Blurring the Line (26 page)

Yep, she loved Torres. God help her. She finally understood what her mom was talking about, that irrational love that you know isn’t good for you.

Torres put together the meatloaf and stuck it in the oven before going to the sink to wash his hands. “How long has the faucet been leaking?” he asked as he dried his hands on the back of his jeans.

“Since I moved in. One of the agents on my detail tried to fix it but he made it worse.” Beth pointed to the tools lying on the counter.

Torres picked up the wrench and went to work. Beth watched in amazement as he dismantled the pipe and reconnected it. He turned on the water again, let it run for a few seconds and then turned it off again.

Beth shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you could fix it.”

Half of Torres’ mouth raised in his signature half smile. “It wasn’t that hard. Alejandra could have done it.”

“Glad to see your smirking side is better.”

Torres laughed.

They set the table. Torres opened a bottle of wine and poured her a glass. “Why don’t you drink?” she asked him.

“You’re not the only one who likes to be in control.”

“You would still be in control after one glass of wine.”

“I would rather not find out,” he said curtly. “Sorry,” he said realising his harsh tone. “I made a choice as a kid to never drink. I saw what it did to my dad and my brothers. I didn’t want that.”

“Carlos and Jose, right?” Beth asked. She had their names in her files somewhere, along with their prison records and death certificates.

“Go on,
Gatita
. I know you want to ask me about them.”

She smiled. “I do but I also know you don’t want to talk about it.”

Torres sat down on the couch beside her. “I don’t want to keep anything from you. They were both Zetas as I am sure you know. Both of them were killed in drive-by shootings, six months apart. I was in Iraq.”

Beth nodded. “But you never got involved with the Zetas?” Before she recruited him, she meant. Torres was the perfect recruit, his record was clean, he had a sterling military career and yet no one would have thought twice about him joining the Zetas. He looked the part in every way. Landing him had been the highlight of her career. It had secured her position at the head of the task force.

“Nope. Just like the drinking, I didn’t need to experience it myself to know it was stupid. Besides, my mom deserves one law-abiding child.”

Realisation spread over her. “That is why you held out at first, when I came to your house. When I asked you to join the DEA?”

Torres nodded.

“Because of your mom. You didn’t want her to think you had joined a gang too.”

Torres let out a long stream of air. “I haven’t seen her in two years. When she found out I was a Zeta she cried and said I was as good as dead. It was only time…and she couldn’t watch me die a bit at a time. The first thing I am going to do when we find El Escorpion is go to see my mom. I need to make it right.”

Beth laid her hand on Torres’ arm. “I’m sorry.” She wished she could tell him to go and see his mom, but she couldn’t, not yet.

“Beth, if something happens to me, I want you to explain it to my mom. I want it to be you. I don’t want it to come from anybody else. And I want her to meet you anyway.”

A lump formed in Beth’s throat. No matter how hard she swallowed she could not shift it. She wanted to tell him that it would never come to that but they both knew it was a very real possibility.

Torres stood up. “Come on,
Gatita
. There is gravy to be made. I’m still not convinced, but never let it be said that I won’t try things.”

Beth followed him through to the kitchen and watched him sauté onions and mushrooms. He added some of the red wine he had brought and covered it to let it thicken.

Beth plated up the meatloaf and mashed potatoes and covered the entire plate with gravy. Just how she remembered it.

“So what do you think?” she asked after Torres had had a chance to try it.

“Pretty good for
Gringa
food.”

Beth smiled as she took a bite. It tasted exactly like she remembered. “Mmm, can you see why this is my favourite?”

“It’s only your favourite because you haven’t had my mom’s tamales. Once this is over, we’re going to my mom’s for some proper food.”

Beth’s heart skipped a beat. He was talking about them in the future. She told herself not to get excited. People say ‘come by anytime’ but it is not an invitation until somebody pulls out their calendar and starts pencilling in dates. “Yeah that would be nice. I love tamales.”

“The bean and jalapeño ones are the best.”

Beth turned away so he couldn’t see her face.

“What’s wrong,
Gatita
?”

Beth shook her head. “I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“The future.” Beth shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what is going to happen.”

“Nobody does. That’s part of the fun.”

“I don’t think it’s fun. I don’t like it.”

“Would knowing the end help you enjoy all the parts in between better? Isn’t it better not knowing what’s coming so you can live in the moment and enjoy everything as it comes?”

Beth shook her head. “I can’t enjoy the parts in between if I don’t know when it’s all going to be over.”

Torres leaned over and kissed her temple. “It ends the same for all of us, one last breath and then we meet our maker. Let yourself enjoy the parts in between. There is a lot of joy out there, Beth, if you let yourself have it.”

“How can you still believe that? After everything you have seen?”

Torres took a deep breath. “I met you. You reminded me that there is good in the world. The night in the hotel, I should have taken you home but with you around I saw…” Torres shrugged. “And in Culiacan when you took Alejandra from the car, I wanted to strangle you but I admired you, screaming and swearing and all. I looked at you and I thought ‘that is a good woman: a crazy woman but a good woman’. You make be remember there is good in the world.”

Beth started to cry.

“Damn it. I did it again,” Torres muttered. “Please, don’t cry,
Gatita
.”

Beth wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I told you I just fake being a good person.”

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?