over.
When they arrived at the two-story hacienda-style home, the housekeeper showed them into the family room where Monica was trying to get Carlos to put on his shoes. “See I told you Miss Jillian was coming to see you,” Monica said.
The little boy hid his face behind Monica’s back.
“He’s normally not this shy,” the nanny said. “Please, have a seat.”
Nick and Jillian sat on the love seat across from where Monica and Carlos were sitting on the couch.
“Hello, Carlos,” Jillian said. “It’s so good to see you. Did you enjoy the zoo yesterday? I heard you were looking at the snakes. Do you like them?”
The little boy peeped back at her and nodded; his face was wet from where he had been crying. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Jillian said.
“But if we had followed the rules…” Carlos said. “I should have gone to the bathroom with Travis even if I didn’t have to go.”
“True. We all make mistakes,” Jillian said. “I’ve done the same thing.”
“So, have I,” Monica said. “I’ve gotten so wrapped up in what I was looking at that I forgot what I should have been doing.”
Jillian nodded. “But then I remembered, and I recalled seeing things I didn’t realize I’d seen. Have you done that, Carlos? When you were looking at the snakes yesterday. Did you see something that you recalled today? About the people around you?”
The little boy nodded as well. “There was this one guy who had a snake on his arm from here to here,” he said pointing at his wrist to his elbow. “And he went into the restroom before Travis did.”
“Did you notice when he came out?” Nick asked.
“Nope. By then I was too busy watching the real snakes,” Carlos said.
“Could you describe the snake tattoo?” Nick asked, taking out a notepad and a pencil from his pant pocket. “Was it skinny or wide? Did it have stripes or markings?”
