Blurring The Line. Kierney Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ “Is this the part where you appeal to my patriotism? Maybe bring up the fact that as a son of immigrants I know better than most the importance of preserving the American dream. Trust me darling, I’ve done my bit, got the scars to prove it.”

       He also had a Purple Heart, but he didn’t mention that. Beth’s shoulders dropped. She wasn’t getting through to him. Maybe Patterson was right; this was a lost cause. Maybe her time would be better off sweet-talking jailbirds. She sighed. The only thing she had left was honesty. “Yeah it was, but clearly it’s not going to work. So tell me, Torres, what would work? What do I need to say to you to get you onside?”

       “You’re wasting your breath, Ms. Thomson. I’m not buying what you’re selling.”

       Beth shook her head. “Your best friend was murdered in front of you. I thought you would be more vested in getting justice for him.”

       His jaw tightened, tan skin stretched over taut muscles.

       The movement was subtle but she saw it. It was something; there was the emotion she was looking for. She remembered what Frazer had told her – use his emotion against him. Beth latched onto it. Moses Archila was the key. “I saw you with his sister this morning at the funeral. I get that you don’t care about getting justice for yourself, but Archila was your best friend. He saved you, don’t you owe it to him to bring his murderer to justice?”

       Torres stared at her. The anger in his eyes was palpable. There was no doubt that had she been a man she would no longer be standing.

      “What do you know of justice, Gringa?”

       “I know that if someone murdered my best friend I would not rest until I saw them behind bars.”

       Torres lifted his shoulders. “Moses would still be dead.”

       Beth let of a stream of air. She had played her last card. “Yes he would,” she admitted. She followed his gaze out to the great expanse of open land. With Torres, she had not found the man she expected; she had found something scarier and far more complex. She had naively hoped he would be easier to manipulate.

       Suddenly she had a thought, a niggling feeling. She turned and studied his hard features. Torres wasn’t unfazed because he was apathetic, he was unfazed because he had a plan of his own. She opened her mouth but stopped before she threw her Hail Mary pass. “We’re both looking for him. We will find him faster together.”

       He shrugged but he didn’t refute her statement.

       “We both want justice,” she pressed.

       Torres shook his head. “We don’t want the same thing. You want information. What I want is a whole lot uglier but we won’t talk about that because you’re a lady and ’cause that shiny badge of yours means our ideas of justice will never be the same.” His dark features were encased with raw unmitigated hatred; there was the emotion she was looking for, but she didn’t know how to act on it. Her body seized up, her thoughts froze. But she was right: he did have a plan.

       “Do you know who shot you?” she asked. She took his silence as an answer. “I can find him.”

       He turned and looked at her. Half of his mouth curled into a smile. “If that were true, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

       She sighed. “You’re right. I need you. But you need me too, Torres.”

      Torres made a sound that could have passed for a laugh. “I don’t need you. Go back to your office, Gringa. Or better yet, go find yourself another Mexican to sweet-talk. That is why you’re here isn’t it? Because I’m Mexican? I already look like a thug, right? I’m already halfway there. Just give me a couple of tats and I will look like you plucked me fresh from the prison yard.”

      Beth shifted from one leg to the other. She considered how to answer him, wondered what Frazer would say. She was sure the Department psychologist would be able to phrase things in a way that wouldn’t offend anyone. But Beth wasn’t a psychologist and she wasn’t good at bullshitting. “Yep,” she said simply. When she saw the flash of a smile on Torres’ full lips, she continued. “I would be a pretty crappy agent if a tried to recruit a Gringo to infiltrate a Mexican gang wouldn’t I? But you looking like a thug is an added bonus. It is also a bonus that both your brothers and your best friend were Zetas. It wouldn’t take much work to get you in. So to answer your question, yes I want a Mexican, but not any Mexican. I want a Mexican who has proved himself loyal, who has a vested interest in bringing down Los Treintas, and has a tie to Los Zetas. Unfortunately for me, you are the only Mexican in the free world that meets those criteria. If you know anyone else, by all means, please point me in the right direction.” She held up her hands. She had played all her cards.

       Torres picked up another piece of wood and positioned it beneath the teeth of the circular saw. “That is unfortunate.”

       Her shoulders dropped. She was losing him, she could feel her tenuous connection to El Escorpion falling through her fingers. She could not let it happen. She needed to find him. “What do you want? What can I say to make you understand?”

       “I understand perfectly. I’m just not interested.”

       Beth took a deep breath. There were lines she didn’t cross, values she did not abandon. That was how she could deal with the less savoury aspects of her job. She would be no better than the men she chased if she compromised her morals.

       But she needed this, she needed Torres onside.

       “I will find him, even without you. I have all the resources of the Department of Justice behind me. Do you know what will happen when I find him? I will cut a deal. I will get all the information I can and then I will cut him loose. He is nothing to me, just a link in the chain that leads to El Escorpion.”

       Torres’ hand tightened on the wood, his knuckles turning white under the strain. There was no emotion on his dark face but she knew she had hit a nerve. “But it could go another way. Once I have the information I need,” she took a deep breath to fortify her nerve, she wasn’t just blurring the line: she was annihilating it. There was no morality in what she was about to do. In that moment she knew there was precious little she wouldn’t say or do to complete her mission. “Once I cut him loose, it is over. He doesn’t exist. If something happened to him, it wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar.” She left the rest unsaid. The words were bitter in her mouth. Her mind screamed at her to take them back but she couldn’t.

       All she could do was pretend that she had not just given consent for a man to be murdered in cold blood.

      ***

      Beth opened one eye and peered at the hard pillow she had just been sleeping on. She sat bolt upright when she saw that the uncomfortable pillow was actually the solid chest of Torres. He was staring at her, his dark face expressionless as usual.

      Beth’s hand flew to her head. Had she hit it on something in her sleep, because her temples throbbed like she had been clobbered over the head with a crowbar. And her mouth… It tasted like someone had stuffed a dirty dishcloth in there. This is why she didn’t like to drink СКАЧАТЬ