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“She tell you where my product is.”
“No, but—”
“How you gonna help me if you don’t know where my product is?”
The man’s voice had a whiny quality that rubbed Daniel’s nerves raw. He counted to three, studied the floor, then answered. “We can pay you the value of your product. You can pay your debt.”
Silence bounced across the line. The clock on the living room wall ticked. Morin cleared his throat, a dry grating sound. “I’ll have to think about that. Make some calls. Deliberate.”
The man drew out the syllables of the last word like he was rolling them around on his tongue, trying them out for size.
“What’s to deliberate?” Daniel felt panic starting to swell in his gut. He wanted a definite plan, a definite time for getting Benny back. No more waiting. “We’ll get you the money.”
“My price.”
Anger clawed at Daniel’s insides, trying to get out. “What’s a little boy’s life worth to you, Juice?”
The sound of the line disconnecting was pronounced in his ear. “Son of—”
“Easy, easy.” Samuel took the phone out of his hand and laid it on the table. “You did fine.”
“It was a mistake. What if he skips town and takes Benny with him. Or kill—we may never find him.”
“He’s too greedy for that, Danny. Think. He’s desperate. He’s got to pay up. He needs us. We’ll check out his family and his known hang-outs. Check out his friends. We can definitely narrow our search down to Jorge Morin. This helps a lot. We can figure out where to look for him—his family, known associates, previous addresses. We’re good.”
Daniel wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. The room seemed to get steadily colder. A chill invaded his body so intense that he wanted to pull blankets from the linen closet. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether fear or greed is bigger with this guy. We know he’s a coward. Will he cut and run? He knows Barrera will come after him.” Second-guessing fueled his doubts. The plan had big holes in it. “He won’t take a kid with him, if he runs. He could be killing Benny right now.”
“No.” Ray spoke up.
“How do you know?”
“Greed will win. He’ll want the money before he skips town. With a guy like this, greed will force him right into our hands. Benny is his golden goose. He’ll hang onto him until he gets what he wants.”
“Look, you need to get out of here.” Samuel moved toward the door. “Let’s go to the station, do some research. You’ll feel better if you keep moving.”
Twenty minutes later, he sat at Samuel’s desk and peered at his brother’s computer screen, tempted to ask for his reading glasses. “So Juice Morin was in the county jail for nearly six months on the DUI and possession charges.”
Samuel sipped on his third or fourth cup of coffee before he answered. “He ended up with a plea bargain, probation, and time served. That must have been what he was talking about when he said he had a little problem and was away.”
“Yeah.” Ray swallowed coffee and grimaced as he perused the folder in his hand. “The address he listed is fictitious—no such street. It says here he’s got a brother in Huntsville, and a sister who works Broadway, gets busted regularly for soliciting. Wait a minute!”
Samuel’s coffee sloshed on his hand. “What?”
“I don’t believe it. There was a disturbance on the pod where Juice Morin was incarcerated. Several inmates got into it in the common area. Guess who one of the other guys was?”
“I give.” Daniel didn’t have the patience left to play a guessing game. “Who?”
“None other than Tómas Chavez.”
Daniel stood. The muscles in his legs cramped. He sank back into the chair. “Your predecessor at the ranch? Tómas Chavez and Juice Morin were in the Bexar County jail at the same time?”
“Same pod. Their paths definitely crossed. And they’re affiliated with the same gang. Latin Kings.”
Daniel grabbed a folder and leafed through its contents. “The last time Chavez was in was for drunk and disorderly, aggravated assault—bar fight. He couldn’t make bail so he was in about six weeks before he finally took a plea. Probation, Community Service, fine, and time served. Slap on the hands.”
