Blurring the Line

by Kierney Scott

  Torres kissed a tear from her cheek. “And I told you, you’re not great at faking things. The good is all you.”

  She wasn’t convinced. She wasn’t nearly as nice as he seemed to think. Maybe she shouldn’t tell him, or maybe she should have told him before. Shit. “ Look. Torres. I took advantage of you.”

  His dark brow arched in question. “Are you talking about sex?”

  Beth shook her head. “No, I manipulated you to get you on the task force. I used your history against you. I spoke to Frazer first so I would know exactly how to turn the knife. It was emotional blackmail. And I was proud of myself. I would have told you anything. I didn’t care that it was dangerous. I didn’t care that I could get you killed. I didn’t care that you would have to do horrible things. Those were all details that I was happy to overlook. They meant nothing to me. You were just a tool to move me higher up the food chain.”

  “And?”

  “And. It was a shitty thing to do. But I would do it again. But not to you, to someone else. Because I’m a hypocrite and it is OK to use people as long as you don’t care about them. How messed up is that?”

  “Do you want me to be angry?” Torres stared down at his hands.

  “Yeah. Maybe I do. I want you to be so pissed that you tell me to fuck off and leave the DEA all together. When you walk out the door, I want to know that you will be safe. Don’t go after Martinez. I used you. Just quit. Please, Torres.” Her voice broke.

  “I can’t quit, Gatita. You don’t want me to quit.”

  “I do!” she shouted. “Quit. Go to Austin. Go anywhere. Just stop.” She didn’t care about El Escorpion or a job in California. She would happily take a pay cut and make up the difference with shifts at Max’s diner. She heard they had just fired a waitress. She would do anything for him to quit.

  “I can’t. I need this. You need this. You won’t be safe until it’s done. Don’t ask me again.”

  Beth shook her head. “I don’t need you dead. That’s what will happen. I don’t need that, Torres. Is killing Martinez really worth it?”

  Torres wrapped his arms around her and held her. She shook.

  She pushed the anxiety as far down as she could. Fear was ruining her time with him. Every time he left she knew it might be the last time she saw him. She knew that, accepted it even, but now the uncertainty had taken over. It was a real, living breathing being, sucking the air from her lungs and clouding her vision, pushing out all the light, leaving her only shadows and darkness and more fear.

  Beth glanced at her watch, willing it to stop and give her a few more hours with him, or even minutes.

  “Torres, every time I see you, I am scared that it will be our last time.”

  “I know,” he said. This time he didn’t offer her any promises or tell her everything was going to be all right.

  Just lie to me. She willed him to tell her it was going to be OK.

  But he didn’t.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Beth waited for Torres’ call. She lay on the couch watching the eleven o’clock news. He always called at 9pm. If he wasn’t free to call, he texted her, always at 9pm. Beth checked to make sure her phone was on.

  She sat up and tucked her legs under her. She stared at the phone, commanding it to ring. There could be a million reasons why he hadn’t called. Bad reception! That was what it was. He was in an area with bad reception, or maybe his phone needed to be charged.

  She fought the urge to call him. She couldn’t. It wasn’t safe. It would be epically stupid, but if she were guaranteed to hear his voice at the other end, she would have done it.

  At some point Beth must have fallen asleep waiting for Torres to call. When she woke up she had a sore neck from lying on the side of the arm of the couch. The television was still on, an infomercial playing, with a camp man telling her how she could get abs like his in just a few minutes every day.

  Beth rubbed her neck. Yep she could have those abs, if those minutes involved a trip to a plastic surgeon or a tutorial on Photoshop.

  Beth grabbed her phone. There was one missed message. It was from Torres, thank God. She breathed a sigh of relief as she opened the message.

  It’s over. Everything is OK

  She shook her head. What was he talking about? What was over? Her eyes narrowed when she noticed the GPS. The message was sent from Bogotá. Beth shook her head again. That couldn’t be right. Last time she spoke to him he was in Mazatlan and had no plans of leaving until be brought another shipment through Laredo.

  She didn’t have very long to think about it. Her phone rang in her hand. She nearly dropped it when the dulcet tones of Carly Simon started singing. It was Patterson.

  “It isn’t even 6am,” Beth said when she answered the call.

  “Did you get my email?”

  Beth reached for her laptop. “No, I just woke up. What’s going on?”

  “Martinez is dead. I sent you the photos. Fucking brutal, even for the Zetas. Check out the third one. His heart was cut out. Who does that? Oh and his eyes and tongue. Fuck they were gouged out. He was alive for it. Look at that blood. Christ I didn’t even know people had that much blood. Officially we’ll wait for a confirmation from the Colombians but it is him. Check out the Treinta tattoo on his hand.”

  Panic seized Beth. Her mouth was too dry to speak. “Colombia? He was killed in Colombia?”

  “Yeah he has an apartment in Bogotá. Son of a bitch was gutted like a fish. Did you open the file? Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  Beth cleared her throat. “My computer isn’t loading. Any idea who did it?”

  “No idea. This was a sick son of a bitch though. Want me to send it again? You need to see the last picture.”

  Beth couldn’t concentrate. Torres was in Bogotá as of three hours ago. “Just tell me what it is. I don’t need to see it. You’re the only one who gets off on it, Patterson. Just tell me what it is.”

  “Trust me, whoever did this got off on it. This was personal.”

  Beth closed her eyes. Her mind was racing too fast for her to keep up and put together a coherent thought.

  “You there, Thomson?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to see the last picture,” Patterson said again. “He had a file on you with a shitload of pictures. Shit I betting he was jacking off to them. He had the photo that was sent to Flores on his computer. Martinez is the one who ordered the hit. You’re safe now, California. You’re coming home, Thomson,” Patterson reported triumphantly.

  Beth couldn’t get her breath. Her chest hurt.

  “This is the part where you should squeal like a pig and offer to suck my dick because you’re so glad to be getting home.”

  Beth cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’m happy. Thank you, Patterson. I…I…just…I…it has just been a tough couple months.”

  “Damn, Thomson. You’re never this quiet. What’s wrong with you?”

  Beth slowly counted to ten in her mind. She needed to focus. “What about Alejandra? What’s going to happen to her?”

  “What is it with you and the little tamale? Don’t go soft on me, Thomson.”

  “I’m not going soft. What is going to happen to her?”

  “There is a cousin somewhere in Sinaloa. Social services are checking it out. If Mexican social services are anything like the American ones, this could take a couple of week or months, shit I don’t know.”

  “She can stay with me until it is time to take her home.”

  “Shit, Thomson, you’ve gone soft.”

  “I haven’t gone soft. She doesn’t need to be passed from pillar to post. I will keep her for a few weeks. She knows me. She can go to the day care at the office. It just makes sense. I am not being soft. I’m just not being an ass. You should try it sometime.”

  Patterson laughed. “There is the badass Cali girl I know. Nothing soft about you, Thomson, keep it that way.”

  “See you tomorrow. It will take the rest of the day to pack up. There is
so much baby paraphernalia. You have no idea how much crap little people need.” She was going home. Relief washed over her. It was over: nobody out there trying to kill her. So why did her gut hurt like she had been kicked?

  “See you, Thomson.”

  She always knew this was how it was going to end, with Martinez dead, after all that is how she had gotten Torres to sign on the dotted line. She had dangled Archila’s killer like a carrot. She was culpable. Martinez was a detail, so why did it hurt to breathe?

  ***

  It took just under an hour to pack up. Beth had a time-honoured system of throwing things into boxes. Anything that broke wasn’t worth having anyway.

  “We’re going home, baby girl.” Beth caressed the baby’s soft curls. “Well I’m going home. We’ll get you home too. I promise.” Beth picked her up and kissed the top of her head.

  Beth reached out her hand to Cynthia. They had shared a house for almost two months. She was going to miss the knowing looks the older woman shot her. They were always laced with judgement but Beth would miss them all the same because goodbyes were hard for her. Beth would even miss a thorn in her side because the empty space was worse than the pain. “Thank you for taking such good care of Alejandra.”

  The baby smiled when she heard her name.

  Cynthia took her hand and then surprised her by pulling her into an embrace. “Take care, Beth.” She was pressed against her, her arms soft and comforting.

  “You too, Cynthia.”

  Cynthia took Alejandra and put her in the car while Beth did one final sweep of the house to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. In truth she just wanted to see the house again one final time, say goodbye as it were. She really was bad at transitions.

  Slowly she made her way to the end of the hall. She stared at the closed door of her bedroom for a long time. A lot of memories were made there. She closed her eyes. Time to move on, from the house, from this part of her life; time to say goodbye.

  ***

  Her house looked so small, and different, it didn’t feel like home any more. Maybe it never had and being away just made it more apparent. Beth shrugged, it didn’t matter: Texas would never really be her home anyway.

  Patterson had made sure it was ready for her coming home. He had stocked the house with fresh groceries and diapers for Alejandra. When her partner wasn’t being an ass, he was actually very considerate. She would rather die than admit that, which was probably for the best because Patterson would kill her before he let go of his ass hat persona. He rarely showed it, but under the jackass exterior, he had a good heart.

  Beth thanked the agent who drove her home. He set up Alejandra’s crib in her spare bedroom while they played in the back yard. Beth offered to make him a cup of coffee but he wanted to get back to his family in San Antonio. Alejandra waved to him as he drove off, leaving them alone for the first time. “It’s just us, mija,” Beth sighed.

  Beth sat the baby on the couch next to her. “So baby girl, what do you want to do?”

  Alejandra grabbed the remote control and put it in her mouth.

  “Really. That is what you want to do? The world is your oyster, baby, think bigger than remote controls.” Beth tickled her tummy. Alejandra laughed and swung her arms back and forth.

  “Baby girl, this is the first time in two months nobody has wanted to hurt us. We need to celebrate. Yes we do.” Beth ticked her tummy again and Alejandra squealed her delight. “Yes we do.”

  In truth Beth just needed to get out of the house. She buckled Alejandra in the back of her Jeep Grand Cherokee. She adjusted the rear-view mirror so she could see the baby.

  There was no place to be and no time she needed to get there. Beth hit the freeway and drove.

  “Where should we go?” Beth asked. She glanced in her rear-view mirror. Alejandra’s head rested on the side of her seat, fast asleep.

  Beth smiled. “Transitions hard on you too, baby girl?”

  Beth took the next exit. She didn’t want to go home. She wasn’t ready to start this chapter of her life. Maybe she shouldn’t have offered to take care of Alejandra. She had no idea what to do with a baby or how long it would be.

  Beth pulled over to the side of the road. She needed to talk. She pulled out her cell phone and dialled her sister’s number.

  “Hey, I was beginning to think you had entered the witness protection programme,” Paige said.

  “I kind of did,” Beth admitted. She stared at a field of bluebonnets on the side of the freeway as she poured her heart out to her little sister. Once she started talking, everything came out, details she had forgotten, details she was hoping to soon forget.

  “My God, Beth, you had a hit out on you and you didn’t think to call me?” Paige said when Beth finished talking.

  “I know. I know. I know. But it is over now. I’m fine. We’re fine. I still have the baby. Mexican social services still need to sort things out, so I have her for the next couple of weeks. I have no idea how I am going to manage to take care of her and work.” That reminded her she needed to phone the day care and make sure Alejandra was fine to start in the morning. Patterson said he had taken care of it but she wanted to double check.

  “You’ll be fabulous. You could do the mom thing in your sleep.”

  “I’m not sure,” she said dubiously as she glanced at Alejandra in the rear-view mirror. “It kind of freaks me out that I am responsible for a little person. I don’t know what I’m doing, I just make stuff up as I go.”

  “I think that is the definition of parenting.”

  “I’m not a parent. I don’t want to be a parent. I am a temporary guardian. Can you believe someone has trusted me with a care of a child?”

  “The baby will be fine. You never fail at anything. Think of keeping her happy and alive as a project. Someone somewhere will be grading you.”

  Beth shook her head. “No that makes it worse. I usually fail at everything the first time but keep going until I get it right.”

  Paige laughed. “Again I think that is another way to define parenting.”

  “Again not a parent. Legal Guardian.”

  Paige laughed again. “You’ll be fine. Now tell me about your agent. You have it bad for this guy. When do I get to meet him?”

  Beth shrugged, forgetting that her sister couldn’t actually see her. “You won’t. I don’t know, God I don’t know anything.” Beth shook her head.

  “You love him, I can hear that in your voice.”

  “I know. I’m so stupid. I feel like mom.”

  “Why, did your guy rob a bank too?” Paige joked.

  Beth closed her lids together. No, worse, he murdered someone. But Beth couldn’t tell her sister that. He had probably killed several people but Beth had ignored those details. People’s lives were details to her. She shook her head. “He just isn’t right for me, that’s all.”

  “What does right for you even mean? I’m still waiting to find someone that wrong for me.”

  Beth smiled. Her younger sister was beautiful, far prettier than Beth. They looked very similar except Beth was the messy first draft that needed heavy edits before it would be presentable and Paige was the polished manuscript, her hair shinier, her features softer, her body more graceful. There was no doubt that Paige would have many great loves. Beth just hoped whoever Paige chose loved her as much as Beth did. “Hey Paige. I want you and Mom to come see me. I am going to send you tickets.”

  “OK. We would love to see you. When were you thinking?” The silver lining with her mom being fired was she had all the time in the world to spend with Beth in Texas. Beth wouldn’t let herself think about how much time she actually had left with her mom being the woman she recognised as her mother.

  “Today,” Beth said. She needed her family now, not tomorrow, not next week.

  Paige laughed. “OK. Call me when you have the details. I love you Beth. Thank you for calling me, I missed my big sister.”

  Beth’s heart constricted. She missed her too.


  Beth drove home. She carried Alejandra’s sleeping form into the house and laid her in the crib. She watched her sleep for a minute before she quietly closed the door. She opened her computer to book tickets for her mom and sister.

  Beth took a deep breath. In her inbox was the message from Patterson. She hadn’t opened it yet because she didn’t want to see it. Did she want to see it now?

  Beth closed her eyes as she clicked on the attachment. The photos downloaded slowly, sixteen in total. Beth scrolled down through each one. She forced herself to look at each one, take in every detail.

  The first photo was the slumped body of Martinez. In the forefront of the picture was a pool of blood but it was what was in the background that caught her eye. Through the open window she could see El Carmen Church. She immediately recognised the red and white horizontal stripes that covered the building’s exterior. The beauty of the building was in the unique candy cane-styled cladding. No other building looked like it in historic Bogotá.

  Beth tried to work out in which building Martinez had been living. She shook her head. Did it matter? He was dead. She was looking at a picture of his dead body and she was admiring the architecture. Had the violence become so second nature to her that the most prominent feature of the photo was a glimpse of a building she had admired ten years ago? God she was sick. No wonder she could view murder as an inconvenient detail.

  She scrolled through the photos. She memorised each of them before she moved onto the next because she had no intention of ever looking at them again.

  The pictures became more graphic as she scrolled through them, the angles tighter, the detail more vivid. God she was doing it again, critiquing the quality of the photography instead of focusing on the real issue: a man was dead and Torres had killed him.

  She forced herself to look at Martinez, only see him. It didn’t matter that he had a statue of the Virgin Mary on the table by the window. It didn’t matter that he had obviously just sat down for a meal when he was attacked. Why were those the details her eyes went to? What about his tongue that was cut from his mouth and placed in his hand? What about the sockets that once held eyes or the open cavity in his chest where his heart once beat? God she was sick. Why didn’t those keep her attention? Maybe she was a sociopath. That could be it. Maybe that is why people were only details to her.