Blurring the Line (11 page)

“No,” she said defiantly. “He would have raped me and tortured me, but I would have never begged him to kill me. I would have gotten through it and then I would have gone after him. And I wouldn’t stop until I found him and he begged
me
to kill
him
.” She barely had enough oxygen in her lungs to breathe but she spat the words out with enough force for Torres to know they were true.

He leaned in further until his lips brushed her ear. He breathed in deep, letting the clean scent of her wash over him. He shouldn’t be aroused. She was plain, even boring; she said it herself. There was nothing special about her. Her face was forgettable. Her breasts were small. But there was something…something there…his body responded to. It had been so long, he had almost forgotten what it felt like for the blood to pool at his core, for his body to strain almost painfully, ready for the slightest touch to ignite the fire. This time it was he who closed his eyes, not wanting to move. He wouldn’t let himself go any further. It was every shade of fucked up to even think about it. If she knew even a tenth of the depravity that he had been involved in since he joined Los Zetas, she would recoil. The desire he saw in her eyes before would be replaced with disdain and fear, maybe even hatred.

But he didn’t want to let go yet. Once it was over, there was no telling when he would feel it again, the normality of craving another person’s touch. He had had plenty of opportunities for sex over the last two years but any of the women that were willing to take him into their beds wasn’t a woman he wanted to be with.

He breathed in another deep scent of apple from her hair. He moved in closer, just a fraction, so his lips almost brushed her temple. She was so close but he wouldn’t go any further. He could almost feel the softness of her skin. He couldn’t let himself touch her but he could imagine what it would feel like.

And then she turned her head towards him, and he could feel her skin, warm and soft, exactly how he imagined. Her breath was hot on his neck, her body slack and supple beneath him.

“Don’t move,” he breathed against her forehead. Speaking allowed his lips to caress her skin without kissing her. He wasn’t crossing any lines. He was just speaking to her…holding her…letting himself remember what it felt like.

“I can’t, even if I tried.”

Torres closed his eyes again. He would move. He just needed another minute to feel her heart beating against his chest, another minute to smell her hair, and another minute to pretend this was something he could have.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do normal any more, maybe he never could.

“You’re not going to Mexico,” Torres said as he shifted his weight, allowing her to wiggle free if she chose to.

But she didn’t.

“I have to. I’m out of choices, Torres. I need this. I know you want Martinez. And by all rights, he is yours, but I need this.” Her voice was strong but her eyes were pleading.

Martinez. At least the devil had a name now. For two years he had just been the man who had shot Torres and killed Archila. Why had Moses gotten involved with the Zetas? Why had his life deteriorated so much, that he felt that was a viable option? Guilt clawed at him. He should have been there for Moses. He should have tried to get him help sooner. If he had, none of this would have happened. “And then what?”

“Then we’re done. Both of us can move on. We go our separate ways and this all becomes a distant memory that we bore our families with.”

Torres rolled off her. God he wanted to be done. For two years “done” had meant avenging Archila’s death. He never kidded himself that “done” would be moving on. Where could he go where the guilt wouldn’t follow him?

“Martinez was last seen on the border of Sonora and Sinaloa,” he said. He told her as a warning.

Beth was quiet for too long. “You figured that out faster than I thought you would. But actually he is in Culiacan.”

Torres narrowed his eyes. The muscles of his back knotted uncomfortably as anger worked its way through his body. The taste of betrayal was bitter in his mouth. “You knew where Martinez was and you didn’t tell me. You said it yourself, Martinez is mine.”

Beth took a protective step back. The small movement was pointless. Torres could have her pinned again in an instant if he wanted. And he might if he trusted himself. He didn’t have the self-control, anger had robbed him of it.

“I told you enough to find him. I knew you would figure it out eventually. I gave you the gun, I wasn’t going to give you the bullets too.”

Torres nodded slowly. “Is this all part of your credible deniability? Or do you get off on control? What a nice world you live in, where you can get to pick and choose the truth. You get to decide what you know. You tell yourself lies and you actually believe them. Christ I wish the real world was that simple.”

“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.