Читать книгу Holding The Line - Kierney Scott - Страница 10

Chapter One

“Pretty Girl, can you please put on your shoes. We’re going to be late.” Again. She left the last part unsaid but that is what Beth meant. They were going to be late again, this time to school. The destination had changed but their MO hadn’t. It was kind of her thing now. She had not been on time to work since Alejandra had entered her life, and by that she meant, since Beth had taken the then baby from a bullet-ridden car in Mazatlan and never given her back. Families were formed in lots of different ways. Beth’s small family was formed when she rescued Alejandra from the hit that had annihilated the little girl’s entire family. Sadly no bookshop in the world carried a book to explain that nuclear family. If Alejandra had two dads or was being raised by mom and her lesbian life partner, they would be golden. But as it were, there were no books about families forged through the violence of warring drug cartels.

Beth leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She had arranged her long dark curls into two braids. “I mean it. Shoes on now or no books tonight at bedtime. I’m serious.”

Alejandra shook her head. “No, Mama, you’re not. I always get a book even when I’m bad.” The little girl smiled sweetly before skipping off in the opposite direction.

“When did my sweet baby girl get so sassy?” Beth asked in exasperation. But Alejandra was right, she always got at least two books at bedtime no matter what. Beth was soft, too soft. She had never imagined she would be such a pushover as a parent. Part of the problem is that parenthood had not been a conscious decision. Beth never considered the consequences of being a mother when she pulled Alejandra from the car in Mexico. She hadn’t been thinking at all. Something primal took over when she saw Alejandra’s brown eyes brimming with tears. Taking Alejandra was the biggest mistake of her career and the best decision of her life.

Beth heard her front door open.

“I have the camera. Let’s get a picture of Ally before she goes to school. I can’t believe Baby Girl is in kindergarten now. I have a surprise for you!”

Beth turned to see her sister Paige at the front door, camera in one hand and a cake in the other.

Beth shook her head. “Paige, I am not giving her cake before her first day of school. I want them to think I am a good parent.”

Paige smiled. “You really need to stop caring what people think. And of course I am going to give her cake. It is her first day of formal education. This is to be celebrated. Next thing we know she will be in high school and then she will be off to Yale and then doing her doctorate at Oxford. Life is short, Beth, eat cake.”

Alejandra came running towards her sister. Paige barely had time to set the pink pastry box down before Alejandra jumped into her arms.

“Happy first day of school, Baby Girl.”

“I’m not a baby girl any more. I’m a big girl,” Alejandra informed her.

“Of course you’re a big girl. You’re a big kindergarten girl. Who loves you, Big Girl?” Paige asked.

“Mommy and Auntie Paige, and Grandma.” Alejandra answered.

Beth’s heart constricted at the mention of her mom. She tried to shake off the sadness that clung to her every time her mom was mentioned but she couldn’t, it never fully left her. She always put on a smile for Alejandra, but she never felt it.

Paige handed Beth the camera. “Bethy, get a picture of us.”

Beth shook her head. “One picture and then school. Just once I would like you to be on time.” Who was she kidding? It wasn’t going to happen.

“Better to be late the first day. Don’t let them get their expectations too high. Let them know from the start that you’re that mom. You are always going to be late and anything you provide for bake sales will be out of a box. They just need to accept it. So do you for that matter.” Paige’s nose scrunched up when she smiled.

Beth sighed. “I don’t want them thinking I am that mom… Well not until after Christmas. I want to make it a full semester before they realize I have no idea what I am doing. How long did it take you to figure out I’m a hot mess?” Beth asked Alejandra. She used her sister holding Alejandra as an opportunity to put her shoes on her.

“You’re funny, Mommy.” Alejandra laughed.

“Yep I am hilarious. And I am late. So are you. You’re killing me, kid. I just wanted to make it until Christmas.”

“But what about the cake?” Paige asked.

Beth shook her head. Cake for breakfast was too much even for Beth. “She can have cake after dinner tonight.”

“Can we take some to Grandma?” Alejandra asked.

Beth and Paige looked at each other waiting for the other to speak. Beth cleared her throat. “Sure, Pretty Girl. We can take cake to Grandma.”

The look on Paige’s face told her, her sister was surprised by her answer. Why should she be surprised, she was still their mom.

Ninety minutes later Beth was finally at her desk. She had anticipated tears at the school gate, but from Alejandra, not from her and certainly not from Paige, but the pair of them blubbered away until Mrs. Emerson very politely assured them that it was always harder on the parents than the children. Beth finally left, assured the Alejandra was happy in her new classroom. She had always been just an elevator ride away. One of the perks of her job was the onsite daycare. Beth and Alejandra had had lunch together at least twice a week for the last four years. It was their special time; no matter how hectic her day got, if Beth was in the office, she did her best to carve out forty-five minutes where she could sit with her daughter and chat and eat peanut butter sandwiches and drink juice out of a box. God she was going to miss that.

“Man up, Thomson,” Beth said out loud. There was just enough time for a pep talk before she fired up her computer and got stuck into the exciting world of narco terrorism. There were bank accounts to be analyzed and she was just the girl to do it.

There was a knock on her door. Beth looked up.

“I’m not that late, so save it, Patterson.” Beth only looked up briefly. She had already lost the best part of the morning. She was going to have to put off her daily pissing contest with her partner until this afternoon.

Patterson stood in her doorway. “Beth, can I have a quick word?”

Her back straightened. He never called her Beth. No, that wasn’t precisely true, he called her by her first name twice. But that was years ago, and she didn’t want to go back to that place ever again. It was a dark time, one that nearly destroyed her both personally and professionally.

“What’s up?” Beth pushed away from her desk.

Patterson looked at the floor, his hands clenched and unclenched several times.

He didn’t move. He filled the doorway. He was just over six feet. He had the heavily muscled body of a football player, which made sense because he had played for Texas A&M. His hair was not far off Beth’s dirty blond, but his was streaked from the sun. He looked like he belonged on the back of a horse with a gun in one hand and a beer in the other. The look obviously worked for him because he had slept with half the women in South Texas. The other half were still waiting for the spot on his rotation, Beth had no doubt he would get through all of them if given enough time.

“Sit down already. You’re making me nervous,” Beth said.

Patterson swallowed. His larynx bobbed, evidence of his discomfort.

The small hairs on Beth’s neck stood taut. He had been her partner for a long time, over a decade. Their years together had taught her how to read him. He clenched his hands when he was angry. He swallowed when he was nervous. He couldn’t look at her when he had something to say that he knew would upset her.

“What’s up?”

“Beth… Um,” Patterson let out a long stream of air.

“Just say it. We both know I can take it. Whatever it is, just say it. Unless it’s my kid.” Beth jumped out of her seat. “Is it Alejandra? Is she OK?”

Patterson put his hand out. “Yeah, yeah, yeah she is fine.”

Beth let out the breath she had been holding. As long as her sister and Alejandra were OK she could handle anything. If someone told her that four years ago, she would have laughed. She wasn’t strong, that is what she would have told you. She was scared but she had grown up a lot since then. She didn’t have the luxury of being scared or weak any more. She was somebody’s mom now. She had a little person who needed her to be brave. And she was, for Alejandra she was brave.

“Then just spit it out. I got my big girl panties on. Want to see them?” Beth smiled.

Patterson briefly looked up. A quick shadow of a smile flashed on his lips. When he didn’t respond with a comment that verged on sexual harassment, Beth knew whatever he was holding back, wasn’t going to be something she wanted to hear.

“We just got a call from Mexico City.”

Beth waited for him to finish but he didn’t. “Uh huh… And?” They liaised with the Mexico City office on a daily basis; it was hardly a reason for concern.

“And it’s Torres. Look, I don’t know how to say this.” Patterson looked up. “He’s dead.”

Beth’s heart stopped in her chest. For a suspended moment, there was nothing. No beating of her heart, no rise and fall of her chest, nothing. In that moment she was gone, her body belonged to someone else, she felt and saw nothing.

And then she came crashing back. Her heart attacked her ribs, thumping like it was trying to break free.

Torres.

It wasn’t a name she had heard in a long time, four years. She would be lying if she said she didn’t think of him. She did. Not as much as she did in the beginning but she still did and it still stung like alcohol poured in a fresh cut. For a brief, intense period, Torres was her world, her rock, her reason to believe. But then he left. No looking back, he just left, without a word, he was gone.

Beth struggled to get her breath. Something was squeezing her chest, sucking the air from her lungs. The pain was fresh again. Just hearing his name was enough to take her back to that day. Oh God, it hurt. It shouldn’t still hurt like this but it did.

Beth squeezed her lids together and forced air deep into her lungs. She needed to get it together. Torres was in the past. He was just a memory.

“Beth are you OK? I know you two were close.”

Her head snapped up. “I slept with him, that’s it. I’ve slept with lots of people. I’m fine.” It was a lie. He wasn’t just some guy she slept with. He was Torres. He was the only man she had been stupid enough to trust, to love. Her legs buckled and she fell to her seat. Her head dropped to her hands. How? No he couldn’t be dead. She would have felt something, anything. No.

“Beth, take the day.”

She held up her hand. “Don’t. I don’t need the day. He wasn’t even my agent any more. I’m fine.”

She waited for the news to sink in. Why didn’t she feel something? Where was her anger? Her sadness? Shit, she would settle for any emotion. No there was one emotion left: confusion. “How? When? How do you know? Who told you? Torres left the DEA four years ago. Why would the Mexico City office still keeps tabs on our agent?”

Patterson’s gaze did not lift from the blue carpet. “He was still undercover.”

Beth’s mouth dropped. She tried to speak but no words came to her. She shook her head. She must have misheard him, Torres left the DEA four years ago when he left her.

“He was still looking for El Escorpion when he was killed.” Patterson looked up only to look for her reaction and then his gaze fell to the carpet again. The coffee stain must have been pretty damn interesting because he could not tear his eyes away.

Beth stood up. “Bullshit. I am head of the Treinta Task Force. He was my agent. He walked.”

Patterson shook his head. “I don’t know. All I know is what Jessop told me this morning.”

Beth leant against her desk. Confusion was drowning her. “I need to see him.”

“He’s in his office.”

Beth shook her head. “No. Torres. I need to see his body.”

Patterson looked up. “No. No, you don’t want to see that.”

“I need to see him. He was my agent.” He wasn’t just her agent. He was Torres, the man she thought about more often than she would ever admit.

“Beth, no. The Treintas killed him,” Patterson said. She knew what that meant. Torres would have been decapitated, that was their signature. The head would have been sent to his family and his body left on the side of the road somewhere to be found or eaten by scavenging animals.

“Do you have his head or his body?” she asked. The words sounded cold even to her. At one point she would have considered him her family. Had it been four years ago, she would have been sent his head because she was the closest person in his life. The thought was strange and perverse, but she couldn’t shake it or the sadness she felt when she realized they never were as close as she thought they were. She had imagined it all, the intimacy, the passion, the bond.

“We have his body. Take the day.”

Beth held up her hand. “I don’t need the damn day. I need to see his body. Where is it?”

“You don’t want to see his body.”

“Don’t tell me what I want. I need to see his body.” Her mind was swimming again, being pulled down by fast currents of questions. “How? How could he still be undercover?” It was impossible. Beth read every file ever written on the Treintas. She had written most of them. She knew every agent working in Mexico, by name and face. She would have known if Torres was still undercover.

Patterson lifted his shoulders again.

“Where is his body?”

“The morgue in Laredo. His body was shipped up from Mazatlan yesterday. There is going to be a service tomorrow. Something small. His family is gone. Mom died last year.”

Her breath caught. Oh God. It was real. This was real. Torres was dead. She should feel something. She was empty. Nothing, there was nothing in her.

“I need to see him.”

“Let me drive you.”

Beth shook her head. “No, I’m fine. He isn’t the first agent we have lost. And he probably won’t be our last.”

“But you –”

“Yeah I slept with him. I have slept with a lot of people. I’m fine.”