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.

He carefully stretched his hands up. His head itched. He had fleas but it was worth it because at least Torres had a plan. That wasn’t true, he had always had a plan, since the night he woke up in the jungle of Colombia, but now he had the means to execute his plan, thanks to a mangy flea-infested dog.

The bitch pushed her wet nose into his side.

“I don’t have anything for you tonight,” Torres apologized. He strained to stroke her but his hands would not reach. “Sorry, girl. I’ll save something for you tomorrow.” The dog seemed to understand. She lowered her head again, rubbing it along Torres’ face.

“That’s my good girl. You’re a clever girl, aren’t you?” The dog looked up at him with sad eyes. Torres moved his head back and forth so he was effectively petting her. “Good girl.”

Torres hadn’t given her a name. She was just “Girl”. He couldn’t give her a name when he knew what was going to happen to her.

She was his way out.

If he wanted to, Torres could have broken through his rusted chains, but there was nowhere to go. The cocaine fields were surrounded with landmines. They weren’t the kind he had seen in Iraq. These were more primitive but just as effective. The bombs here were loaded with shrapnel and human feces. If the nails didn’t get you, the shit would, days or weeks later when your wounds turned septic and poisoned you from within.

That is why he needed Girl. It had taken months for her to learn to trust him. It had happened slowly, excruciatingly so, a single scrap of food at a time and then a pet or stroke along her matted fur. And then, he was able to train her, all it took was time. Lucky for Torres, he had plenty of that.

After the dog had come, the guards had brought another prisoner.

Torres looked over at the whimpering boy chained to the tree across from him. He looked like he was about eighteen, twenty at the oldest, just a boy.

Torres had been alone for a long time, for over three years, he knew because he kept a tally carved on the trunk of his tree. Three years with no one to speak to but the guards and the mangy dog.

The guards always kept him separate from the other prisoners. Everyone else slept in a clearing at the other side of the fields. He couldn’t see them but he preferred it that way. When he was well enough to work the fields he saw the other prisoners, poor miserable fuckers, all of them, with all their crying and praying and promising Christ they would be better if they ever got out.

Torres wanted to tell them all to shut up. Moaning just made it worse. But he didn’t because that would mean speaking to them and he wouldn’t. He wanted no part of them, the guards or the prisoners. He hated them both equally, the guards for the sadistic pleasure they took in beating prisoners until they pissed themselves and the prisoners for giving them the satisfaction of crying out when the lashings began.

The boy cried out again. Torres lifted his head. He wished the guards would take him back to the clearing. He needed to be with the other prisoners, where he could scream and cry.

“Please!” the boy screamed. “Please! Come back!’

Torres clamped his mouth shut to keep from telling him to shut the fuck up. No one was coming for him, or any of them.

“Please! Come back,” he screamed. A sob tore through his body, like an axe through a rotting carcass. His slim body shook with it. “Please!”

Torres closed his eyes and focused on the sound of the frogs. He could pick out the individual sounds, like an amphibian orchestra, the low resonant bass, reedy croaks, and then a higher silvery timbre.

But he couldn’t hear them tonight over the screams.

The screams turned to sobs and then finally a whimper.

*****

The boy was screaming again. Every night for a year it was the same: pleading screams that turned to tears and then finally an exhausted sleep.

If Torres could reach him, he would kill him.

He would do it when the boy finally lost himself to sleep. He would lay his forearm against his throat and press until the life drained out of him. The boy wouldn’t know it happened, he just wouldn’t wake up. There would be no more screaming then, no more suffering.

“Please!” the boy moaned.

Torres closed his eyes. He could feel his arm on his scrawny neck, pushing down until his frail body gave itself over to death. Five minutes, that is all it would take. If the boy knew, he would probably thank him, for giving him the only freedom he could hope to achieve.

The boy thrashed against his chains. A year and the boy still thought he could break free. Where the fuck did he think he was going to go?

“Stop pulling, you’re going to wear away your skin and you’ll never get back to the fields.”

“What?” The boy’s voice was pierced with shock. Torres never spoke to him, not even to tell him to shut up, so the boy had stopped trying to talk to him after a few weeks.

“Don’t pull on your chains. If your skin rips you’ll get an infection. Just lay still.”

“I can’t,” he whimpered. “I want to go home.”

Torres closed his eyes. The boy wasn’t going home. But Torres wouldn’t torture him further by telling him that. “Just close your eyes and think about your home. Think about everything waiting for you. Think about what you are going to do.” The boy was going to die here, either at the hands of a soldier, or an infection, or, if he were lucky, Torres would do it himself. Torres would provide him the only humane ending out of the three so he hoped for the boy’s sake he had the chance.

“I can’t,” he cried. “I can’t remember.” He started to cry again, sobs tearing through his slim body.

Torres adjusted himself so he would see him but it was too dark to see anything beyond a dark shadow. “Yes you can. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. You just got home. Who is there waiting for you?”

After a moment the boy responded. “My grandmother is there. She waited for me. She knew I would come home.”

“Good,” Torres encouraged. “She hugs you. Feel her arms around you. Everything is fine now, you are home. Feel it. She is happy you’re home and she makes you a big meal. What does she make you?”

“Pork with chili and fresh tortillas.”

“Good. Taste them. The meat is tender. Feel it melt in your mouth. Taste the sting of the chili. It is hot but it doesn’t burn it just makes your mouth warm. Can you taste it?”

“Yes,” the boy answered. His voice was eager, almost frantic with the need to believe.

“Good. Think about your grandmother. Think about being home.”

The boy was quiet for a long time. Torres thought he was finally asleep but eventually he asked. “What do you think about?”

Torres did not answer right away. The place he went to in his mind was private; it belonged to him alone. The tastes and smells were his. Sharing them would taint them, make them part of this ugliness. He wouldn’t do that. “Home,” he said simply.

“Who is waiting for you?”

Torres’ gut clenched. That was a question he only asked himself when he was strong enough for the answer. He wasn’t sure who was waiting, maybe no one, but he lied to himself and let himself see her. He saw the deep crevice between her eyes that appeared when she frowned. He felt himself rub his thumb over the deep ridge and felt it smooth as her face relaxed into a smile. He smelled the apple scent of her shampoo. He felt her arms wrap around his neck and heard her voice saying “welcome home”. He closed his eyes.

“Are you awake?” the boy asked.

“Yeah.”

“What do you think about?” he asked again.

This time he did answer because the boy would be dead soon. “My woman,” he answered.

“Is she pretty?”

Torres smiled. “She is beautiful.” He vaguely remembered that there was a time when he didn’t think she was pretty. He thought she was plain, now he could not remember for the life of him how he had been so blind. How had he not seen it all along? She was beautiful. Even when he tried to be objective, he could not think of a more beautiful woman.

“What is she like?”

His smile deepened, requiring muscles he had not used in a very long time. “She’s not very tall but you wouldn’t notice because she is strong. Pound for pound she could take most men. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her. She has a right hook that could shatter a jaw.” He warmed when he remembered her punching him square in the face, or more to the point the frantic needy sex that followed.

“What’s her name?”

Torres hesitated. That part he wouldn’t share. That was his. She belonged to him alone. He wouldn’t share her. “I call her Gatita,” he said instead. “Because she reminds me of a wild cat.”

The boy seemed satisfied. No more questions followed and no more crying, just the cacophony of the nocturnal jungle coming to life.

Torres closed his eyes and thought about Beth, about holding her, about her smile, about her laugh. If he were lucky, he would dream about her. He didn’t very often but every night he thought about her and hoped he would.

It was almost time to make an escape. Girl was trained. He had one chance.

Tomorrow.

*****

His skin burned. The sun sat directly above him, radiating heat across his shoulders. Torres willed the sun not to move. Once the morning capitulated and let itself be conquered by the afternoon, his time in the fields would be over for the day. Coca leaves were supple in the morning when they were still wet. As the day wore on they dried and it became harder to pull them from the branch without tearing your skin in the process.

When he was first brought to the jungle, he had to wrap his hands in scraps of material to protect them. Even then, they blistered and bled but now he did it with his bare hands. It only hurt if he caught a branch the wrong way and it ripped off a callus, even then he rarely noticed until he saw the blood dripping from his hands.

It was worth it, the blisters and blood, just to feel the sun, but it was always over too soon and he was moved back into the jungle, under the dark canopy to continue the process of turning the simple coca leaf into the deadly white powder that entrapped millions.

A guard shouted that it was time for Torres to prepare yesterday’s leaves. They were dry now, ready for the powdered cement to be sprinkled over and then put into the 50-gallon drums and soaked in gasoline. That part wasn’t so different than his time in Los Zetas. They used 50-gallon drums and gasoline too – to burn bodies. At least the cocaine didn’t have the stench of burning flesh.

“El Capitan is coming. I think tomorrow. I heard them talking,” the boy said. He followed Torres around more closely than the dog. He couldn’t shit without the boy. He was by his side in the field, as they stood over the drums, and at night.

His name was Ignacio. Torres didn’t want to know his name, but he told him anyway. He also told him the name of his grandmother and his sister and the girl at the supermarket that Ignacio was sweet on. Torres didn’t give a fuck about any of it but he listened because the talking meant Ignacio had stopped crying at night. There was no more screaming just incessant talking. Occasionally Torres would nod but he wasn’t even sure that was necessary, Ignacio just wanted to talk.

“I think they’re scared. No one has ever seen him. What do you think he looks like?”

Torres shrugged his shoulders. There was always talk of El Capitan coming. The guards would get worried when a visit was imminent, the beatings would become more brutal, more frequent, but the time would come and go without an appearance. It was a cycle that played out every few months but Ignacio was too new to appreciate that El Capitan had the same chances of appearing as the Easter Bunny.

Like Ignacio, Torres had been anxious the first time he learned of an impending visit. He had not been able to sleep as he waited for the elusive leader to appear. Torres had waited a long time to come face to face with him. He knew him by another name: El Escorpion, but there was no doubt that it was the same man.

Torres wondered if he knew the DEA called him El Escorpion. He wouldn’t like it. He clearly had illusions of being a great military leader, that is why he called himself the captain and made his guards wear camouflage. They weren’t soldiers; they were gang members.

The time had come. All the other prisoners had been taken away to be fed. It was just Torres and Ignacio and the two guards that watched over them. Torres still wondered if he had made the right choice in asking that Ignacio be allowed to help him with the clean-up.

The job of dumping hundreds of gallons of toxic chemicals into the water supply belonged to Torres for no other reason than he was the strongest. He could lift the drums so he got to help destroy the fragile ecosystem of the Amazon. The chemicals had to go somewhere; making cocaine was a dirty business, so why not pour them directly into the river? It wasn’t like mothers got water for their babies out of the rivers, or farmers got water for their fields…but actually they did. And it was all poisoned thanks to a demand for an addictive white powder.

He hadn’t told Ignacio his plan, he had only said his back hurt and he needed his help to dump the waste. It showed just how stupid the guards were that they thought nothing of Torres asking for the scrawny boy to help him. The prison camp was full of men but he would ask for the runt to help him? Idiots.

When it came to Ignacio, Torres had two choices: he could murder him in his sleep or he could take him with him. He couldn’t leave him behind. Leaving him to fend for himself would require a cruelty he didn’t have. He could shoot people at point-blank range, but he wouldn’t leave anyone to suffer. He might very well get the boy killed in the process, but at least he wasn’t leaving him behind.

Torres took out a piece of meat from his pocket and fed it to Girl. Her time had come. He gave her a quick pat on her head. She was a good dog.

He shot a backward glance at the guards. They were sitting on the ground smoking cigarettes. Their machine guns were slung behind their backs, out of the way. Torres patted his pockets, making sure he had everything. There was no point in trying if he didn’t have everything.

He needed to be fast. Speed was the only thing that separated him from freedom, that and hundreds of miles of jungle and several dozen landmines.

“Here,” he said to Ignacio. “Help me pick this up.” He pointed to a blue drum filled with chlorine. The gas burned when it hit the lungs. He was careful to turn his head to the side so as not to breathe it in directly.

The boy nodded. Together they bent to pick up the container. Torres waited until Ignacio’s fingers were below the drum and then he dropped it, crushing his fingers.

The boy screamed. Now was his moment. As he hoped, Ignacio’s cries were enough to distract the guards.

He pounced.

In an instant he was behind the first soldier. He took the man’s knife and slit his throat. He tried to scream but there was just a strangled gargle. Before the other soldier could react Torres was behind him. With one slash of the blade, his artery was cut. Blood spurted from his neck in pulses. Every beat of his heart brought him closer to death, and Torres closer to freedom.

Torres wiped the knife on his trousers and then slid it into his waist band. He may need it later. He searched through the soldiers’ pockets, taking everything he could find. There was no telling what he would need.

Ignacio continued to scream. Torres had to shut him up or the other guards would come.

“Stop,” Torres commanded.

The boy’s eyes were wide. His jaw shook.

He thought Torres was going to kill him too. Torres lifted his hands, palm out. “I’m not going to hurt you. Stop screaming or the guards will come and they’ll kill us both.”

The boy nodded his head. His mouth remained open like his body was not sure what to do next. His hands were still trapped under the drum.

“I’m going to move this off you. It will probably hurt more as your blood flow returns. Don’t scream. If you scream, you’re dead. Do you understand?” Torres did not specify who would be killing him if he screamed but they both knew it would be Torres. The boy would be dead before the soldiers even registered his cry.

The boy nodded.

Torres lifted the drum off him. Ignacio whimpered but he didn’t scream.

“Good. We’re getting out of here. Stay behind me. There are landmines everywhere around the coca fields. Don’t make a move unless I tell you. Do you understand?” he asked again. And again the boy nodded.

For once Ignacio was quiet, no screaming or crying or incessant chatter. If Torres had known all it would take was seeing two men murdered to shut him up, he may have been tempted to do it long before now.

Torres reached into his pocket and produced a long piece of string and a bolt. He made sure the bolt was firmly attached before he turned to Ignacio. “Follow me. Come on, Girl.” He motioned to the dog whose ears went up when she heard her name.

Torres ran towards the coca fields. There was no need to need to tread lightly until they reached the far side. He only looked behind him once to make sure Ignacio was following him. If he did something stupid that would get them caught, Torres would pull out the knife and slit his throat.

They ran until his lungs burned, Girl beside them. Torres pulled out another piece of meat and gave it to her. “Sit.” Torres surveyed the land that lay ahead of him. The most treacherous part would be the hundred feet that surrounded the coca field. After that, they would hit jungle again, and the IEDs would be less of a fear.

Torres took the bolt and threw it, holding the end of the string so he would not lose it. Once it hit the ground, he slowly dragged it back to trip any wires attached to the landmines. Once he had pulled the bolt back they were ready to move. “Go,” he said to Girl.

The dog ran ahead, stopping in the exact spot the bolt had fallen.

“Good girl.”

Torres turned to Ignacio. “Stay behind me.”

“OK.”

The first step was the hardest, when Torres’ stride took him from the safety of the coca fields to the uncharted periphery, but after that he was committed. There was no question: they were going.

When they reached Girl, Torres through the bolt again, repeating the process. It was painstaking; they only gained another ten feet with each treacherous cycle.

“They’re going to come for us,” Ignacio whimpered.

Torres shook his head. “We have an hour. They won’t look for the guards until they don’t show up for the handover.” He had planned it. This escape had been months, no, years in the making. First was training Girl, and then he had to find the bolt and string. He would have preferred metal wire, but that was in short supply in the jungle. The hardest part of the plan was getting the guards to trust him enough that their guns were not always trained on him, that part had taken years.

They were right to be wary of him.

“But,” Ignacio began again.

“Shut up,” Torres snapped.

He pulled the string back slowly. Again the ground was clear. But just in case, he had Girl. “Go,” he said.

“I can hear them,” Ignacio whimpered.

Torres shook his head. “You don’t. That’s just your mind fucking with you. Stay focused. They’re not looking for us yet.”

Ignacio began to cry. It was a quiet pathetic sound like he was trying to swallow the sobs. Torres put his hand on the knife. The blade was already sticky with drying blood.

“Keep walking,” Torres commanded.

“I can’t.”

“We’re almost back to jungle. It will be safe there.” He was lying of course. There could be landmines anywhere. But he would tell Ignacio anything to shut him up.

“I hear them!”

Torres’ head snapped round. “You don’t.” He spoke as calmly as he could. He didn’t want to kill Ignacio; he was just a kid. But he would. “Keep walking. Follow my footsteps. Put your feet exactly where I put mine.”

Ignacio’s lip trembled.

“No. No. Focus. We are getting out of here. We are going home. We have people waiting that love us; that want us back. We need to get back for them. Your grandmother. Tell me what your grandmother is going to make for dessert.”

“I can’t.” His face crumbled.

“Yes you can. We have twenty feet left. Stay strong. Is your grandmother going to make flan? Or maybe a tres leches cake.” What Hispanic grandmother didn’t have a recipe for those desserts?

“I can’t.” Ignacio began to shake. “I can’t.”

Before Torres could stop him, Ignacio began running for the jungle.

“Fuck.” Torres should have killed him. He was going to die anyway and at least Torres would have made it painless.

Ignacio was almost back to the jungle when an IED exploded.

“Fuck!” Torres screamed again as he ran to the boy. Fucking idiot!

Ignacio’s screams reverberated through Torres’ chest. They were a guttural sound; unlike anything the boy had produced before and unlike anything Torres had heard before. Except in Iraq…

“Oh, fuck. What did you do?” Torres dropped to his knees. There was blood everywhere. Girl barked madly.

“Oh, fuck,” Torres said again. It was Ignacio’s leg. It had been blown clean off, just above the knee. No, clean wasn’t the right word, it was messy as fuck, bits of bone and muscle hung off him with nails and shit imbedded into what was left.

He screamed louder and the dog matched the intensity with her bark. They were going to get caught. Torres reached into his waist. In seconds he cut the dog’s throat before he turned to Ignacio.

The boy was as good as dead. The explosion hadn’t killed him; the human feces in the bomb meant the wound would be septic in days if he did not bleed to death first. Ignacio was going to die. How he died was up to Torres.

Chapter Three

The room was cold. It was August in Texas but Beth wished she had a coat. She could not stop shivering. Her whole body shook with it, even her fingers. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her suit pants to keep them still.

Was there a reason morgues were always in the basement? Like coroners’ jobs weren’t depressing enough, they got stuck in the icy bowels of buildings. This wasn’t her first morgue or her first body. She was somewhat of a professional at this point. When she first started at the DEA she could not even look at crime scene photos without flinching. She vomited when she had to identify her first body…and her second one…and all of them until she met Torres. She stopped flinching at photos when he left. She had no idea if the two events were related, but she no longer felt like she was going to be sick when she saw a dead body. She was hardened but not apathetic. She still wondered about their lives and the families they had left behind, she just didn’t feel anything any more.

“I haven’t seen you in a while. How have you been?” Alan smiled at her over his bifocals. He had a clipboard in one hand and a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee in the other. Beth no longer questioned how he could casually have a cup of coffee amongst the corpses. She could do the same, honestly now it just reminded her she really wanted another cup of coffee.

“I’m good. I have been more focused on money laundering these days. How about you?”

Beth was at a morgue most months. Running drugs was a dangerous occupation, a lot of the men ended up here or in morgues in other border towns.

“Good. Good. My youngest just graduated.”

“Longhorn?”

“That’s right. Good memory.”

Not really. This was Texas, there was a good chance he would be a Longhorn. “Excellent. What are his plans?” Small talk, surrounded by dead people… She really had grown. Once upon a time she didn’t do small talk. She was in a hurry then, racing for a final destination. She didn’t have time for small talk then, but she wasn’t in a hurry any more. Days passing just meant Alejandra getting older and her mom’s condition getting worse.

Alan lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “God knows. He majored in American History, apparently. I never saw any evidence of studying of any description, unless you count studying the bottom of beer bottles.”

Beth smiled. “Sounds about right for college.”

“What about your little girl?”

“Alejandra. She is great. Today was her first day of kindergarten.”

Alan sighed. “Already? It passes so quickly. You blink and they are getting their driver’s licence. Too fast.”

Beth’s smile faded. She already knew how right he was. The last four years had been a blur. Luckily her sister had been there to document everything with her camera. At least Beth could look back and pretend to recall everything. A lot of it had been spent in survival mode; first was the shock of Torres leaving and then it had been dealing with her mom. Her Alzheimer’s had progressed quickly over the last few years. Beth pushed thoughts of her mom to the back of her mind. She could only deal with one horrible thing at a time.

“I’m here to formally identify a body.”

One bushy eyebrow shot up above his glasses. “Are you here in a professional or personal capacity?” He asked because formal identifications were usually done by family not Law Enforcement.

Beth glanced at the silver wall of bodies. “Neither…both. He was my agent. I recruited him six years ago. I haven’t seen him in four years but he has no living family.” The answer was longwinded and unnecessary. She could have simply said she was here in a professional capacity. But nothing about her time with Torres was professional. It seemed an insult to his memory to pretend it was. Why she still cared was beyond her, he had been gone for a long time.

“Name?” Alan asked. He sat down his coffee and thumbed through the papers on his clipboard.

“Armando Torres.” The name barely made it past her lips. She never called him by his Christian name. He was always Torres to her, whether she was swearing at him or calling his name in bed, he was always just Torres. Her Torres…her scary, scarred, tattooed man. She bit her lip to keep the memory from hitting her. She had pushed it down for years. She wasn’t about to let it come out now. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did to think about him. It shouldn’t still sting. She shouldn’t still cry.

Alan’s eyes narrowed. “It is just a torso?”

Beth’s breath caught. For an instant she lost the distance she’d fought so hard to achieve. For a second this was all real. She would let it be real later. She just needed to get through this. She nodded. “That’s fine. I don’t need his head to make an identification.”

Beth closed her eyes. She knew his body as well as she knew her own. She was losing ground again, getting closer again to reality. She bit into her lip again until she tasted the metallic tang of blood.

Alan opened the door and pulled out the body, or what was left of it. Beth closed her eyes again. She sucked in as much air as her lungs would allow, she kept forcing down oxygen until her chest burned. She counted to ten. He is a detail in your life. Just a detail…

She opened her eyes and looked down at the stump. That was all there was left, a stump, no head, no arms, no legs. Everything from the hips down had been removed. Her gaze ran the expanse of his chest, traced the lines of the Santa Muerta tattoo that covered the left side of his body.

Her eyes narrowed. The skin was smooth, too smooth. Before she could think she reached out and ran her hand along the margins of his chest, between his ribs. That is where the scars had been the most pronounced. Torres’ skin was knotted and raised.

This skin was smooth.

She pulled her hand away. Suddenly she realized she was touching a dead body. From the corner of her eye she could see Alan staring at her. She turned to face him.

She considered her words carefully. “The tattoo is consistent with Armando Torres,” she lied. Her eyes lowered again to the body.

It wasn’t Torres.

Someone wanted the world to believe it was. Someone had gone to the trouble of tattooing a dead body to make it look like Torres – at least she hoped the person was already dead before he was chosen – but they could not replicate the burns.

“I need to go,” Beth said. She needed to get out the there. She glanced down at her watch. She needed to speak to Jessop and figure out what in the hell was going on. Shit, she needed to pick up Alejandra. She wouldn’t be able to speak to him today.

Beth threw her purse onto the passenger seat. She needed to speak to Jessop tonight. This wouldn’t wait until tomorrow. She dialed her sister’s number. Maybe Paige could pick up Alejandra. Having her sister in Texas was a godsend, not only for the co-parenting, but also because her baby sister kept her sane like no other.

“Oakdale Veterinary, Yvonne speaking.”

“Hi, Yvonne, this is Beth. Is my sister free to talk?” Beth asked the receptionist.

“Good timing. She just got out of surgery.”

Yvonne transferred her call through to the operating room.

“Hey, what’s up?” her sister’s bright voice answered.

There was a loaded question. Hell if she knew what was up, but she was going to figure is out. Beth pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Can you pick up Alejandra from school? Something has come up at work.”

Paige didn’t hesitate and she didn’t ask any questions. “Yeah sure.”

Beth breathed a sigh of relief. When it really mattered, Paige never asked questions, she just manned up. God she loved her sister for that. She couldn’t do it without her, raise a child, do her job, keep up the appearance of sanity. “I don’t know what time I’ll be home. Kiss Ally for me, if I don’t get there before she goes to sleep.”

A sharp pain stabbed at her conscious. It wouldn’t be the first time Paige put Alejandra to bed, and she did not kid herself that it would be the last.

Chapter Four

Beth’s hands were wet with perspiration by the time she made it to Larry Jessop’s house. Her boss wasn’t at work and he wasn’t returning her phone calls. She had worked under Jessop for over a decade and he had never taken time off work. Something was going on. She stood at Jessop’s door just long enough to rein in her emotions. Too many thoughts were racing through her mind to think clearly. She needed to get to the bottom of this.

Andrea Jessop opened the door. Jessop’s wife was beautiful in the South Texas way Beth had grown to appreciate: big frosted-tip hair that defied humidity, and lips that were never without gloss. “Hi, Beth.” Andrea smiled at her. “What brings you round these parts?” Andrea reached out and embraced Beth, genuinely happy to see her.

When Beth had first moved to Texas, Andrea Jessop had done her best to make her feel comfortable, inviting her over for Sunday dinners and setting her up on blind dates. For a long time, the Jessops were the closest thing Beth had to family in Texas.

“Can I get you some ice tea?”

Beth shook her head. “No thank you. I really need to speak to Larry. Is he here?”

Andrea nodded. “He’s in his office. Go ahead and go in. Holler if you need anything.”

Beth didn’t wait to be shown to his office.

Jessop was sitting behind a large mahogany desk, reading over something. Above his head was a stag, permanently staring into the distance with its glass eyes. Like most offices in Texas, the walls were covered in the busts of animals. The taxidermy business was alive and kicking in the red states.

Jessop was nearing retirement but he still started every morning with an eight-mile run and it showed in his trim physique. There was no middle-age spread for Larry Jessop, the only thing that betrayed his age were the lines that fanned around his eyes and the silver streaks in his hair.

Beth skipped the pleasantries. “This morning’s brief, about a captured agent.” She glossed over the part where she missed the morning meeting because she was running late, it wasn’t pertinent to the conversation and she more than made up her hours. “Where did the intel come from?” she demanded.

Jessop looked up from the pile of papers on his desk. Pale blue eyes stared back at her. “What?” he asked nonchalantly. He had a good poker face, a bit too good. He knew exactly what she was talking about.

Beth’s back straightened. “My agent who infiltrated Los Zetas. There was a report that he was – is dead. Where did it come from?”

For a long moment she held his stare. He knew something. Damn it, she wasn’t going to be sidelined, not again, and not on this. She had been shut out once before when the shit hit the fan in Culiacan, when Alejandra’s family had been ambushed. Five people had been murdered and they needed someone to blame.

Jessop pushed back from his desk and stood up, moving closer to her. Beth shook her head. Next he would gently put his arm on the small of her back and guide her to the door, knowing the conversation would naturally be briefer and less intense at the threshold of a room.

She anticipated his movement and sat down in the chair opposite his desk. He was good, but so was she. She had been in the game long enough to know when she was being played.

“My agent,” she said again. “Where did you get your intel?”

Jessop glanced at the door. He took a deep breath and let it out with an audible sigh. “It’s hard being a single parent.” For the first time she saw a crack in the façade. The muscle in his jaw twitched. It was over in a second, he was probably unaware that he did it, but it was there. “But if you make it to work on time you won’t need replays.”

Beth bit her lip to keep from saying anything. He was trying to hit a nerve to knock her off her stride. Later she would remind him that she still put in more hours than anyone else on the team, motherhood had not changed that. But right now she was going to get answers. “Who wrote the report?”

Jessop looked from her to the door but didn’t say anything.

Beth let out a stream of air. “I need a copy of the report.” She was done playing games.

“Beth. Torres was a good asset and I know you were…friends.”

Beth’s heart pounced against her ribs at the mention of his name. Everyone in the office knew she and Torres were more than friends. Jessop couldn’t put her off by implying that motherhood made her work suffer so he was throwing her relationship with Torres in her face. But she would throw it right back. “Yeah, Torres and I were close. Really close actually, but you already know that. We were close enough for me to know his body. Even without a head. I would know his body.” Her eyes narrowed on Jessop who was still standing above her.

For a long moment, silence reigned. “Did you identify it as Torres?” There was a hitch of concern in his deep voice.

“Of course I did. I knew someone wanted me to think he was dead. I’ve been in this game a long time.” Too long.

Jessop let go of the breath he was holding. He gave her a hard look as if he was trying to decide what to say. Again he looked from her to the door, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “He’s alive. No one in Administration knows and we need to keep it that way.”

Beth’s breath caught in her throat. He really was alive. Her heart raced, elation pushing its already frantic pace to a dangerous level. He was alive. Gratitude and relief washed over her. He was alive. Torres was alive.

Her mind swam with questions. Where was he? Where had he been for the last four years? Why did he leave?

As if Jessop was reading her mind he added, “Someone set him up. Four years ago he got a message supposedly from me, ordering him back to Colombia to search Martinez’ apartment. Someone wanted him gone.”

Martinez was a name she hadn’t heard in a while. Javier Martinez was the reason Torres had joined the DEA and infiltrated Los Zetas. Martinez was a member of a rival gang, Los Treintas. He had shot Torres and murdered Torres’ best friend Moses Arcila.

Beth’s throat tightened. “Four years?” she murmured. Four years ago, Torres was meant to meet her. They were going to leave the DEA together and start a new life…but he never turned up. He just left. No calls. No explanation. Nothing.

“No.” Beth shook her head. It didn’t make sense.

Jessop nodded. “He was ambushed in Bogotá and was held somewhere in the jungle. Looks like near Salento but still not certain exactly where. Won’t know for sure unless we get him back down there and even then there is a lot of virgin land. Plenty of places to hide.”

Beth shook her head again. “No. No agents have been captured. There haven’t been any ransoms or negotiations.” She would know. She was the head of the damn task force. If her agent had been captured, she would know.

“No, there were none. He wasn’t ransomed. No one made contact. Not clear if Los Treintas know he is DEA. That’s one of the reasons we need the world to think he is dead.”

“That doesn’t make sense. The Treintas don’t take prisoners. That’s FARC’s MO. Treintas don’t do that.” Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) also known as: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia routinely took prisoners, kidnapping and ransoms helped fund their regime.

“Apparently they do.”

“No,” Beth said. Anger and frustration coiled in her along with emotions she had long ago abandoned like regret and betrayal. Her mouth was suddenly dry. “I don’t believe it. Is this the shit he is spouting to cover where he was for the last four years?” This didn’t make sense, none of it.

Jessop shook his head. “No Beth, I’ve seen him. I went to the consulate in Bogotá myself. I saw him when he was still in the hospital. Some sick sons of bitches held him for the last four years. I’m still amazed he is alive. And Christ that he was able to escape…” Jessop’s voice trailed off.

“No,” Beth said again. She shook her head; too many questions were pounding against her temples for her to be able to think properly. “No,” she said again. “When? How long have you known?” She had seen a corpse that had been tattooed to look like Torres. Some time had been put into this operation. Jessop didn’t just find out today.

“Eight days.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “You have known Torres is alive for eight days and you didn’t tell me. And then you let me think he was dead. You let me identify a corpse.”

“No one can know he is alive until we find out who sent him to Colombia.”

“Eight days,” Beth repeated. She wasn’t going to let this go. “You have known for eight days. Why didn’t you tell me? He was my agent. I trained him.”

Jessop’s watery blue eyes trained on her. “The email came from your computer.”

Beth gasped. She thought she was done being surprised about things where Torres was concerned, but clearly she was wrong. She drummed her fingers along the solid surface of the table while she did her best to push down her anger. “You think I sent the email?” She tried to keep the edge from her voice but she couldn’t.

Jessop took a deep breath and then let is out slowly before he answered. “It was a possibility I couldn’t ignore. I wasn’t going to tell you at all but he was adamant you had nothing to do with it.”

“He? He who?” Beth demanded but she already knew the answer.

“Torres. He insisted on you knowing. He wants to see you.”

Her heart stopped. The room suddenly felt too small, the walls were inching their way in as the ceiling dropped. Oh God, she couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. “Where is he? When will I see him?”

“He’s here. He’s in the guest house at the back of the property. You can’t see it from here. No one can know he is alive,” Jessop stressed.

Beth’s breath caught in her throat. She expected Jessop to say he was in a safe house, not say he was staying with him. Her heart raced. She tried taking deep breaths to slow its frantic pace but it pounded against her ribs like it was trying to break free.

“Do you want to see him?”

Beth opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out; her lungs burned, her lips were too dry. Did she want to see him? Oh God, did she?

Yes.

No.

She couldn’t breathe. Four years was a lifetime ago. She was a different person then. What would she say to him? In the weeks after he left, she thought about it a lot. It was all she thought about. She even wrote letters to him because it was easier to remember everything when she wrote it down. There was so much she wanted to say to him then.

But now? What was there to say? She used to want answers but now all she wanted was to be able to breathe again. For too long she had pushed the feelings down and now they were pushing back and threatening to strangle her in the process.

Her legs were leaden, holding her down in place, making it hard for her to move. Undoubtedly it was her body’s way of protecting her. Jessop led her outside, down a steep hill, past a barn and a field with three horses, to a tiny cottage. It was far enough away from the main house to provide complete seclusion. She doubted Andrea even knew they were hosting an undercover agent on their property.

Beth couldn’t hear what Jessop was saying. She saw his mouth moving but all she could hear was the pounding of blood in her ears. She ran a hand over her hair. Suddenly she felt self-conscious, about the way she looked, about her life since Torres, about the choices she had made since he left. She stopped just short of the door.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Jessop said putting himself between her and the black lacquered door. “Unless you want me to come in.” A paternal concern laced to his tone. Like most relationships in her life, the dynamic was complicated. As her boss, Jessop was ruthless, but there were times like now when his guard slipped, and he acted more like a protective father.

Mindlessly Beth shook her head. “No. Its fine.”

“Are you sure? I can wait outside. Take your time. I don’t mind.” Concern knitted his dark brows.

She shook her head again. She needed to do this alone. She watched as Jessop walked away, returning to the main house, before she turned again and stared at the door.

Torres was here. Every molecule in her body vibrated. She wanted to run. Her muscles contracted, ready to sprint, as soon as she chose the direction. That was the question. Did she want to run towards Torres or away? Her heart screamed at her to leave and never look back. She would be an idiot to invite that level of pain back into her life.

But her head needed answers. She had a million questions. Where were you? What happened? What was it like? How did they treat you? How did you get out?

Why did you leave me?

Would she go with her head or her heart? That was always the question when it came to Torres. She made the wrong choice last time and paid the price. She was still paying the price.

She closed her eyes and thought about the consequence. Her hands balled into tight fists.

Slowly she reached out and turned the handle.

She held her breath. Time slowed down until she was suspended in it like an ant caught in amber.

“Beth.” Torres’ deep voice surrounded her; she could physically feel it on her skin, warm and potent, reaching into every pore. She fought the temptation to close her eyes and give herself over to the sensation.

Torres stood up from the bench where he was sitting.

She forced herself to look at him and really see him, the man who had shattered her dreams. He looked different. His hair was long now. He always had short hair. When they first met he had a military cut but later when he joined Los Zetas he shaved his head. But now his hair was thick and long, tied at the base of his neck.

Even his clothes were different. He always wore T-shirts and jeans but now he was wearing a button-up shirt. He looked like he was on his way to a funeral or about to be arraigned. It wasn’t him. He was different. No doubt she looked different too. Older maybe, sadder…

Her gaze lowered to his broad shoulders: still strong and heavily muscled. That part was him. It was Torres, only different.

Tentatively she took a step forward. There was a raw and brutal beauty to him that inhabited a place where masculinity became intimidating. His features were too harsh to be handsome but too overpowering to be anything but. Quite simply he was the most attractive man she had ever met but she would never have the words to describe why.

She reached up and traced the scar that slashed the left side of his face from below his eye to the corner of his mouth. The skin was raised in two parallel lines. This was the face she loved. This was the face she tried to forget. The memories of the night he got the scar flooded back, the blood-soaked sheets: the way his presence had filled her bedroom. He had stepped between two gang members to prevent an attack and had been wounded in the process.

She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.

“I cant…I just can’t…” Her knees threatened to buckle. It was too much.

Beth turned and ran.

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