My father shifted in his chair and glanced away.
“James.” I made him look at me. “I’m not looking for more sponsorship.”
“I realize. But it hasn’t escaped the board’s notice there is a Reilly in racing who’s quite good. Who has considerably more charisma than the other family representatives involved in the sport.” He frowned. “It was mentioned to Edward.”
My jaw dropped. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“You misunderstand.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t me, but another board member who came out with it during one contentious meeting. I couldn’t stop it.”
“No wonder they all act like they hate me. They think I’m going to take away their meal ticket.” I thought for a moment. “Now the spotter thing makes sense.”
“How so?”
“The other spotters they tried to bribe were cars in GT Daytona, the class your brother competes in. I assume the point was hindering other cars so your brother might advance to fifth place. But I drive in GT Le Mans, so trying to bribe my spotter wouldn’t help.”
“Except by making you look bad to the bank’s board,” James concluded. “It seems I will be having a few words with my nephews. And my brother.”
“There’s one more thing.” I took a deep breath. “About your brother.”
“What did Edward do?” His knuckles were white where they gripped the arms of the chair.
I started with the easy stuff. “Jack went over to the Arena tent to make nice, after the incident with Colby. I followed him. Your brother got in Jack’s face, and Jack told him to grow up, which made me laugh. Your brother saw me laughing and charged over to get in my face. I walked away.”
My stomach jumped around, and I drew another deep breath. “That’s when he grabbed my arm and called me a ‘conniving, interfering whore.’”
I finished the rest in a whisper. “Like my mother.”
Chapter Forty-seven
10:25 A.M. | 3:45 HOURS REMAINING
My father froze. Didn’t blink, didn’t seem to breathe. Nothing moved except the blood that drained from his face. He looked older and madder at the end of thirty seconds than I’d ever seen him.
“Edward said that?” I could barely hear his words through his clenched jaw.
I nodded.
“He touched you in anger? Did he hurt you?”
I shrugged. “I hurt him more. I bent his thumb back to make him let go. The guy over there, Ryan, got hold of your brother so he didn’t come after me.”
My father stood, his movements small and controlled. I had the sense of him drawing everything in, harnessing rage. I didn’t much care what he did to his brother, but I hadn’t meant to hurt my father.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He gave a single nod. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Kate. It’s untrue, and he had no right to spill his bile in your ears. We…I’d like to talk with you about your mother someday soon. But this is the wrong time.”
I agreed with him. This conversation had been enough for the moment.
“Is there anything else I need to be made aware of, Kate?”
“Not unless you know anything about Stuart favoring bigger, richer teams over small ones.”
He’d been eyeing the exit, clearly distracted by thoughts of his brother, but he turned to me sharply. “But he doesn’t. He’s very supportive of the smaller, privateer, single-car teams. Feels they’re the heart of the Series and sportscar racing.”
“The rumor going around says otherwise.”
“I’m astonished and dismayed, once again.” He came up with a wry smile. “This conversation hasn’t been very uplifting, has it?”
I laughed. “Not so much.”
“Regardless, thank you for informing me about all of this. I plan to…address some of the issues.”
I didn’t know whether to apologize or thank him.
Before he turned away, he waved a finger in the air. “Now I remember Stuart mentioning a concern about someone in his office taking that exact approach. He spoke of needing to educate an associate on that point. But I don’t know who it was.”
“I think it’s Tug, but I haven’t traced the rumor back to prove it.”
“I’ll see if I can do so. Be careful. And thank you. I’ll be in touch.”
I looked after him and wondered what he was going to do. I didn’t envy him the complication of those particular family members.
Speaking of family members, I remembered Lara wanting to talk to me and her garbled message. What had she said? Something about the guy from the car, something wrong, nothing wrong, no brakes, no nothing. What the hell did that mean?
Holly tapped me on the shoulder as she dashed past and hopped up onto the pit cart. I followed her and took the proffered single earbud, as she clicked the record button. I had to lean close to the display to block out the glare and see the video feed of two men, from shoulder to knees. Holly breathed into my ear: “Arena and Grant.”
I looked at her briefly, my eyebrows raised. We were lucky there weren’t any cars on the front straight, so we could hear them clearly.
I heard Arena’s voice in my ear: “That’s not how this team does things. We race fair.”
“Fair isn’t getting me what I need, Arena,” blustered Ed Grant. I could hear his voice through the recording and also faintly through the canvas wall to my right.
“Not my problem,” Arena returned. His voice was icy and calm.
Grant again: “Your other team doesn’t have a problem with pushing things, making things happen.”
“There is no other team. If you want to work with a different team, I suggest you make those arrangements after this race.”
“Right.” Grant drawled the word, sounding more arrogant than usual. A car went down pit lane, and we missed whatever he said next.
“Pardon me.” I froze at the sound of a new voice I recognized.
“James, what can I do for you?” Arena asked.
“I need a moment with my brother, if you don’t mind,” my father responded.
“Certainly.” We saw Arena’s firesuit exit through the opening into the Arena tent.
My heart pounded. Would Grant know I’d said something? Would he be more angry and come after me?
My speculations were cut off by the sound of flesh meeting flesh and a body falling to the ground.
My father stood over his brother and spat, “Don’t you ever speak to her again or bring up her mother to anyone. You have no idea what I can do to you, so leave my daughter alone. And call off your son and his cousin, before they get arrested or thrown out of the Series.” He stalked away, shaking his hand.
Holly clicked the button to stop recording. She turned to me, her mouth a perfect “O.”
“I decided to stop keeping things from him.”
“I figured that much.”
“It’s not how I expected him to react. I probably shouldn’t feel good about it.”
“But you do.”
I chuckled, then got serious. “As long as Ed doesn’t come after me.”
“Let’s hope he’s not that crazy.”
We stopped talking as the Sandham Swift crew stood, stretched, and began to prepare for the next pit stop. One more stint for Colby, then my turn.
Someone tapped me on the back, and I turned to see Scott Brooklyn.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
I climbed over Holly and led Scott out to the walkway. “You got my message.”
“You really have a tip for me?” He grinned.
“It’s people who really, really deserve to be outed. Maybe you’ve heard about it already? The stuff up on the spotter’s stand overnight?”
He shook his head, and I smiled. “This is one I owe you.” I told him every detail I’d heard about my cousins’ faile
d attempts at bribery. Scott went from interested to surprised to downright gleeful. He thumb-typed notes into his phone as fast as possible.
He caught the oddity right away. “Why go after cars in different classes?”
“No idea. Maybe my spotter wasn’t telling a first-hand story after all. I mean, you won’t use my team name anyway, right? You’d better not.” No way am I letting Racing’s Ringer in on my sordid family drama.
“Nothing will connect to you as the source, Scout’s honor.”
I eyed him. “Were you actually a Boy Scout?”
He nodded, still typing. “This is great. It’ll even get the eyewitness icon.”
My favorite, eyeballs-in-a-racecar. “Glad I could give you something good.”
He stopped typing. “One good turn deserves another. I followed up on some of your earlier questions.” He held up his index finger. “Keith Ingram. Chatted with him before an on-camera. Asked how he was doing, if he still was mad at the Series or any Series representatives, and he said no.”
“Isn’t that an about-face?”
“I thought so, too, but his body language was relaxed and happy. He said he’d finally realized this morning, talking the drivers through the dawn and pushing the team to execute on their pit stops, how much more fun it was to compete with a team than being on the outside observing. He also said he’s making more money.” Scott shrugged. “Seems like he means it.”
“Interesting.”
He held up a second finger to go with the first. “Tug Brehan. Seems to be focusing his energies on two locations this race weekend: the Arena tent and the Benchmark tent—but the reason for the latter is trying to chase that cute little intern they’ve got down there this weekend. Lara, I think her name is?”
I stopped breathing.
Chapter Forty-eight
10:35 A.M. | 3:35 HOURS REMAINING
I coughed. “She’s a little young for him, don’t you think? She’s, what? Nineteen or twenty?”
Scott shrugged. “Legal.”
Great. My—it was hard to say it even in my mind—half-sister being hunted down by the biggest player in the Series. “That’s disgusting, Scott.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not trying to pick her up. Warn her about him if you want. That wasn’t the information I had for you. I wouldn’t repeat this publicly—so don’t you either—but I talked to someone who knows him well. Apparently Tug was pretty angry he had to settle for second-fiddle to Stuart. Spitting nails, angry. But he decided to suck it up, play the game, and be ready to step up when the opportunity arose.”
Scott shook his head to stop my exclamation. “But Tug was also visible in the paddock yesterday—from seven in the morning to race start. He didn’t do the deed.”
I sighed. “I really want to know who did this.”
He held up a third finger. “Elizabeth Rogers.” He paused. “Oddest one of the bunch. Such a non-entity, I had to do some Googling.”
“And?”
“Couldn’t find a thing.”
“It’s a pretty common name, right?”
“Sure, but no trails that looked like her. So I asked a contact.” He winked at me, which I took to mean he’d asked a Racing’s Ringer source. “He couldn’t find anything either before she worked for Grand-Am. Neither of us wanted to dig too deep.”
I shook my head. “I wonder if she’s trying to hide something.”
Our 28 car’s crew stirred, hefted equipment, and leapt off the wall to service the car as Colby pulled in. Tire change—back to single-stinting them in the heat of the day—full fuel, and a clean windscreen. Colby pulled back out for her last stint.
I turned back to Scott. “You don’t know if the Kulik brothers have an alibi for ten-thirty to eleven-thirty yesterday morning, do you?”
“Sure I do.” He laughed at my surprise. “Social media is your friend, Kate. They were at yesterday’s tweetup at ten—you were there, weren’t you? Then they hauled everyone over to the Kulik vodka tent for free shots until the autograph session started.”
“I didn’t see everyone who attended the tweetup.” I thought through the timing. “That was an hour and a half of vodka shots?”
“Closer to two hours, really.” He smiled. “Sadly, I was on the job and didn’t participate. But I was there documenting it all for SGTV.”
Another suspect bites the dust. Not that I thought the Kulkis had motive, only guns. I glanced at Scott. “These questions are off the record, remember.”
“No problem, I’ve got plenty. Thanks for the tip, catch you later, Kate.” He waved at me and headed up pit lane.
I picked up a radio, told Holly I’d be right back, and took off at a jog for the main bathroom building. I exited the building two minutes later and jogged back into the walkway, only to bump into Sam Remington as I sidestepped a golf cart.
Sam grabbed my upper arms to steady me, stop me, or both. “I hoped I’d run into you, Kate, but didn’t mean it literally.” He was laughing.
I forced a smile. “You never know, do you? Sorry, I’ve got to get back and get ready.”
“I’ll walk you there. Wanted a minute.”
I gave up the idea of avoiding him as he fell into step next to me. “What can I do for you?”
“Mostly I wanted to apologize.”
Again? I looked at him, but didn’t respond.
“For…bothering you last night.” He grimaced. “I get it. I miss you, and you’ve moved on. My bad luck. I accept it.”
I sighed. “Sometimes I miss you, too, Sam, but that’s the past. And maybe it’s your good luck—you know, Paula and all?”
“Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I heard you’ve been dating Stuart Telarday recently. But then he was photographed kissing that Monica woman. Um, that sucks?”
I burst out laughing, because the Sam I remembered couldn’t retain paddock gossip for more than ten seconds. “I’m not going to comment, because after you, I’d had enough of my relationship being publicly dissected.” I eyed him. “But I will ask how you know.”
He looked embarrassed. “Paula.”
“I see.” I took a deep breath. If there’s ever someone who should know you’re off the market…. “It’s not for public consumption, but yes, I’ve been dating Stuart. And yes, there were those photos, but they weren’t anything serious. One of those things that looked like something it wasn’t.” I surprised myself by meaning the words. After all of the drama and doubt and emotion of the last day, I wasn’t angry anymore about the photos—at least not angry at Stuart. I’d still like to drop-kick Monica.
At that moment, we reached the start of the Arena Motorsport tent. I averted my gaze, focusing entirely on Sam.
He was nodding. “That’s good. Good. Stuart’s a good guy.”
So glad you approve. I kept my eye-rolling internal.
“I think you’re right about that Monica woman,” he went on. “I mean, I saw them interact yesterday morning, and there was nothing to it. No extra vibe or anything.”
“What did you see?”
He glanced behind me, into the Arena tent, I presumed, and lowered his voice. “I was chatting to Stuart, and she walked by with the guy from the team next to ours? That Vinny guy?”
“Vinny Cruise at Benchmark.”
“Right, him. Stuart greeted them, and they shook hands all around—you know, like they’d all met before. But there wasn’t anything romantic or even awkward between Monica and Stuart.” He paused and frowned. “No vibe directed at him at all, only at me.”
We’d cleared the Arena tents and slowed to stop outside Sandham Swift. “She made a play for you instead of Stuart?”
He shrugged. “Some, but Vinny didn’t seem to like it. I’d said something about how Vinny and Monica looked like they could be related. Vinny looked annoyed, got all stiff. Monica
laughed it off and moved close. Put her hand on my arm, leaned into me, brushed up against—you know.”
I did know, having watched it often enough from women on the prowl in pit lane. I heard my name called and saw Jack wave at me, without urgency, from the top of the pit box. I held up a finger to indicate one minute.
Turning back to Sam, I stuck my hand out. “Friends? Only?”
He looked like he wanted to hug me again, but he restrained himself. He shook. “I’d like that. Not sure about Paula, but I’d like it.”
“Up to you, Sam. I’ll see you around.” I crossed the walkway and entered the pit space, then stopped and looked back to find him watching me. He had a strange expression on his face, a combination of pride, regret, and wistfulness. I raised my hand and turned back to talk to Jack. Miles had been watching the monitors, and he trailed me over to the command center.
I climbed up a step. Jack leaned over, pulled the radio headset off his ears.
“When Colby comes in, we’re going to take a few extra seconds to check suspension linkages and clean out the grills. It’s running a little warmer than usual, and Colby says there’s some vibration in the left turns, which could be some pickup or marbles. We’ll check everything out, maybe find some junk blocking a vent. Kate, it shouldn’t mean more than five extra seconds after you get strapped in, but wanted you to know.”
I gave Jack a thumbs-up, then I joined Holly at the monitors. I updated her on Scott Brooklyn’s information. “Everyone suspicious is turning out to have an alibi and couldn’t have hurt Stuart.”
“Except Elizabeth.”
“Or one of the guys who could be Julio Arena. Nik Reyes, Joe Smith, or Raul—we don’t know where they were. But that’s all wild speculation and possibly racial profiling, I don’t know.”
“I’ll see if I can find out where they were.”
I hesitated. “Did you ever find out if Greg was accounted for?”
“Don’t get timid now, Kate. No, I didn’t. But…” She cocked her head to the side and stared at the ceiling of the tent. “Ian’s sister Jennifer stuck her head into our team lounge yesterday, hoping Greg was there with Ian. That was before the drivers’ meeting, right?”
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