Hunt Her Down (11 page)

covering his eyes, but no one else was visible.

“Turn starboard!” he yelled.

She whipped the boat at exactly that second, and Dan took a shot, purposely aiming to miss

but let them know he meant business.

“Stop your boat!” he yelled, punctuating the demand with another shot, skimming the port

side.

Maggie adjusted the beam so it kept them in light, handicapping the shooter and revealing

something dark on the deck.

Quinn, bound and flopping around like a hooked fish.

Despite his visceral reaction, Dan steadied his aim.

“Quinn!” Maggie’s voice lost all its earlier calm, cracking at the sight of her son. “Oh God,

don’t shoot,” she begged. “That’s Quinn on the deck.”

“Hand him over,” Dan demanded. “Give him up or you don’t take another breath.”

He shot again, careful that the bullet couldn’t ricochet off the side and hit Quinn.

The driver and shooter shared a look, while Maggie maneuvered the boat closer, keeping

the spotlight on them while they blinked and cowered.

Dan stood straight on the bow, protected by their blindness, his Glock aimed at the shooter.

They were both Hispanic, but he didn’t recognize either one from his days with the Jimenez

family.

“Throw the gun in the water,” Dan ordered.

They squinted into the light, defeat on their faces. The shooter in the back lifted both hands

in surrender, a revolver in the right.

“In the water,” he shouted.

After a beat, he obeyed, his weapon splashing as it hit.

“Stop the boat. Now!”

The driver pulled back on his throttle and Maggie did the same, easily matching their

slowing speed. When they idled to a stop, so did she, just as Quinn rolled over, revealing duct

tape over his mouth.

“Get over there,” Dan said to the driver, using his gun to point to the other man. “Next to

him.”

With both of them together, Dan could shoot either one at any time. He climbed over the

port side rail, balancing as his boat dipped in the water before he eased himself to the other

deck.

Keeping the gun aimed on his targets, he used his other hand to reach down and help

Quinn, who looked at him with eyes full of terror. And tears. Fury careened through Dan. The

bastards made his kid
cry
.

Behind him, he heard Maggie move into position to help get Quinn on their boat. With his

feet bound, he struggled, and Dan turned just enough to negotiate a way up to the other boat,

when Maggie shouted and a body thudded against Dan.

He grunted with the force and lost his balance just as Quinn fell over the side and hit the

water hard.

“He’s tied up!” Maggie screamed. “He’ll drown!”

Dan managed to whip around and slam his elbow into the first face it met, but the other

man pounced on him, knocking his gun out of his hand and sending it sailing across the deck.

Dan got in a kick to the gut of the other guy, but the first one was already at the helm. He

flattened the throttle, sending Dan tumbling backward to his knees, rolling into cushions, the

weapon still two feet from his reach.

He twisted in time to see Maggie scrambling, ready to dive in after her son. The driver

whipped the boat in the opposite direction, taking the outboard perilously close to the dark

spot where Quinn had gone under.

Leaping to his feet in one jump, Dan dove into the black water, instantly grabbing the boy’s

shoulder as they both sank deeper.

Dan forced his eyes wide, just in time to see the proper blades churning closer to chew

them up. He looped his hand through Quinn’s bound hands and thrust them both lower, using

all his strength to go under the hull, then kick them away just as the spinning prop whirred by.

In a second, the boat was gone and he swam Quinn up, sensing the panic in his body. As

soon as he broke the surface he heard Maggie screaming, and he ripped the tape off Quinn’s

mouth so he could gasp in air.

“Stay with me, Quinn,” he insisted, pulling the boy along. “Stay with me.”

Quinn nodded as Dan swam them to the back of the boat. Maggie flipped the lock on the

gate of a small diving platform and reached down, dragging Quinn up as Dan gave him a

mighty push to the deck.

As the other boat disappeared into the darkness, Quinn turned to Dan in gratitude, the water

dripping down his face mixing with his tears.

Dan dropped to his knees, put his arms out, and hugged his son for the first time.

MAGGIE TURNED OUT the bedside table light and kissed Quinn’s smooth cheek, whispering

good night. She’d been sitting with him for the past hour, soothing him and answering his

questions as best as she could.

The one thing she’d strived to teach her son was to be honest, and she felt like the biggest

hypocrite on earth. But right now, in this mental state, at this time of night, with so much

unknown, the best she could do was assure him that he was safe and that she would do

whatever was necessary to keep those men away from him.

She stepped into the hall, glancing toward the kitchen. Dan stood in the soft stove light,

wearing nothing but camouflage drawstring pants slung low enough to reveal every muscle

down to his hips. He must have changed out of his wet clothes and showered, because his hair

looked damp. Stone still, he stared out the window, a mug poised inches from his mouth.

He turned as he heard her approach, his eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched.

“How is he?”

“Asleep. Confused. Scared out of his mind.” She went to the coffeepot and grabbed a mug

from the cup tree Quinn had made for her in summer camp about ten years ago.

She touched the bear’s brown head, imagined little fingers painting it just for her, and

swallowed a lump. She’d almost lost him.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “You saved his life.”

She kept her gaze on the coffee as she poured a cup and dipped the spoon into the sugar

bowl. Her hands were steady, but she jumped at Dan’s touch on her shoulders, and spilled half

the teaspoon on the counter.

“Look at me,” he demanded, adding some pressure.

She exhaled softly, set the spoon down, and let herself be turned around. The scent of soap

and skin was overwhelming this close, as was the sight of his unshaven face, his parted lips.

She looked up to meet his gaze and tried to step back from the sheer force of it, but the

counter hit her hips.

“Did you tell him?” he asked.

“No. I need some time to get used to the idea first. It’s not just something you blurt out

after the kid just went through the scariest ordeal of his life. Give me time.”

“Of course.”

She put her fingertips on his hard chest to push him away, but he didn’t move and her hands

barely dented the solid muscles underneath. “I need to get used to the idea that you’re here.

And alive. I buried you a long time ago.”

He stepped back, but not very far. “Your cell phone rang,” he said, pointing to the table. “A

text, I think.”

She reached for it and as she did, he snagged her arm, his hand warm as it closed over her

skin. “By the way, you drive a mean boat.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long moment. “Smitty taught me,” she said. “He did a lot

of things for me. He took me in when I was pregnant and broke. He gave me a home. He

loved me. He married me. And he raised my son as though he were his own. He made a lot of

mistakes and wasn’t always the man I wanted him to be, but he was Quinn’s father in every

way but biological. Don’t forget that.”

“All I said was that you drove well.”

She slipped out of his grasp and picked up the phone, thumbing to the text.

You have a fortune I want. Let’s make a deal
. She stared at the message, frowning, then

read the 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?”

She closed her eyes and remembered the little piece of paper she’d held that rainy night in

Miami.

“I had a fortune that night,” she said softly. “But I doubt it’s worth anything.”

“You did?” His chair inched down.

She laughed a little in embarrassment. “I got it the day… you died. From a Chinese

restaurant food delivery. It said: ‘Now that love grows in you, then beauty grows, too.’ “

“A Chinese fortune?” The slight urgency in his voice surprised her.

“Yeah, I thought it was a message from the universe. I thought it was about . . . our baby.”

“A Chinese fortune you got the day of the bust?” His gaze sharpened to knifelike.

“Yes. I took it as a sign that I should—” She looked down and twisted her coffee cup, lining

up the handle to the right. “Tell you I was pregnant.”

The front legs of his chair smacked on the tile floor and he stared at her, his expression

stunned disbelief. “How? How did you get one? Who knows you had it?”

At his tone, she frowned. “Lourdes gave it to me.”

“Ramon’s little sister? How did she get it?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because
that’s
what they want, Maggie.” He shot up from the chair so hard, the table

shook, splashing coffee. “The fortune you had.”