The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt Read Free Book Online

house. Its drone is soothing. She wouldn’t want to be anyplace else but in his arms.
    She wakes at dawn. Theo is already in the shower. She pulls on her dressing gown and goes downstairs to make him some lunch to take to the office. She opens the bag he uses to transport his gym clothes and lunch box. Yesterday’s shorts and T-shirt are impeccably folded, the lunch intact, untouched.
    Julia’s heart freezes. Yesterday Theo described his gym workout to her in detail. He even mentioned he had heated up his lunch in the office microwave. Julia stops dead, staring at Theo’s things. My God . . . what if there’s someone else, and he meant her to find these things so she’d guess? Has he done it on purpose?
    Julia doesn’t hesitate for a second. She races up the stairs, pulls on a gray cotton shirt and a tracksuit, knocks on the bathroom door, and, taking quick, short breaths so her voicewon’t betray her emotion, says, “I’m going for a run. I’ve left your breakfast on the table.”
    She rushes back downstairs. She goes out by the main door and skirts the house to where Theo’s car is parked on the private access road. She opens the door, taking care not to set off the alarm, climbs into the backseat, lifts the lever that locks the seat back, and folds the seat forward to access the trunk. She crawls inside, pulls the seat back into place, and freezes in her hiding place, panting.
    Curled up in a ball in the darkness, her heart thudding and her palms sweating, she feels like throwing up. It isn’t wanting to know the truth that is making her feel sick. It’s finding herself once again shut up in the trunk of a car.

6.
    THE EZEIZA MASSACRE

    Austral Winter
    1973
    J ulia was fifteen. She’d been in love with him for a few months now. Her grandmother had warned her: women of the lineage were never happy in love. But Julia refused to listen. She would be the exception.
    The callow youth who had approached her at her parents’ home had become a man. He had enrolled in the School of Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. He wanted to become a computer scientist. He’d been good at math in school and had developed an interest in systems programming—a new field that had managed to survive the flight into exile of Argentina’s finest minds following the Noche de los Bastones Largos. *
    Theo would have liked to work with Clementina, the pride of the faculty. It was the first computer programmed entirely in Argentina—a bulky piece of equipment occupying an entire room. Unfortunately Clementina had just been dismantled on the pretext that a new machine was going to be put into service. Theo was hoping to be part of the new team. His exam results were excellent, and his professors considered him a particularly brilliant student.
    Theo was ambitious. He read almost everything he could get his hands on. He had an opinion on every subject under the sun, because even when his knowledge of something was superficial, he could support it with convincing remarks. Mama Fina said he had “presence.” He wasn’t handsome by any means, but he had the appeal of young people who enjoy other people’s company. His gift for repartee soon made him the center of any conversation; he could be self-deprecating and make people laugh. He often said he’d learned to play the clown to keep Julia’s heart, and she knew it was true.
    But above all—and this was what made him irresistible to Julia—Theo made it a point of honor to nurture his inner child. He was up for any game, curious about anything new, open to any craziness. Julia felt like she’d been caught up in a whirlwind. It was her turn to keep Anna up at night with her tales of Theo.
    Theo was very close to his brother, Gabriel, who was five years his elder. His admiration for Gabriel knew no bounds. They had both graduated from the Colegio Nacional deBuenos Aires. It was