Blurring the Line

by Kierney Scott

  Beth’s breath caught in her throat. She understood. The way he reacted when she accused him of abusing women, he was scared of being like Flores.

  He was nothing like Flores, the fact that he had stopped told her that. Tentatively she reached for his hand. “You would have stopped. But for the record: there is nothing you could have done to me last night that I wouldn’t have wanted. I don’t know if you noticed, but I was up for anything.” Her cheeks burned at the admission.

  Torres wrapped his long fingers around hers. “Those are dangerous words, Gatita.”

  Beth smiled. “Perhaps I should amend that. I was up for anything as long as it was legal…and hygienic…” Beth crinkled her nose as she thought. “Yep that about covers it. Just keep it legal and hygienic and we would be good to go.”

  “What I did to you last night is still illegal in some states.”

  “Good point. Let’s strike the legal requirement. As long as it is hygienic.” Beth threw her hands in the air. “Oh who am I kidding? We both know you could have talked me round on that part too. Basically I was up for it. Who knew I was that girl?” She shook her head at herself.

  Torres smiled. “I did.”

  Their hands were still interlinked. “Torres, you would have stopped if I asked.” She had no doubt in her mind.

  He smiled faintly but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  She needed him to know it was OK. “And if you hadn’t, I would have been OK with that too. I gave you permission to do anything you wanted. Turns out I trust you with my body.” She raised their linked hands and kissed his knuckles. Her heart was an entirely different matter, but he was certainly welcome to her body.

  He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “What time do you need to be at the airport?”

  “Now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I need to get out of Mexico ASAP.” She glanced over at the baby. “You can come back too, Torres. I’m not sure it is safe.”

  Torres raised a dark brow. “Really, running drugs isn’t safe? Tell me more, Gatita.”

  Beth pulled her hand away. “I’m serious. I can’t guarantee your cover is still intact.” She had already screwed things up enough. She couldn’t risk Torres’ safety. It wasn’t worth it: finding El Escorpion, getting home, none of it.

  “Don’t start doubting yourself, Beth. You’re a good agent.”

  She looked away. Three dead bodies said otherwise. “I’m worried about you, Torres. I have a really bad feeling about this.”

  “It is dangerous,” he admitted. “That’s a given.”

  “You don’t need to go back.”

  “I do. I have to.”

  Beth shook her head. “For Archila?” She never knew the man but she had a sudden and intense disdain for him.

  “And for me. I have to do this.”

  Beth bit her lip to stop it from shaking. This felt too much like goodbye forever. She no longer found any comfort in the thought that this was likely the last time she saw him. “As your superior, I know I should feel grateful that you are willing to continue, but as your friend, I want to talk you out of this.” If there was anything she could say to talk him out of it, she would. She could not shake the feeling that this was the last time she would see him.

  Torres smiled. “I’ve never had a female friend.”

  Beth laughed. “They always say you remember your first.”

  “Trust me, Gatita, I’ll never forget you.”

  Beth closed her eyes to keep the tears that were welling in her eyes from falling. She turned away so he couldn’t see her cry. She walked to the alcove and scooped up the baby. “OK baby girl, are you ready for your American adventure?” She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not in front of Torres; once she got on the plane her body could do whatever it wanted, but for right now, she was in control. “Come on, baby girl. Say goodbye to Torres.”

  Torres leaned down and kissed the baby’s forehead. “Adios, mija.”

  Then Torres turned to her and kissed her on the forehead again. She would have preferred he kissed her properly on the mouth but she would take what she could get. “Adios, Gatita. Take care of yourself.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Beth handed Alejandra a board book with a rattle built into the top. The baby swung it back and forth like she was waving a flag at a Fourth of July parade. Beth sat back so she would not hit her in the face.

  “Look at you, Thomson, all maternal.” Patterson lifted his feet and put them on her desk. “Please don’t get knocked up on me. Don’t want you going all soft…and the maternity leave shit.”

  “Yeah those six weeks the government gives you, total bullshit. Why give women any time off?” Beth said earnestly. The sarcasm would be lost on Patterson anyway.

  “You know that women in China just squat in the rice paddy, squeeze out the kid and then get back to work? None of this paid leave shit.”

  There was nothing quite like a bit of casual racism to get the day going. “I promise to never have children if you promise the same. God knows your gene pool is nothing we want to be swimming in.”

  Patterson snickered. He picked up one of the business cards from a brass box on the desk and started picking at his teeth. “The safe house is ready for you. Nice set up outside San Antonio. You steal a kid and get a paid vacation. Maybe I should rape somebody’s granny and see if they give me the corner office.”

  “Why don’t you? I’m fairly certain force is the only way you’re going to get sex or a new office anyway. So knock yourself out, Patterson.”

  He smiled again. He loved to be insulted. He probably got off on it but Beth wasn’t going to dwell on it. “Good thing you like the little tamale ’cause you might be spending a lot of time with her.” Patterson gestured to Alejandra.

  Beth’s eyes narrowed. “What? Alejandra is coming with me?” Beth held up her hand in protest. She wasn’t a babysitter. She liked the little girl well enough but she also liked the lions at the San Antonio zoo and she had no plans on sharing a house with them either.

  “Two safe houses?” Patterson made a tut sound. “Run those numbers, and let me know how that works out.”

  “Yeah I get that. But I assumed she would be going to social services. I can’t take care of her.”

  Patterson’s smile widened. “You got the requisite lady parts. You’ll be fine.”

  “Seriously, Patterson, don’t be a jackass. I have absolutely no qualifications.”

  “She eats dirt. What kind of qualifications do you think you need? You’re a sane person of legal age with no prison record.”

  Beth let of a stream of air. “Well sane is debatable,” she said before he could.

  He laughed. “Come on. Get your stuff. I want you guys out before the tamale stinks up the office.”

  She was going to point out that it was her office but there were too many things wrong with Patterson’s last statement to focus on that particular point.

  “Is there anything you want from your house?” he asked.

  Beth shook her head. “No thanks. How am I expected to work with a baby?”

  “What about all that feminist bullshit you ladies spout about having it all?”

  Beth held up a hand in protest. “I don’t want it all. I just want to do my job.”

  “Should have thought of that before you snatched the tamale.”

  “Her name is Alejandra. And what exactly did you expect me to do?”

  “Um…I don’t know, Thomson. Maybe not give it your best attempt at ruining two years of work. That would be a pretty good place to start.”

  Patterson looked comfortable at her desk: a bit too comfortable. “This is still my case.”

  “Who you trying to convince?”

  “I’ll be two hours away. Keep me in the loop with everything. I mean it, Patterson. Don’t be an asshole. Keep tabs on Torres. If there is even a rumbling, I want him out.”

  Patterson put back the business card he had just been using to pick his teeth. “What is
it with you and that bald Mexican? You boning him?”

  “Screw you, Patterson. We have an agent in the field, against my better judgement I should add. I want him safe.”

  Patterson held up a finger, like a teacher scolding a naughty schoolgirl. “Your judgement hasn’t been the best of late.”

  “Screw you!” She didn’t realise she had shouted until Alejandra reacted startled. “The baby is on me. I hold my hands up to that. But what happened in Culiacan is just as much on you and every other agent on the Treinta task force. Someone’s information was bad or maybe someone picked silver over lead,” she said pointedly.

  There was a saying amongst the cartels: plata o plomo – silver or lead. Police had two choices: they could accept bribes (plata) or they would be shot (plomo). Either way the cartels would get what they wanted.

  Patterson’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

  “I don’t like that Martinez was tipped off.”

  “Fuck you, Thomson. How dare you accuse me!” Patterson stood up.

  “I didn’t accuse you. If you have a guilty conscience, that’s on you.”

  Patterson shook his head. “What’s gotten into you? You’re not usually such a bitch.”

  “Witnessing a triple homicide will do that to a girl.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Beth stared at her computer screen. The bright light of the screen hurt her eyes. Maybe she should call it a night. She glanced at the clock 2:17am. She had worked past midnight again. Being based in San Antonio had surprisingly little impact on her productivity. If anything she was more efficient because there were no distractions. There was no one to talk to other than the agents that guarded the house and the nanny who had been assigned for Alejandra. She was the widow of a former agent. She looked mid-sixties but Beth wasn’t great with ages. She was pleasant enough and she spoke Spanish, which was nice for Alejandra.

  They had been in the safe house just over three weeks and there had been no word of Torres. Beth read through everything from work daily to check, but nothing since the last shipment of cocaine. Patterson’s intelligence had been right. Torres had moved another thirty kilos of cocaine into Texas via the World Trade Bridge. That was all Beth knew, that as of fifteen days ago he was alive and well. She studied the grainy black and white photo. He looked good, from what she could see from the blurry picture.

  Beth rubbed her eyes; time to call it a night.

  Her mobile phone rang on the table, vibrating and scooting across the glass surface. It was Patterson. Her heart picked up speed. Calls after midnight were never good.

  “Hey.”

  “You watching the news.”

  “No. Why?”

  “Turn on CNN.” Patterson sounded flustered.

  “I don’t have cable. What is it?”

  “They have a website or some shit…I don’t know. Just look it up.”

  Beth squeezed the phone. “What am I looking for?”

  “Torres.”

  Her heart stopped. Her phone fell through her hands onto the glass table. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “Is he…” She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  “I’ll send you the link,” Patterson said again.

  Beth’s eyes darted to the computer. “Just tell me if he’s OK.”

  “I don’t know. Watch the video.”

  Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit. “Where is the link?” Beth demanded as she pounded the refresh button on her computer over and over until the new message appeared.

  The newsreader began the segment with a warning about the graphic nature of the footage. The scene changed to the courthouse in the historic centre of Bogotá. Beth recognised it from the summer she had spent as an exchange student in South America.

  Her brows knit together in confusion. “This is in Colombia. What does this have to do with Torres?”

  “Keep watching.”

  Beth listened as the disembodied voice of a foreign correspondent explained that four heads had been sent to the American consulate with a note warning the DEA to take their spies home. A picture flashed on the screen of the victims but there was no way to make out the faces because the network had pixelated them to comply with decency laws. In truth the viewer now would have no idea what they were looking at had they not just been told.

  “Torres isn’t in South America. He’s in Mexico.” She breathed a sigh of relief. Beth should not be happy. They had lost four agents today. Four families had lost someone they loved.

  But it wasn’t Torres. She closed her eyes. Thank God.

  “Torres was in Colombia as of seventy-two hours ago.”

  “Bullshit. I was just looking at a picture of him crossing into Laredo.”

  “That was a week ago. He went to Colombia after that. There was supposed to be another shipment of cocaine.”

  Beth shook her head. Patterson was winding her up. She knew he could be an asshole but this was out of order. You don’t make jokes about the safety of your agents; it was tempting fate too much. “I never gave him clearance to go to Colombia.”

  “You didn’t have to. It’s above your pay grade.”

  Beth squeezed the phone until her fingers shook. “What the hell do you mean? This isn’t funny, Patterson. This is a dick move, even for you.”

  There was a long silence. “I’m sorry, Beth,” he said softly.

  The use of her first name nearly undid her. He only ever called her Thomson or California. No! Her mind screamed.

  “Did you send him to Colombia? You asshole!” If Patterson were there she would have punched him in the throat.

  “It wasn’t me. This was the first I have heard of it.”

  “Bullshit,” Beth screamed. “We are in charge of the Treinta task force. Nobody else could have sent him.”

  “It is bigger than the Treintas.”

  Beth took a second to process the information. It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t think.

  “I’m sorry, Beth,” Patterson said again. “I know he was your recruit. This must be hard for you. I’m genuinely sorry.”

  “Screw you. He had no business being anywhere near Colombia.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was laced with sympathy. This wasn’t the Patterson she knew. Where was her misogynistic and borderline racist partner? This wasn’t right. Maybe it was another dream. Shit she couldn’t breathe. She was gasping but the air wouldn’t move past her constricted throat.

  “Beth are you there?” Patterson asked.

  She tried to speak but it came out like the squeak of a mouse caught in a trap.

  “Take some time off. Go see your family. I can get it arranged this end. We’ll send a few agents with you. Take a week.”

  Beth closed her eyes. “No,” she managed to say. She took a deep breath. Torres is a detail. Focus on the big picture. She repeated the words over and over to herself until she was focused enough to speak. She hated herself for doing it, making him one of the details she ignored, but she had to do it, she couldn’t keep going if he was real. She licked her dry lips. “Have they been identified formally?”

  “We’re still waiting on DNA.”

  “That will take too long. I need to see the original pictures.”

  “I don’t have them yet. Beth, do you really want to see them?”

  Of course she didn’t want to see them but she had to. “Yes. We need to make a preliminary identification. Who are the other three agents?”

  “I have no idea. They weren’t ours. There is some talk that they were from San Diego.”

  Beth shook her head. That didn’t make sense either. All of Torres’ associates were from Texas or Nueva Laredo. “Maybe it’s not Torres.” She was grasping at straws. “Check his house in Mazatlan. You personally, Patterson, I want you to do it. Also check movement on his passport. If he really flew to Colombia, there would be a record of it.”

  “Beth, listen. Torres definitely was in Colombia and there is no record of him leaving.”

  Beth shook her
head. “He could have driven out. Check his house in Laredo.”

  “We have. Both places are empty. He’s not there.”

  Beth didn’t hear the rest of the conversation beyond something about DNA confirmation. “I can’t talk right now.” The phone slid from her fingers and hit the glass table.

  Her head dropped. She held her face in her hands. Her heart hurt, grief and guilt squeezed it until she could feel her blood stagnating. Maybe she was having a heart attack. Is this what they felt like? Why couldn’t she breathe? How could her body hurt so much? Oh God she was going to be sick. Bile burned in the back of her throat. She ran to the bathroom, barely making it before her stomach clenched. There was nothing in her stomach but her body didn’t care. She was sick again and again until the bile she was bringing up was streaked with blood. She tried telling herself to let go of the details. It was all about the big picture.

  But Torres wasn’t a detail.

  “Oh, God,” she cried. She held onto the toilet seat as another wave of nausea hit her. Torres…not Torres. She slid down to the floor. The tiles were cold. And wet. Her hands went to her eyes. She was crying.

  She lay on the bathroom floor for hours or maybe it was minutes. There was no way to tell. Her body ached all over. But she was grateful for it. She needed the pain. She deserved it. It gave her something to focus on, without it she might scream and if she started she might never stop.

  Slowly she pulled herself up off the floor. She needed to get to…shit what did she need to do? There had to be something she should be doing. Should she call his mother? Immediately she rejected the idea. They needed to wait for DNA confirmation. It might take weeks…but those were weeks where Silvia Torres would still have a son. She would be childless after that. She had already lost two sons to gang violence. She needed those weeks. Beth needed to give her those weeks, let her world be whole for a little bit longer.