Holding The Line

It’s been four years since Armando Torres disappeared. He was DEA agent Beth Thomson’s best undercover recruit – and the best lover she ever had.

In the time since he left, she has forced herself to move on. So when news reaches her that Torres is dead, she isn’t expecting the wave of emotions that overwhelm her. It’s a gang hit, and there isn’t much of a body left to identify. But when she visits the morgue, her horror soon turns to disbelief at what she finds.

With notorious gang leader El Escorpion still evading capture, her mother’s health deteriorating, and her daughter starting school – can Beth recreate the passion from her past, even when her whole world is changing?

Also by Kierney Scott

The Firing Line trilogy:

Blurring the Line

Coming soon: Crossing the Line

Twice in a Lifetime

Dirty Little Secrets

Holding the Line

Kierney Scott

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Kierney Scott 2015

Kierney Scott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474032773

Version date: 2018-07-23

KIERNEY SCOTT is originally from California, but moved to Scotland to enrol in the PhD programme in Educational Research at the University of Edinburgh. Four days after she arrived, she met her husband, who persuaded her it would be more fun to get married than to write a thesis. After the birth of her daughter she decided it was time to go back to school, but soon she discovered all she wanted to write was romance novels. She admitted her literary proclivities to her husband, who promptly bought her a laptop and told her to start writing her book.

When she is not writing, you will probably find her at a spinning class or baking (read eating) cupcakes. Her butter-cream icing is legendary, if only in her mind. If you want her recipe, or you just want to chat, you can contact her at KierneyScott@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter at Kierney Scott @Kierney_S

This one is for all my lovely girlfriends who sat and listened to me jabber on about Torres like he is a real man…that I am having a very steamy affair with.

Silvia Stevenson – All I need to do is mention I am having an off day and you bake me a cake. You really are the best friend a girl could ask for.

Ruth Colley – You are hands down the best neighbour ever. You are also the naughtiest English Rose ever, but I am saving that for another story.

Fiona Wilson – Everyone should read and laugh as much as you.

Yvonne McDougall – You make me LOL for real. And thanks to you I now know how to launder drug money to fund arms deals and other nefarious things. My CV thanks you.

Elizabeth Barbour – If Torres ever comes to life, he is all yours. I think you’re one of the few women I know who could handle AND appreciate him.

And last but never least, this book is for my mom, there are too many reasons why, so just because…

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

4 Years ago

He had missed something and Beth was in danger because of it. His gut twisted at the thought. Martinez’ computer had been seized: Torres had taken it himself last time he was in Bogotá. There was nothing on it other than the pictures Martinez had taken of Beth at the diner. There had to be something else, something he had missed: something that would tell them why Los Treintas had killed one of their own. Martinez had been gutted like a fish, his tongue and eyes cut out. Beth had thought Torres had done it and the truth was he would have if he had found Martinez first.

Torres pulled out the drawer of the bedside table and emptied the contents on the floor: socks, underwear, condoms, lube and a bible. He shook his head at the ironic combination. He emptied the next drawer. Nothing that could help him.

Fuck.

He turned and looked out the sashed window at the iconic stripes of El Carmen church. The red and white striped building looked like a piece on a Candyland board. He had to admit the city center was beautiful. The drug cartel it housed wasn’t.

What was he missing? Martinez was the key to finding El Escorpion. He had to find the leader of Los Treintas. Beth wouldn’t be safe until he did.

Suddenly there was a sharp blow to Torres’ head.

There was a bright flash of color and then darkness. He fell to his knees. He reached his hands to his head but they never made it. Another blow and then there was nothing.

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.”

Chapter Two

There was a dark constancy in the jungle, day in day out, always shadows. If he looked straight up until his head hit his back he could see tiny pockets of light amongst the leaves. But the rays never hit the ground. There was always another leaf there, competing for it, stealing it, hijacking the light. Was the sun shining somewhere above the canopy? Was is raining? He would never know. Hell, there could even be a tornado up there and the sad fuckers on the ground would never know. The bottom got shadows and damp. He was one of those sad fuckers.

Torres pulled against the rusty chains that bound him to the trunk of a kapok tree so he could lie down. He had lost feeling in his arms. Chaining him was unnecessary. Where the fuck was he going to go?

A mile away there was a clearing. All the trees had been cut and burned to the ground to make way. That is where heaven was: acres and acres of clear land, not a single tree to block out the sun, just a field of coca that went on forever. Next time he was there, he was going to stand and let the sun warm his skin until a soldier came and whipped him. Every lash would be worth it to feel the sun on his face again. His back might drip with blood but that would be OK too, it would give him an excuse to keep his shirt off – more sun. And the pain wouldn’t last long anyway. They were allowed to chew coca as they worked. It tasted like tea but it made everything tolerable. Wounds hurt less, the smell of shit became merely an annoyance, the smug faces of the guards all merged into one, his muscles relaxed and his hatred lessened to an angry simmer. It was a good plant, this cocaine. He could see how people became addicted.

Torres rested his head on his arm. He was careful not to pull too hard on his chains. The rusty links tore into his flesh. He only knew he was injured because of the slow oozing trickle of hot blood. He couldn’t feel it. It was a blessing and a curse. He was going to get back to the fields. Tomorrow he would be more compliant. When he wanted to spit in the guard’s face he would smile. When he wanted to rip out his throat, he would rub the open wounds on his hands and remember why he needed to be unchained. He couldn’t work the fields with bloody hands.

He picked up the rock, his rock, and dug it into the bark, marking the passing of another day. He would have lost count by now, probably would have lost count after the weeks became months.

And then the months had become years… three years.

*****

Torres rubbed his wrists. The skin was open again, not just blood this time, now it was yellow pus streaked with red. The scabs never had a chance to heal because every night, in his sleep, he pulled against his chains. They needed to heal so he could go back to the fields. He needed out of the dark. He needed the sun. He needed hope.