Kitabı oku: «Crossing The Line: A gripping romantic thriller»

For my sisters

Emily, every day I am amazed by your strength and resilience. I am so proud to be your sister.

Erin, my small but mighty baby sister, no one circles the wagons like you.

I love you both. Thank you for being mine.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter One

The process was very civilized now. So streamlined, just a simple form filled in and emailed to the warden. No months of waiting for background checks and clearance any more.

Beth still remembered the day her mom’s clearance came in. Ruth Thomson’s eyes brimmed with tears, but she smiled wider than Beth had seen in months. The next Saturday, Ruth woke Paige and Beth up before dawn. The black sky was speckled with yellow stars and the red haze of Central Valley fog.

It was an adventure, Ruth told them. And it was. They walked ten blocks in the dark, to get the bus to Folsom, Ruth carrying Paige and Beth clutching her Cabbage Patch doll to her chest like the prize it was. She didn’t even mind that the doll’s previous owner had taken out the red string braids and colored its face with blue permanent marker. Beth had a real Cabbage Patch doll.

Beth shook off the memory. That was a long time ago, almost thirty years. So much had changed since then. She had been such an optimistic child; the world was a place of hope and adventure; that is what her mom had taught her. What would she say to that child now, her six-year-old self, clutching a raggedy cast-off doll? Would she warn her that life wasn’t going to turn out the way she hoped?

She glanced around at the families around her. There were families of every color, children of every age, waiting for visiting hours to begin. It wasn’t even 7 am and they had already been up for hours. The children should be in bed or watching cartoons and eating cereal. But at least they weren’t waiting outside in the rain.

They didn’t have a visitor’s center when she was little. Her family stood at the gates, in all weather, waiting eagerly for a guard to let them in and begin the process of clearing visitors. People lucky enough to have cars would come the night before to line up, starting before midnight. Entire families would drive up from as far as San Diego, sleeping in the car, pissing in bottles, just to see their beloved inmate.

So civilized now…with the toys and games for children and the comfortable seats, and the pamphlets for helping explain prison to children. Here was a novel thought: maybe dads shouldn’t commit crimes and then children would not have to sleep in the car and give up Saturdays to come visit them in prison.

Beth folded the pamphlet and stuck it in her pocket. She tapped her fingers against the red vinyl upholstery of the chair. One thing hadn’t changed: the waiting. Half of a prison visit was always wasted on waiting and processing.

She could have come here officially, as a DEA agent. She visited prisons on a regular basis with her job and she never had to wait. She was straight in, day or night, only stopping for the cursory pat down and chat with guards. She was on a first name basis with guards in prisons throughout Texas and the South West. She even occasionally made it to California, here to Folsom Prison.

Folsom was one of the nicest prisons, at least from a visitor’s perspective. God only knew what it was like for inmates, probably forced sodomy and prison shanks, like everywhere else. But for visitors it was pretty. The prison was set in wooded grounds, acre after acre of rolling hills, with all sorts of wildlife: deer and wild turkeys and rabbits, even peacocks. As a kid she loved it. It was like visiting a farm. Back then her apartment overlooked I80 and the only wildlife she saw was of the road kill variety. Her weekend visits to Folsom Prison were a small slice of heaven.

And then there was the Great Wall of China. That is what she had thought it was, the massive yellow stone wall that surrounded the prison. Her six-year-old mind did not question why the Great Wall of China was in Northern California, at a State Prison, it just was, and she loved it. Other kids in her class would brag about their vacations to the beach or Monterey Bay Aquarium, but Beth didn’t care, because she had seen the Great Wall.

Silly kid…

She ran a hand over her hair, smoothing down her ponytail. She hoped no one recognized her today. She wasn’t here in a professional capacity.

There was a spot on the CDCR Form 106 to state the relationship to the inmate. She left it blank, but still she had been granted visitation. There was more than a small part of her that had hoped her request would be turned down. She could tell herself she had tried and then move on. She would shut the door on this chapter in her life and never look back.

“Numbers 1–20.”

Dozens of people hopped to their feet. It was time, at last. Beth smiled at the toddler next to her. She looked about three. Her tight black curls were styled into several small braids with pink and purple beads at the end. She had bright brown eyes. She reminded her of Alejandra. Beth’s smile widened as she thought of her own daughter.

The little girl dropped her pacifier. It landed in the trash on top of a soggy half-eaten sandwich. The little girl reached for it but Beth picked it up before she could put it back in her mouth. “Baby Girl, that’s dirty. You don’t want that in your mouth. It will make you sick.” She couldn’t tell which was dirtier, the pacifier or the heap of trash it had landed on. In seconds a bleached blonde woman crossed the room to them, her hand outstretched, her other hand on her hip, and a don’t-fuck-with-me-look on her face. Her hands and arms were covered in tattoos. Beth immediately recognized the tattoos, Beth recognized all gang tats; that was part of her job. She gave training seminars on it at the DEA. This woman was a Criplette, a female Crip. They were a particularly ruthless bunch; they had a fondness for beating their enemies to death with baseball bats. Beth sighed. Poor kid. She stared into the little girl’s eyes for a long moment. Make better choices. Silently she prayed the beautiful little girl in front of her would have a chance and not be another life lost to gang culture.

The woman was staring at Beth hard, trying to intimidate her. Why? It was just what they did, there was no switch to turn it off or dial it down. A gang member was a gang member 24/7.

Beth’s back straightened. No one intimidated her any more. This woman could posture and stare her down all she wanted.

“Bitch, give it.”

Beth turned around as if she was looking around. “Are you speaking to me?” Her voice was intentionally quiet so the woman would have to strain to hear her. “I know you can’t be speaking to me because people don’t speak to me like that. Your baby needs a new pacifier. This one is cracked and dirty.” Even if she washed it, it still would not be suitable. The cracks harboured bacteria. Beth rose to her feet to join the long line forming, waiting to be processed and allowed in. She held tight to the pacifier. Beth had no intention of letting the child put the filthy thing back in her mouth, it was covered in what Beth could only guess was a combination of dirt and mould. The concept of hygiene had been lost on this family. It was none of Beth’s business but she had a hard time minding her own business where children were involved. They couldn’t speak up for themselves. The little girl couldn’t say, “Don’t drag me prison to visit your baby daddy, and give me something clean to stick in my mouth.” But Beth could. And she would.

“Bitch, give that back,” the woman seethed.

Beth continued to stare straight ahead. She didn’t have time to deal with this woman. Beth had made her point. The woman would ignore her but saying something was just enough to salve Beth’s conscience; that was the best she could do today.

She felt a sharp tug on her ponytail. Her neck snapped back from the force. In an instant Beth spun around. Her eyes narrowed into tight slits. “You don’t want to pick a fight with me. You will lose.”

“Fuck you.”

Beth smiled. “Is that all you can say?” She shook her head; another failure of the United States educational system. “There are a million more interesting ways to say that, invest in a thesaurus, learn a few. And don’t touch me again. Ever,” Beth warned. Her smile never faltered but her tone had just enough edge to let the woman know she was serious.

“Watch your back, bitch.” The woman jumped forward, landing inches from Beth’s face. Her eyes were wide, her hands clenched in tight fists, ready to deliver a blow. “This isn’t over.”

Beth didn’t react. She was trying to intimidate her but it was a pretty pathetic show. Beth could have laughed if she wasn’t so annoyed. Beth stared down gang members for a living, she had been held at knife point by a member of Loz Zetas, the head of Los Treintas had hired a hit on her. This Central Valley wannabe was no more of a threat than the cockroach scurrying across the polished concrete floor.

Beth turned around. This woman didn’t deserve another second of her time. She just wanted to get this done and go home, back to Texas, back to her own little girl, and her own tattooed former gang member. The irony was not lost on her. Torres has done things that would have landed him here, or someplace worse, had he not been paid for his services by the Department of Justice. His crimes were OK, admirable even, because he was playing for the right team. That is what she told herself anyway.

Beth watched as one by one the visitors were ushered through the metal detectors, their bodies searched, their documents inspected. She could still leave. He didn’t know she was coming. She could go back to the airport and get an earlier flight.

But she wouldn’t because Beth Thomson had stopped running from her problems. Nothing could be as scary as seeing the scorpion spray-painted on her sister’s window. Nothing could be as painful as planning Paige’s funeral. Nothing could rip her heart out like hearing her daughter cry for her auntie. Nothing could be worse than what she had gone through already.

Beth put her driver’s license, keys and manila envelope in a tray ready to be x-rayed. She smiled at the guard, Jackson, according to his name badge. When he did not return her smile she remembered why, she wasn’t on his side today. He didn’t know they were playing for the same team. Today she was just a random woman visiting an inmate.

She sat down at the Formica table closest to the patio doors, where there was plenty of natural light to counteract the effects of the fluorescent lights. There was a large courtyard, complete with a play structure for children. That was new.

She hated doing interviews in windowless prison rooms. She always left with a headache. Usually she could hope to leave with a confession or at least a strong lead, so then it was worth it. Today there was not going to be a payoff, so she wasn’t going to endure a migraine.

The room filled up quickly, anxious families huddled around tables, waiting. Beth stared past them into the courtyard and into the rolling golden hills. Golden, is what she thought of them when she was younger, now they looked more scorched, like the sun had burned the life out of them, but they were still pretty all the same.

She stood when the guard ushered him in. There was a look of confusion painted on his worn features, followed by recognition, and then finally a smile. “Beth.” Her name sounded like a question. He looked different, of course he did, over a quarter of a century had passed since she had seen him, but it was more than that. He seemed smaller now, his shoulders narrower; his frame slighter.

Beth could not bring herself to return his smile. What should she call him? Joe? Mr. Cummings? The dickhead who broke my mom’s heart? Dad?

“Hi,” was all she could say.

He moved towards her as if he were going to hug her. She held out her arm instead, offering him a hand to shake. It had been a long time, the best part of thirty years. She had stopped making the weekly treks to visit when she was nine. One Saturday morning, she refused and she never looked back. Her mom and sister continued but once she made her decision, her dad was dead to her, cut out like a cancer. Her family knew better than to discuss her dad with her. When they visited, they kept it quiet. The Thomson family had a strict don’t ask don’t tell policy in place when it came to dear old dad.

His smile widened. “You look so much like your mom.”

Beth shook her head. She didn’t. She looked like him. There was no denying that now. His hair was lighter, bleached from the sun and the passage of time. His skin was a soft golden hue of a well-worn baseball mitt. Between his grey-blue eyes, the exact shade of hers, were deep ridges. Mindlessly she rubbed the furrow between her own brows.

“How’s your mom?” he asked. He took the chair across from her.

“She’s fine,” Beth said but then she shook her head. “No she’s not. She’s not fine. She has Alzheimer’s, she’s not ever going to be fine again.” Beth fought the overwhelming feeling that nothing was going to be fine again. Maybe things had never been fine in her life, but once upon a time she was better at pretending. “I don’t know how much Paige told you.”

Beth turned and looked out the window: a little boy was being pushed on a swing by his dad. She wanted to get home. Maybe she should not have come. She wasn’t sure why she had come. She told herself it was for Paige, because her sister had not let go of their dad. She didn’t even know until her sister was murdered, that she had been traveling to California every two months to visit their father in prison. It wasn’t until Beth had gone through her sister’s things that she discovered the truth, in the form of letters, several years’ worth, neatly filed. Everything about Paige was neat and orderly. Even in death. Everything was laid out, filed, and organized.

When Beth died, some poor soul was going to have to sort through a cluster fuck of paperwork. Her system made sense to her, but no normal person would understand.

Beth suddenly remembered why she was here. She thumbed the glossy cover of Paige’s funeral program. She stopped herself before handing it to her dad. She couldn’t just hand it to him and say, “Your kid, the one who actually liked you, is dead and it is my fault.” That would be cruel. She had no loyalty to this man, this stranger in front of her, but he was a person. She folded the paper and returned it to her lap.

She would tell him about her mom first. Give him the bad news before she gave him the horrible news. “Mom doesn’t have long now. She can’t speak any more. She can’t feed herself. She’s not mom any more really.” Beth shrugged her shoulders. That was the long and short of it. The woman in the nursing home in Texas wasn’t really her mom. Ruth Thomson was loving and vibrant and smart, so smart. The person they were talking about was a shell that bore a passing resemblance to her mom.

“I’m sorry.” Her father reached across the table to take her hand. It was then that Beth saw it, the shamrock tattoo, with a 6 in every leaf and the letters A and B below.

Aryan Brotherhood.

Her 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 pulled out another picture. “Here is one of us at Disney World. That was a fun trip. I like Florida. Shame it doesn’t have a border with Mexico or I could have been transferred there.” Her job with the task force meant she needed to be in Texas.

She handed the rest of the photos to her dad and watched silently as he made his way through them. He smiled a few times and then cried again. This time Beth placed her hand on his arm. She felt nothing but it seemed the humane thing to do.

“Do you have a picture of your husband?” he asked.

Beth’s eyes widened. “Torres?” she asked as if there was another husband her father could be asking about. She patted her pockets. She had left her phone in the rental car. “Umm…Torres is…I told you he is Mexican. And we worked together. Not a lot else to say.”

“Is he a good man?”

The question took her aback. Was Torres a good man? Depends on who you were asking and if your definition of good precluded murder. “Umm…yeah…he is a good man. He has always had my back.” That much was true. With Torres she always had someone on her side. That is why she married him. She probably shouldn’t have, he had only asked her out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. It wasn’t particularly fair to him, to saddle him with her and her daughter. If she was a better person, she would have said no, for his sake, but she wasn’t, and she wasn’t proud. She would take whatever he offered because he was all she had left, the only person on her side.

And he would take care of Alejandra. Beth wouldn’t let her be orphaned again. When things went downhill with Torres, when he finally realized who she was, he would still be there for Alejandra, and that was all that really mattered. She might be a shitty person but she was a devoted mom.

Her dad nodded. “You said he worked with you. What does he do now?”

Beth sighed. The truth was too complicated to contemplate retelling. “He is a carpenter.” Again that much wasn’t a lie. He was also a soldier and a special agent and a drug runner and the head of a hit man squad, but she left those details out.

“Does he earn a good living?”

Joe Cummings was acting the part of a father, making sure his daughter was well looked after.

Surreal: this attempt at family normality. He didn’t have the right to know about her life. Why would he even care? He hadn’t even seen her in over twenty-five years. They were strangers. “We do OK.” The truth was they were more than comfortable now. The Department of Justice had offered Torres a settlement. They were more than happy to throw money at him in return for him keeping his mouth shut about Patterson setting him up. He would never need to work again if he didn’t want to. Torres couldn’t not work; it went against everything he was. He had returned to carpentry, starting with a playhouse for Alejandra that was about the size of the apartment Beth had grown up in. The playhouse had polished wooden floors and granite worktops. News of the tiny garden mansion spread through the neighbourhood and in a week, Torres had orders for three more. One person even requested a house with running water. As Paige always said, “Thank God for people with more money than sense.”