Crossing The Line: A gripping romantic thriller. Kierney Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ father was a member of a white supremacist group. She shouldn’t be surprised. People needed affiliations to survive in prison. He was white after all, so it wasn’t likely that he join the Mexican Mafia or the 415s, so the Aryan Brotherhood was a logical choice. But still it disappointed her. Her husband and daughter were Mexican after all, but he didn’t know that. She was a stranger to him as much as he was to her.

      Beth cleared her throat. She looked down into her lap at the pile of photos she had brought. She handed him one of her mom that she had taken at the River Walk in San Antonio before her mom had gotten too sick to live at home. Beth had tried to take care of her as long as she could. But in the end it wasn’t safe and the decision to put her mom in a home was made by social services. Beth could keep Alejandra or her mom…and she chose Alejandra.

      She smiled down at the picture. She was so pretty. And that wasn’t her bias talking; Ruth Thomson was as beautiful inside and out. Beth handed her dad the photo. When he took it, his fingers brushed hers.

      She didn’t hate him.

      The realization hit her with the force of a ball bearing being shot into a concrete wall. She expected to hate him. He was a criminal and a pathetic one at that, just a shitty bank robber. And he couldn’t even get that right. An undercover police officer was shot in the process, so her dad had a felony murder assault added to the charge. It didn’t matter that Joe Cummings had no intention of hurting anyone that morning. Someone died and he had to pay.

      He had torn their family apart, broken every promise he had ever made, ruined her mom’s life, but she didn’t hate him. She felt nothing…except a shadow of sadness. He had ruined his own life too, not just her mom’s.

      “Can I keep this?” he asked.

      Beth nodded. “I brought it for you. I have a few others. I don’t know how much Paige told you about things.” A quarter of a century was a lot of ground to cover. She wasn’t sure where to start.

      “Paige told me just about everything. Both in Texas now. My daughters, the vet and the big shot special agent.”

      There was no mistaking the pride in his voice. He didn’t deserve to be proud of them. He hadn’t contributed to their success in any way; it all came down to their hard work and sacrifices, but Beth wasn’t going to take it away from him. Everything else had been taken away; he had nothing, so she would allow him his misplaced pride.

      “How is your daughter?”

      Beth’s gaze shot up. “She told you about Alejandra?”

      “Yeah. You’re a mom. I’m a grandpa.”

      Beth shifted in her seat. Technically he was, but not really, not in any meaningful way. She glanced again at his tattoos. “She is Mexican, my daughter. So is my husband.” She was giving him the opportunity to say something racist, anything that would give her an excuse to leave.

      His eyes widened. “You’re married?”

      A lump formed in Beth’s throat. He didn’t know she was married. He couldn’t because Paige didn’t know. She had been murdered before… Her gaze lowered to the table. “Yes I’m married. His name is Torres, Armando Torres. We worked together. He is first generation Mexican American.” This time she pointed to his tattoos. “I know what they mean.”

      Joe rubbed at the faded ink. “I’ve made mistakes, Beth.”

      She stared at him for a long time. Was that his way of apologizing…or explaining…or rationalizing? “Me too,” she said eventually. Shit, she had made mistakes. They had that in common.

      He gave a faint smile. “It is good to see you, Beth.”

      She bit into her lip. She could just leave now and not tell him. Now that she had seen him, she didn’t want to tell him.

      But who would? There was no one left.

      “I have some bad news. It’s Paige.” Beth stopped. This was the last moment he would have a family. The magnitude of it, hit her. There would be no one in his corner. She wished she could go back in time to the moment her life was still whole and push pause, really take in all she had. But she couldn’t and now she was about to take away all her father had left. Maybe if she were a better person, she would step in and offer to be the loving daughter. But she wasn’t that person…it just wasn’t her…she couldn’t. There was no pushing pause in life; it was what it was. “Paige died. Last month. She was murdered by the gang I am investigating. She’s gone. That is why she hasn’t come to see you.”

      At first she thought he did not hear her. There was no reaction, nothing. He stared at her, scrutinizing her. But then his shoulders drooped and his head fell to his hands. His body shook as silent sobs tore threw him.

      A coldness settled in her core. She should feel something. Her arms should want to encircle him. His body was representing every emotion Beth had felt in the last thirty days, shock and anguish…despair. But she felt nothing now, except maybe jealousy that he still had tears left in him.

      Beth had not cried in over a week. They were gone, her tears all used up. Maybe people were given a finite amount and she had gone through her ration. Or maybe her pain had hardened her. That is what she wanted to think. That her grief had fortified her, given her strength she never knew.

      But what it was, what she feared, was that the bitterness had consumed her compassion. It was gone, her empathy, her compassion, maybe even her morality. It was gone now, burned away like flesh scorched by acid.

      She watched as his body shook. She counted the seconds between sobs and noted how his skin went from ruddy to near purple and he struggled to get enough air into his body.

      And the whole time she felt nothing.

      Minutes past. She had nothing left to say. She stood up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to hear from a guard.” She handed him the funeral program she had brought. On the cover was Paige smiling, holding Alejandra on a trip to the beach. It was her favorite picture of her sister. She had tried to find one of Paige on her own, but none of them captured Paige, her goofy smile and her carefree spirit. This was Paige, the Paige she remembered.

      Beth pointed to the photo. “That is my daughter. Paige was helping me raise her. She was a good mom. She was the fun one who gave Ally sugar like she was trying to put her into a diabetic coma and I was the one who worried and nagged. We were a good team.” And now it was just Beth.

      Beth handed her dad the rest of the photos. Prison policy meant that she could only bring in ten so she had had to be merciless in her cull, picking only the ten that most perfectly captured her sister. She shuffled through until she found the one of Paige at her graduation. “She was top of her class at UC Davis.” Her sister would not have mentioned it. It was Beth’s turn to be proud. She had paid for Paige to go to vet school, made it possible for her to live her dream. And she had…for a while… “And here is Paige with Morningside Mac. He is a Grand Champion. He had paralysis of the larynx or something. Paige could have explained it better. But basically she saved his life. He would have had to be put down. That operation paid her mortgage.” Beth smiled again as she remembered her sister. Every night, without fail, she waited for Paige to come in, say something outrageous and then plop herself in front of Beth’s television to watch mind-numbing reality TV. But she never came, and every night Beth went to bed with a boulder in her stomach that wouldn’t shift. She would give anything to speak to her again, to hug her and hear her laugh.

      Beth СКАЧАТЬ