Blurring the Line

by Kierney Scott

  “It’s not like that,” Beth started.

  “It’s not like what, Beth? Tell me more. What else have you lied to me about?”

  Beth took another step back. “I didn’t lie to you. You never asked where Martinez was. I knew you would find him and…” Beth stopped and took a breath before she continued. “I knew what you would do when you found him. Just because I know what you are going to do does not mean I condone it in any way. I wanted you to have time to consider your impulses before you acted on them.”

  “Because the last two years weren’t long enough to think about it,” he scoffed. “That’s not why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me so you could pretend you were not responsible for what happened. You don’t want to know what I am going to do. You’re happy that it gets done but you can’t be bothered with the messy part. And yes Beth, it will be messy. Let me tell you what is going to happen.”

  Beth raised her hands. “No. Please don’t. OK…yeah, you’re right. I don’t want to know. I like pretending the world is fair and kind and people don’t get shoved into barrels and set on fire. I’m not going to apologise for that. I would go crazy if I let myself think about every detail of every crime I have read about. That’s how I cope, and it works for me. I am a good agent because I don’t get bogged down with the ugly stuff. The reason I can be in charge of this task force and not go bat-shit crazy is because I compartmentalise and rationalise.”

  “No, you ignore it, Beth. There’s a difference. How can you think you can go to Sinaloa and get Martinez if you can’t even stomach the details of what I’m planning to do to him? Are you planning on just looking away at that part? Is that your plan? You’ll stay in the car with your fingers in your ears. Great plan. Ignoring things always makes them go away.”

  Even in the shadows of the darkened room, he could see the lines between her eyes deepen as she thought. “You want to go to Mexico together? If I’ve been made, chances are you have too.”

  He could almost see Beth running through scenarios as her eyes darted from side to side. She was scared of him. At least she had the sense to be afraid. “You still wonder if I’ve gone native. You’re scared I will get you down to Mexico and that will be the last anyone sees of you. It has happened to hundreds of women. It could just as soon be you. Maybe I made this all up. Maybe I am a Zeta now.”

  Beth considered his words for a few moments “Maybe,” she admitted. “But even as a Zeta we have a common enemy.”

  “That doesn’t make us friends,” he warned her.

  “I don’t need a friend. I just need to find El Escorpion and get home.”

  “Is it worth risking your life?”

  Without taking a breath she answered, “Yes.”

  Torres ran a hand over his shaved head. He recognised that determination. He couldn’t leave her here. And he sure as hell couldn’t let her go alone. Patterson was as good as useless. If he went with her, he would get them both killed. Why the DEA had assigned the two whitest people in America to lead the Treinta task force was beyond him. Neither of them even spoke Spanish for Christ’s sake. “We’ll take the next flight to Mazatlan. It’s faster and I don’t want to be driving through the Northern states.”

  Beth nodded. “Yeah. OK, we’ll fly. I need to call Patterson. And my sister. I wish I had stocked up on food for Samson. I’ll just leave cash for Anna. I’m going to have to give the Mexico City office a heads up but I want to do it face to face.” Beth crossed the room into the bathroom. A stained-glass nightlight shaped like a windmill cast purple and red light across the white tiles. “I don’t have travel-size shampoo or toothpaste. I will need to buy those in Mexico. Must call my credit card company from the airport to tell them to expect foreign transactions.”

  She was off again, mentally writing a to-do list. This must be here verbal equivalent of M&M’s to relax. He listened, letting her list every minute detail of their trip: where they would rent a car when they got to Mexico, what credit card to put the flights on in order to get travel insurance, how she would keep track of expenses. Everything was covered, but there was one thing suspiciously absent from the list.

  “Going to call your boyfriend and tell him you’re going on vacation with the man you slept with last night?”

  Beth closed the medicine cabinet but she didn’t turn to look at him. She cleared her throat a few times before she said, “It’s a casual thing. I’ll call him when I get back.”

  “Good idea to keep it casual. None of my business but he hardly seems worth the effort if he doesn’t make you come.” He couldn’t resist baiting her, watching her squirm was one of the few pleasures he had left.

  She cleared her throat again before turning to face him. “We’re not going to discuss Neil, now or ever.”

  “You don’t have to discuss anything. Pretty telling that you listed a hundred things to do and he didn’t even get a mention.”

  Her nostril’s flared slightly. “I just said we’re not discussing it.”

  “How cute, you thinking you have a say in what I say.” He used her words against her.

  Beth was silent for a long moment as she tapped her foot against the tile floors. “Fine, talk about Neil but it is going to be a monologue because I’m not going to be involved. I’ll just have my own conversation about Archila. I think I want to discuss your military service. You served two tours together, right?” Beth held her hand up. “No don’t answer. Remember we’re having separate conversations and I’m talking about how you got that scar.” She pointed at his chest. “Only two people survived that explosion, you and Archila. Now it’s just you. Talk about survivor’s guilt.”

  Torres clenched his jaws together until his teeth ached. He never discussed the attack with anyone, ever. He had never even discussed it with Archila. Once they were home, it was over; there was no need to go back. She knew exactly what she was doing. If she were a man, he would grab her by the throat.

  “Careful Beth. I might give you details and we both know you can’t handle that.” She knew exactly the buttons to push, but so did he. If he weren’t so annoyed with her, he would have been impressed that she was brave enough to stand up to him. He knew few men who would. They both knew he could overpower her in an instant; he hoped for her sake, she knew he wasn’t above it.

  “I would make an exception for those details. The file left out a lot. I know there were two survivors. Did Archila pull you to safety? Is that how it happened? Is that why you feel so guilty? He saved you but you couldn’t save him? You think if you had been a better friend he wouldn’t have gotten involved with the Zetas?” She took a step towards him, showing she wasn’t scared.

  Torres clenched his hands together into fists. It was a dangerous game she was playing.

  She took another step. “I’m pretty good at details when I need to be, Torres. So don’t worry about me.” Her eyes brimmed with determination, her pointed chin pushed out defiantly.

  Torres shook his head. She had no idea the things she was going to see in Mexico but suddenly he didn’t care about shielding her. The world was ugly and she needed to know. No amount of ignoring reality would change that. “Get your bag, Gatita. There is a big bad world waiting for you.”

  Chapter Five

  Beth buckled her seatbelt for landing. She turned around to look for Torres three rows behind her. They had not been able to get seats together on the early morning flight from San Antonio, which was probably for the best. Neither of them was great at small talk at the best of times and she had told him enough about herself already to last a lifetime. Patterson, her partner, knew far less about her. Hell, Adam Frazer, the Administration therapist, knew less about her.

  Torres was staring out the window into the darkened sky. The horizon was dotted with the bright lights of the city. Beth had never been to Mexico. Sadly she had never been out of the United States. Until she joined the DEA she had been one of the 54% of Americans who did not have a passport. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to travel; she
just never could afford it. In truth she wanted to travel more than anything. It had always been her dream to see as many places as she could before she died. She was jealous of people who could drop things into a conversation, like “when I was in Paris”, or “that reminds me of something I saw in Rio”. She was even jealous that Torres had been to Iraq. She would never admit that to anyone because it sounded insane, but she had a book about tourism in Iraq, and it looked beautiful…well, the parts that weren’t war-torn.

  She absently stroked the blue vinyl cover: at last she would have a stamp in her passport. The first of many, she promised herself. Once this was over and things were sorted with her mom, she would travel.

  Torres glanced over at her. The heat of his stare fell heavily on her. She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that. Even when she turned around, she could still feel his stare on her. He was a peculiar man, too intense for his own good. The irony was not lost on Beth; no one had ever accused her of being carefree, but he took being tightly wound to the next level.

  Beth clenched the armrests until her fingers drained of colour. She closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten, reminding herself flying was one of the safest forms of travel. She was grateful that the woman next to her spilled over the seat as it meant she was at least touching another human being. The thing that worried her most about death was doing it alone. Again the irony was not lost on her; in life she preferred to do everything alone but if she were going to meet her end, she would have preferred not to face the abyss alone.

  Beth opened her eyes once she felt the heavy thud of the plane hitting asphalt. She let out the breath she had been holding; no facing the abyss today.

  “Scared flyer,” Torres said once he was beside her. It wasn’t a question, but nor did it sound like a judgement, just a statement of fact.

  With anyone else she would have made an excuse to cover any signs of vulnerability. “No, I think I’d have rather taken my chances driving through the Northern states.”

  “That bad, huh?” Torres asked.

  Beth nodded. “I can handle anything on the ground. Not so much at 30,000 feet.”

  “You certainly like your control.” Torres lifted down her carry-on and placed it on the seat in front before taking down his own.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “No more than anyone else. At least…I don’t think. I think everyone wants to be in control. It’s just part of human nature.”

  “It’s certainly part of your nature.”

  He was facing away from her, in the line waiting to exit the plane, so she could not see his face or tell if he was insulting her or just commenting on another fact.

  A soft breeze of warm air caressed her face as she stood at the top of the stairs. She looked up into the bright morning sky. The sun was just rising on the horizon. Mazatlan was beautiful, what she remembered from the pictures she had seen in her mammoth stash of tour books, but all she could see now was the Brutalist architecture of the airport.

  “I rented a car,” Beth told Torres as they entered through the sliding glass doors.

  “I know.”

  Beth’s eyes narrowed in question. She had made the arrangements on her smart phone.

  “It was on your list. I’m sure you get everything done on your lists.”

  “I do. It is called being organised,” she retorted.

  “You don’t even fold your clothes, there is no organisation involved, it’s just straight-up control.”

  Beth put down her carry-on and extended the handle so she could roll the bag. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Nope, I don’t. That’s how bad you’re hiding it.”

  Beth opened her mouth to speak but closed it again once she realised she had nothing productive to say on the matter, instead she walked in silence trying to come up with witty and intuitive things to say about Torres’ shortcomings. She stopped at the counter beneath the green and gold banner of the rental company. She pulled out her purse and produced her driver’s licence and credit card.

  Suddenly she remembered that Torres didn’t know she spoke Spanish, and she wanted to keep it that way, even if it meant playing the rude American tourist.

  She smiled apologetically at the woman at the desk. She looked barely old enough to drive a car herself. “Hi, I ordered a car. My name is Beth Thomson.” She cringed inwardly; not even attempting to speak Spanish was rude, she hated when people did that. Normally she would have a go at any language because it was far better to fail miserably but make an effort, than be so ethnocentric to assume everyone in the world speaks the same language as you. She slid her cards across the desk. She wished she had had time to print out a confirmation. That would have been so much easier, no communication required then, just typing numbers in a computer.

  Torres could have helped her by translating but he didn’t, he just stared at her with his half smile.

  “I hear Spanish is a good language to learn in your line of work,” he said.

  Beth glanced over at the customer service agent who was frantically typing away at her keyboard. Eventually the woman walked away from her desk, returning moments later with a set of keys.

  “Do you want to ensure him to drive?” The woman pointed at Torres. Her English was perfect and peppered only slightly with an accent, which Beth placed as Guatemalan.

  Beth shook her head. “No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you.”

  “Of course it won’t be. You wouldn’t want to give up control of that too.”

  Beth plastered a smile to her face that she didn’t feel. “Actually yes. Could we please add him?”

  She would rather drive but the brief flash of surprise on Torres’ face made it worth it. They signed the papers and thanked the woman for her help.

  She paused briefly to admire the line of palm trees at the front of the airport. They gave the structure a tropical feel and put her immediately in mind of a vacation. When this was over she was definitely going to take a vacation, but not to Mexico. She had no doubt it was beautiful and she loved the food and the people, she just needed to put as much space as possible between her and her job. And for her Mexico would always represent murder and cartels. It was a shame really, because from the little she had seen already, she knew she would like it.

  Beth opened the trunk of the light blue Dodge Neon and put in her luggage. They had stopped production on the car almost a decade earlier. If she stopped to think about it too long she might worry about its safety rating. But then again if she stopped too long to think about her safety, she wouldn’t be in Mexico in the first place or even in the DEA for that matter, and she certainly wouldn’t be keeping company with Torres.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re the one with the plan,” Torres said as he slid the keys into the ignition.

  “I do have a plan. I just don’t have hotel reservations.”

  “Because it wasn’t on the list.”

  Beth smacked her lips in a sound of frustration. “Nope.”

  “Lucky I have a place.”

  Beth nodded. “That is lucky.”

  His eyes curled into crescent moons. They were smiling even though his mouth wasn’t. He looked less scary this way, but only slightly. He had not had time to shave his head and his hair was growing in quickly. The thick black stubble did little to soften his features but she doubted anything would. At least he looked slightly less like a criminal with the shadow of hair.

  “You sure you don’t want to drive, Gatita?”

  Beth shook her head. She was desperate to drive but showing Torres she could loosen her grip on the reins was more important. Why she cared what he thought was beyond her. “I am happy to let you drive.”

  “No you’re not,” he smirked “But it is good for you.”

  Before she could stop herself she made a pfft sound.

  “Trust me. If you let yourself lose control a little you might even learn the sounds women make in bed. There’s no control when you’re coming. You can be in co
ntrol of everything up until that point, but then you have to let go. I think if you could let go a little your to-do list might even include a phone call to your boyfriend.”

  Her pulse quickened as his mouth curled over the words. Her blood burned hot in her cheeks, every heartbeat sending more burning liquid to the surface. He was staring at her again, the way that she could feel. “Spoken like a man who thinks he could do better.”

  His eyes were dark, the black of his dilated pupils blocking out all colour. “Spoken like a woman who wants me to try.” Torres put the car into gear and pulled out.

  Beth’s mouth was suddenly dry. Her skin was on fire now. Her gaze fell to his full lips, far too soft for his harsh features. She was overtaken with a desire to close her eyes and press her mouth into his. She had no doubt that all her anxiety and annoyance would be temporarily forgotten the moment their lips touched. His body radiated heat and a strange magnetism that pulled her in despite every warning her mind threw at her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t articulate why kissing him was a bad idea, her body was too consumed with the desire to act on the reckless impulse.

  Geez, she needed to get it together. Staring at his mouth wasn’t the way forward. She forced herself to lower her gaze to his hands, his strong callused hands. Damn, that wasn’t going to help either. Her imagination went running with images of all the things he could do with his hands. There was something seriously wrong with her. She was attracted to Torres.

  No she, wasn’t, her traitorous body was. Her mind was still very much in control of the situation and once her blood supply returned to its normal course, she was going to go through all the reasons she did not like Torres. In the back of her mind, she knew there was a long list, shame she could not remember a single thing on it. She had a tendency to forget things when she was with him; like forgetting to keep her private life private, and forgetting to be outraged when he pinned her to the bed. The truth was she liked it. She liked being in control but it turned out she also liked having the control taken away from her completely.