words out loud to Dan, the ominous implication sending a shiver through her. “I don’t have a fortune.”
“Ramon thinks you do. And so does that Constantine Xenakis. They both said the same thing: you have a fortune they want.”
She pressed a few buttons, trying to figure out who’d sent it. “Well, they’re both delusional. I’m mortgaged up to my eyeballs, my truck isn’t worth the paper your Porsche rental agreement is written on, I sold my husband’s last boat at a serious loss, and put the little bit I made into a college prepay program. I don’t have two thousand dollars in the bank, let alone a fortune.” She held the phone up. “Should I reply or call the sheriff?”
“We should contact authorities, absolutely. Who sent the text?”
“Unknown caller. Blocked ID.” She looked up at him. “What does it mean? Is it a threat? A ransom? They didn’t get Quinn, but who’s to say they won’t try again?”
He rocked back on the kitchen chair, the muscles in his chest and stomach outlined by the move. “Kidnapping is something I know a little about, and I can tell you that was a well-executed and planned event. Maybe Ramon was in on it. They were sitting outside the bar all that time, waiting for Quinn. Who better to distract you than your ex-boyfriend?”
True. Maggie finished fixing her coffee, thinking. “You think Ramon believes Quinn is his, and now that he’s out of jail, he wants him?”
“A damn stupid way to get custody, if you ask me, and frankly, it stunk of El Viejo.”
She refused to think about the word custody. “Ramon’s father? He’s been out of jail for six months. Why try something like this now?”
“So you’ve been following them?” Dan asked.
“Of course.” She took a seat across from him, placing her mug on the table near his. “I’ve been on a website to monitor his release, and praying the whole damn family would disappear off the face of the earth and take my messy history with them.”
“I’ve done some checking, too. The rumor is that Ramon and his father are on the outs, but I don’t know that for a fact. I do suspect that Viejo is back in business, and, as much as I can determine from available information, he’s staying clean enough not to be arrested. His visa allowed him to move back to Venezuela.
“Isn’t that where his younger brother lives?” Another drug-running money launderer.
“Lived. Esteban Jimenez dropped dead of a heart attack about three days after the bust, or we’d have had him, too. Viejo lives on Esteban’s old coffee plantation outside Maracaibo.”
She closed her eyes and let out a soft grunt. “How can I possibly explain this to Quinn? He’ll never understand that I lived like that, with those animals. And that you . . .”
For a long moment, the kitchen was silent. She finally looked up at him, not at all sure what to expect. “I do have to tell him, don’t I?”
“You have to do what you think is right. And I’ll . . .” He frowned, hesitating. “I’ll go along with your decision. But in the meantime, we have to protect him. I think he should be out of here altogether while we figure out who did this.”
He’d go along with her decision, but he’d already started making his own. “He’s my responsibility,” she said. My son.
“I’ll protect him. Maggie, I respect that he’s yours and you’ve raised him. But protection is my business. I can put him somewhere safe, where no one will be able to get to him. You want that for him, don’t you?”
She nodded, looking at the coffee. “Of course I do. But for how long? How do we figure this out? Do I have to live in fear forever? First I’m robbed, then this . . .”
“No coincidence, by the way,” he said. “Neither was that break-in to my car. You have something, and someone wants it.”
A fortune? “Sorry, but the only thing of true value I have is Quinn.”
“Did you take something when you left Miami?”
“I ran away in the middle of the night during a raid on the warehouse. I took the clothes on my back.”
“Maybe your fortune is knowledge,” Dan said, locking his arms behind his neck. “Maybe all you know about Viejo’s defunct drug-running business is considered valuable.”
“I hardly paid attention,” she said, looking out the window. “And wouldn’t Ramon know far more than I know?”
“Think harder, Maggie. What could be considered a fortune?”