He shook his head but didn’t deny it. “She had a key; they found a ring with the master on it. She must have passed out, and a lit cigarette fell and started the fire.” He paused and looked at her. “Smoke inhalation would have gotten her right away,” he added gently.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He sighed and dug his hands through his hair. “We’re going home. Some of us—including you—are leaving tonight on the Dash jet. Travis is talking to NASCAR right now. We’re pulling out of the race. I want to get out of here before we’re buried in media. It’s going to be a tough couple—”
“Media?” She heard the alarm in her voice. “Oh God, Beau. I don’t want to be interviewed. I don’t want anyone to see me.”
“Don’t worry.” He sandwiched her hand between his strong palms. “Travis’ll send somebody out there to make a statement and we’ll take a helicopter to the airport. We have to get out of here before it’s a circus.”
“What about an investigation? Don’t we have to talk to the police? Don’t they want to interview us?”
“I already gave the fire marshal and a police officer a statement. There’s no foul play, Celeste. She died in an accident, a fire that she caused. I mean, I’m sure they’ll do an investigation and that’s what they’ll find out.”
“Oh, really? What happens when they find out that the other person staying in the motor coach is traveling under a fake name? And when will we tell them about our visitor with the burned picture? It’s evidence now, don’t you think?” The situation got uglier by the minute. “Then they’ll find out I’m the daughter of a senatorial candidate. You don’t think that’ll be news?”
He put a finger on her lips and reached his other hand into his jacket pocket. He pulled out her black leather wallet. “First of all, here’s your ID. And there’s no ‘evidence’ in an accident. If it weren’t an accident, I’d tell them.”
She took the wallet, remembering that it had been hidden in the bottom of her bag, in the closet. “Where did you find this?”
“It was on the floor in the salon. I think she…must have dropped it.”
With shaking hands, she opened it. Her New York State driver’s license was shoved into the wrong slot. Through the plastic window where it normally stayed, she read the notification card she kept underneath it.
In case of emergency, contact Elise and Gavin Bennett, 46 Sherwood Lane, Darien, Connecticut. Parents. (203) 555-1089. In the next slot, a business card had been hastily folded and tucked back in. Craig had made up the bogus position for her to use at a fund-raiser a few months ago. The card read CELESTE BENNETT. ADVISER. GAVIN BENNETT U.S. SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN.
Celeste stared at it. “If she didn’t know before, she certainly did by the time she died.”
Gavin’s breakfast speech received a resounding standing ovation, some of the louder supporters pounding the hardwood floor of the ballroom as they chanted, “Bennett for senate!”
Elise’s ears rang as she clapped and gazed at the stage. Her attention shifted slightly to Gavin’s left, to the perky, frosted blond who beamed with her just-announced promotion to assistant campaign manager. A position that ensured Noelle traveled with the campaign.
Elise’s false smile broadened. She didn’t hate the girl; she enjoyed the respite from sex with a man she despised. He only needed a wife for the photo ops at the dinner last night and this morning’s breakfast. He didn’t even get back to their room until sunrise. That was just fine. This afternoon, she’d be free. She glanced at her watch; she could be home for the last hundred laps.
Maybe she’d see Celeste on TV again.
As the hyped-up crowd filed through the ballroom doors, the core campaign members grouped together to discuss the afternoon strategy. She overheard them say that the campaign bus would make one more stop outside of Danbury, but other than the local paper, no major media would be there. She’d be dismissed.
Gavin turned to her as the group dispersed toward the elevators. “I’ll need to spend the night in Danbury,” he explained.
Of course he would. “That’s fine.”
They didn’t say another word until Gavin slipped the room key into their suite door and opened it. “Have you heard from Celeste?”
The question surprised her. He hadn’t mentioned their daughter’s absence, and she still didn’t know if he’d seen her on the TV that ugly night of the Fourth of July. “She’s called a few times,” Elise said smoothly. “She’s relaxing.”
He stopped in front of the entryway mirror and looked at himself, then his gaze shifted back to Elise’s reflection. “Where?”
“In Arizona. Scottsdale, I believe.” Her stomach tightened as she reached to answer the ringing phone.
“Uh, hi, Mrs. Bennett. Can I talk to Gav—Mr. Bennett?”
Elise held the receiver to Gavin, pinkies poised to avoid close contact with the caller. “It’s Noelle MacPherson.”
She escaped to the bathroom so she didn’t have to hear the conversation. Locking the door, Elise began packing her cosmetics into a bag, waiting for the guffaw of laughter that Noelle invariably drew from Gavin. But this morning, he spoke in hushed tones.
She lifted the pile of newspapers Gavin had left, searching for her missing hairbrush. Dropping the brush into her bag, it took a moment to register the word on a tiny headline along the fold. Chastaine.
She grabbed the newspaper and whipped it open:
Tragedy Strikes Team Chastaine; Driver Withdraws from Today’s Pocono 500.
“Elise!” Gavin called. “I need to talk to you.”
She scanned the words, her heart constricting. Tragedy. Her imagination exploded into the worst possible scenario. Chas was dead. Oh, God. Celeste.
She forced herself to read, though she couldn’t process whole sentences.
Fire in Beau Lansing’s motor coach. One fatality. Unconfirmed sources identify victim as the wife of team’s largest sponsor. Lansing and fiancée not in motor coach at the time of fire. Incident fuels myth of “cursed” driver.
“Elise!”
She crumpled the paper and shoved it into her cosmetic bag. “Just a moment,” she called out in an unsteady voice. She flipped the faucet and stuck her hands under the cold water, hoping it would stop the shaking. Then she dried her hands and opened the door. “What is it?”
“Plans just changed. Jack Brewer will drive you back to Darien in an hour.” He jabbed a number into his cell phone and pressed it to his ear, then threw the phone on the bed. “Christ, I hate voice mail.” He marched past her into the bathroom as she unzipped her suitcase. “Where’s the sports section?” he demanded.
Elise’s throat constricted. “Maybe the maid took it.”
His hand slammed on the doorjamb of the bathroom as he yanked himself into her view. Elise dug her palms into the teeth of the zipper and looked into his blazing eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she managed to ask.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Elise.” He pointed a finger at her. “Ever.”
Silently, she stared back at him, then picked up the cosmetic bag and tucked it between the tissues that separated her silk blouses. The phone rang again, and Gavin grabbed the extension in the bathroom.
In a moment, he closed the door and continued a quiet conversation. Before he emerged, she had finished packing and left to meet her ride in the lobby.
Chapter
Nineteen
A high-pitched digital melody woke Celeste from a sound sleep. Groggy, she threw back the covers and stumbled to the source of the noise, a canvas bag someone had given her the night before to hold the few belongings Beau had managed to retrieve. She shook her head to clear it as she reached in and felt around for the phone.
Rubbing her eyes with one hand, she pulled out the cell phone and studied the readout. Jackie Dunedin. 143—their code for I need you.
“Are you Cece Benson?” Jackie demanded before Celeste could finish the word “hello.”
Celeste’s
foggy brain couldn’t make sense of Jackie’s question for a minute.
“Tell me the truth, Celeste. I’m looking at a picture on the Internet of a woman who looks exactly like you locking arms with a race car driver we saw in a coffee shop two weeks ago, and the caption says it’s his fiancée, Cece Benson. Is it you?”
“Yes.”
“Holy, holy shit.”
The cobwebs cleared to be replaced by stark and ugly reality, the memories of their trip back to the Chastaine condominium and the sad situation that sent them here. “Is it really obvious that it’s me in the picture?”
“Or your identical twin. Except for the shorter hair, but I saw that before you left. For the spa, in Arizona. And there is the similarity in the names. Plus the fact that you acted so weird when that guy showed up at Drake’s. Not to mention that you’ve been gone for almost two freakin’ weeks and haven’t called me!” Jackie’s hysteria mounted to a raspy crescendo. “What the hell is going on, Celeste?”
“What time is it, Jackie?”
“What time is it?” Jackie offered up her throaty laugh. “No no no no. I won’t tell you what time it is until you tell me what you are doing at a NASCAR race, parading around as Beau Lansing’s fiancée under an assumed name. Where people are dying in fires, I might add.”
Celeste padded across the living room of the condo. The other bedroom door was closed, but she inched it open enough to see Beau, bare-chested under a sheet, his jeans and T-shirt rumpled on the floor next to him.
“It’s a really long story, Jackie,” she said, closing the door soundlessly.
“I’ve got time.”
“It’s way too complicated to explain over the phone.”
“Fine. I’ll fly to wherever you are. Where the hell are you? The Pocono mountains or something? The heart-shaped bathtub honeymoon place?”
“Actually, I’m in Daytona, Florida, now.”
Jackie blew out an exasperated sigh. “What are you doing there?”
“I’m…I’m working as the sponsor liaison for Chastaine Motorsports.”
“Of course you are. Uh-huh. Yes. And are you…oh, God, I’m scared to ask this. Are you really engaged? Again?”
“Well, not exactly. The engagement was just a ruse to ward off that poor woman who got killed in the fire.”
“What?” Jackie barked the word. “What in God’s name is going on?”
Celeste sighed as she started to make coffee. She trusted Jackie, and it was time to dip her toe into the waters of truth and reality. Before the cops drowned her in them. “Jackie, listen. I’m going to tell you something that’s going to, um, surprise you.”
“You’re kidding, right? My jaw has already fallen right off into my lap.”
She found the coffee can and filters. “Travis Chastaine is my biological father. My mother had an affair with him thirty years ago. He’s dying of kidney failure and needs me to donate one of my kidneys to live. But I don’t want him to know who I am. Yet.”
Jackie was stone silent.
“Are you there?”
“My God, Celeste. Are you serious? I can’t believe this. Jeez. Can I breathe and try to digest all this, or is there more?”
“Well…”
“What?”
“There is sort of one more thing.”
“I can handle it. I hope.”
Celeste took a deep breath and squeezed the phone hard against her ear as she whispered, “I think I’ve met the man of my dreams.”
“Ho-ly—”
She heard Beau clear his throat from behind her and spun around. “I gotta go.”
“No! Wait! Celeste, please!” Jackie’s voice cracked from desperation.
“I’ll call you. Don’t tell anybody anything.” Celeste pressed the off button and stared at Beau. He wore jeans, his darkened beard and morning hair completing a raw, desperado image. A maddeningly sexy spark glimmered in his bedroom eyes as he took in her boxers and thin-ribbed tank top.
She took a step back, her gaze following the line of dark hair that ran down over his stomach, directly into the unfastened top of his jeans. She saw his six-pack tighten under her scrutiny and imagined just how those well-defined muscles would feel if she put her hand on that delicious skin, if she traced that line of dark hair, if she lowered that zipper one inch at a time. She couldn’t stop staring at the worn fabric, at the masculine bulge.
Swallowing, she looked up to see his eyes had turned searingly hot.
“How’dya sleep?” he asked.
“Fine.” She busied herself with the coffeemaker, sensing him so close behind her that if she turned, they’d touch.
“What time is it?” he asked.
She peered at the digital numbers on the coffeemaker. “Around noon.”
“Shit.” He yanked open the refrigerator door. “Green flag at one o’clock. And I had the fucking pole too.” The edge of the door bumped her arm. “Scuze me,” he muttered.
“Excuse what?” She surprised herself with the vehemence in her voice as she backed up to stare at him. “Excuse you, the language, or the fact that a woman is dead and you’re lamenting your track position?”
He closed the refrigerator door. “I’m really, really sorry about Olivia, Celeste. I am. But I can’t bring her back.”
“She would be alive if I hadn’t shown up for very selfish reasons.”
“Selfish? To save a man’s life?”
“By pretending to be engaged to you!” She flipped a cabinet open and slammed the Folgers can into it. “She’d be alive if I hadn’t been acting like a teenager out on the track in the middle of the night.”
“That’s bullshit.” He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “She’d be alive if she didn’t swill booze and drop cigarettes.”
“She never went digging through the belongings of your other girlfriends, did she?”
He shrugged. “No one’s ever stayed in the motor coach with me before.”
“Oh, right.” She yanked a utensil drawer open, trying to avoid looking at him and the pectoral muscles that had invaded every available inch of the tiny kitchen.
“That’s the truth.”
She stared at the raw honesty in his gaze. “What about the racing groupies that come at you like vultures?”
“Vultures?” he choked.
“Your word, not mine. What about the girl with the French accent? Please, there are legions of Beau Babes.”
Lifting her chin, he forced her to look at him. “No one has ever traveled with me in my motor coach. No one has ever walked the track with me the night before a race.” A smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “And no one has ever made me feel more honored and humbled to be the man of her dreams.”
Oh, God. He’d heard her.
He kissed the top of her head. Then he dropped his forehead against hers. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day, babe. Let’s not argue, okay?”
Sighing, she nodded, stepping away from the dizzying proximity and waves of warmth that emanated from his bare chest. “Is there a laptop or a computer we can use to get on the Internet? Evidently somebody got my picture when we were leaving the track last night. My friend in New York saw it.”
“I have one at home.”
A tinge of disappointment grabbed her. “Oh. Are you going home?”
“We are. I believe Olivia was the person who dropped in on your bath, and I think the phone call was a wacko fan.” He pulled two mugs out of the cupboard and poured. “But until we’re sure, you’ll stay with me.”
“Okay.” She wrapped her hands around one mug, smelling the rich aroma and wondering how honest she should be with him. “I don’t think what happened to Olivia was an accident. It’s just intuition, but I feel like that fire was meant for me. So I’m glad to go home with you.”
“Good.” He reached across the small space between them and stroked her cheek, his eyes darkening. “You want your own room?”
No. “Yes, of course.”
He ran a finger over
her lower lip. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Not after how close she came to allowing history to repeat itself last night. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said softly.
His expression turned bittersweet. “We were headed somewhere really incredible.”
“But everything’s different now.”
Travis whipped his Corvette up to the gates in front of Beau’s house, tucked away in the private enclave, then pressed the familiar code to open them up.
Shoot fire, he hated what he had to do. Crow was his least favorite meal, but it was gonna be on the menu at Beau’s tonight. And just as everything started to look hopeful again, it all went to hell in a handbasket. It even seemed like Beau’s luck had changed, then that floozy Olivia had to go lookin’ for trouble. And man, did she ever find it.
He’d normally just go in the side entrance off the laundry room. But just in case they were goin’ at it on the kitchen table, he opted for the front door. Beau answered with a cordless phone tucked under his ear and kept saying “Yeah, I know” as he pulled the giant door open.
“I’ll get back to ya, Billy,” Beau said. “Thanks for calling. And tell Nancy thanks for everything last night. She was really great.” He put a hand on Travis’s shoulder after he tossed the phone on an end table. “Come on back. We’re making dinner.”
“Good. I’m starvin’.” In the kitchen, Cece stood at an island counter, tossing a salad, with a glass of wine in front of her. Music filled the room, and Beau’s overpriced halogen lighting finished off the homey picture.
“Well, if it ain’t Martha Stewart,” he mumbled.
She glanced up and gave him a warm smile that made him feel bad for the tease. “Hi, Travis.”
“How ya feelin’, missy?”
She shrugged. “Tired. Would you like something to drink?”
“I’ll have a soda.” He wanted a Bud, but that probably wouldn’t dialisize too nice. “I know where to get it.” He tried to open the heavy door of a refrigerator that blended right into all the cabinets, but it stayed sucked closed. He clenched his teeth against the pain of pulling it open, and Beau reached over and silently tugged it for him. Travis didn’t look at him, and neither one said a word.
Killer Curves Page 18
