His jaw clenched. “Who else knows?”
“No one.” A tear rolled down my cheek. A tear of fear, or was it of shame? “I swear, I haven’t told anyone. Roy doesn’t even know.”
He let go and pointed his finger in my face. “You keep this to yourself. You tell no one else, you hear me?” He grabbed me again and shook me slightly. “And you stay as far away from Carl Stacy as you possibly can. Don’t you fall for any of his tricks, or this is over.” He let go of me, backed away, and bolted straight out the door.
I buried my face in my hands and allowed my fear to release its tears as I fought to bring my breathing back to normal.
Or this is over.
What had he meant by that? Was I welcomed back to the hauler? Was he relieving me of my duties? My contract?
I composed myself, left through the main doors, and headed for the infield, head down. A large shoulder slammed into me and whirled me around.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I—”
Carl Stacy’s eyes stared daggers back at me from under his large hat, attacking me with his scowl. I swallowed hard. Already I was breaking one of Dean’s rules.
“I’m onto you, Magic Fingers. I will expose you for the abomination you are. There’s no sense in hiding anymore.”
chapter twenty-two
I stared up at his hate-filled face, my feet stuck fast, breath and words caught in my throat.
“Lexi!” Colton’s voice came from somewhere in the distance. I wanted to look in his direction, but I couldn’t move. Carl’s devious grin twitched his peppered whiskers. He leaned in closer.
“If you’re smart, sweetheart, you’ll run along and join the circus.”
Sweetheart? Only Lenny called me that.
“Lexi!” Colton called out again, this time closer. His arm hooked around my waist and pulled me back.
“Stay away from her, you creep,” Colton said with a contorted look on his face I’d never seen before.
Carl tipped his hat and sauntered the other way.
Colton grabbed me by the arms. “You mind telling me what you were doing with him?”
I wiggled out of his grasp and balled my hands at my sides. “Relax. Nothing happened. I’m fine, by the way.” I turned and marched away.
Colton followed close behind. I could practically feel him breathing down my neck. “I said nothing happened. Now, can you quit following me?”
“Trust me, I got better things to do than to follow Little Miss Secrets around the infield, but I can’t. Boss’s orders.”
I growled at him. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Oh, no, not at all. I’m instructed to keep you away from Carl, and where do I find you? With Carl.”
“I can handle him.”
“Yeah, you really handled him back there.”
I forced my legs to go faster, but Colton matched my pace. “Go away, Colton, I don’t—”
He sidestepped around me and blocked my path. “Lexi, talk to me. Tell me what you told Dean in there. Tell me what has him so wound up. It’s not like him.”
“I can’t, Colt. He swore me to secrecy.”
“Ugh. Again with the secrets. When are you ever going to trust me and realize that nothing you say to me can change the way I feel about you?”
“Not everything is about you!” I spat back. But wasn’t it? Wasn’t all of this about him? Weren’t my feelings for him the reason we were in this mess?
Colton’s lips thinned into a straight line while his jaw worked.
“Just drop it. Leave me alone.” I aimed my eyes at the ground and walked past him. Colton gave up and followed at a distance as I made my way back to the motor coach. Debra and Nancy must have worked their PR magic after the meeting, because not a single reporter tried to trample us with cameras and large, fuzzy microphones. I welcomed the change.
I spent the next two days locked up in my room or in the hauler, escorted either by Colton, who had since stopped talking to me, or Dean, who I didn’t dare talk to. At least, from what I could tell, he planned to defend me against Carl’s allegations.
I’d never been so fidgety and distracted in all my life. My nerves were shot and my stomach wouldn’t stop twisting into knots. No one had a clue what Carl’s plans were yet, and the race was today.
Wearing my usual Guardian Auto Insurance swag, I headed down to the track early with Dean and Colton. Dean ordered me to hide out in the hauler and watch the race on the flat screen. I couldn’t blame him. Whatever Carl’s plans were, they definitely involved me—the more out of sight I was, the better.
Colton qualified third on Thursday, but my excitement for him and the race sank far below the nagging thoughts that plagued me. Carl had kept his distance from the media since his big announcement. He had everybody on edge, which was exactly what he wanted.
News reporters still buzzed around, waiting in anticipation for the proof of cheating Carl had promised. My nerves were frozen into ice cubes of tension. Countless scenarios played out in my head—Carl storming in here with camera crews to accuse me in front of them, or with a slew of doctors and government research scientists to haul me away kicking and screaming.
During the pre-race coverage, speculation of self-sabotage and illegal modifications haunted the team. Reporters went as far as digging into some of the crews’ personal lives, airing their dirty laundry on the local news channels. Had that reporter who knew my name done the same with me? Had she sought out Roy and asked him about my life prior to having been sent here?
No. Not possible. Not yet, anyway. She would have blabbed about me all over the news already.
The anthem played, the jets roared overhead, and the famous four words were spoken. The rumble outside shook the hauler as the cars took to the track in single file on the flat screen. The sight gave me goosebumps. They rounded the corners, now grouped together two-by-two in a perfect formation of candy-shelled paint schemes, shining under the bright lights of the track. I desperately wanted to go out and watch the event live. Unlike Bristol, this track was large enough that my ability could never reach far enough to cause any damage. Still, Dean would have my hide if I disobeyed him. He’d specifically instructed me not to leave this spot, and I had no intention of pissing off the only other person who had the power to lock me away.
It’s funny how you take such little things for granted. For the past few weeks, I’d willingly locked myself up in here, able to come and go as I pleased, but now that I wanted to go out, I was forced to stay put. At least Dean let me keep my headset and scanner so I could listen in on the team.
“Great job, guys,” Colton said as he took to the track after the first pit stop. He had led a few laps in the beginning, but then dropped back down, holding it steady in fifth place.
“Looking good out there, Colt, keep up the good work.” Lenny said.
The media kept a close watch on the whole team, and so did NASCAR. Four officials had been assigned to our pit stall instead of the usual one or two. They also weren’t taking any chances.
A close-up of the crew came on the screen. Lenny didn’t look so good. Sweat poured from his forehead and neck, his expression tight-lipped. He spent his time taking his cap off, putting it back on, and then readjusting his headset. Something was way off.
Colton gained two positions and ran third with one hundred laps to go. The cameras closed in on Lenny again, looking green and sick to his stomach. It was hot out, sure, even for a night race, but not any warmer than any other race weekend we’d had. The media seemed to be drawing the same conclusion. Something wasn’t sitting right with him. He had the same look on his face as that time in Bristol, right after he’d spoken to Carl.
With less than seventy-five laps to go, Lenny cued his mic. “I can’t do this. Boss, we need to talk. Now. Colton, I’m handing you over to Dylan.”
“What? Why?” Colton said. No answer was given.
The hauler’s side door slammed shut, and voices came from Dean’s office. I scrambled off my chair
and hurried to lean up against the adjoining wall.
“You mind telling me why in God’s name you walked away from your driver in the middle of a goddamned race?”
“It’s my fault, Dean.” Lenny’s muffled voice shook.
“What’s your fault? Spit it out. We don’t have time for this.”
“The sabotage, conspiring with Carl, it was all me.”
“What?” Dean yelled, and a bang followed, like he’d slapped his palms against his desk. I pictured his eyes bulging as they had when he’d spoken to me in the boardroom the other day.
“Tracy’s pregnant again. That’s baby number five. Five, Dean. How am I going to feed all those mouths on one salary, no matter how much I make? So I panicked … I—”
“Get to the part where you screwed us over, Lenny.”
“I’m so sorry, Dean. Carl offered me a substantial amount of money, enough to retire on. All I had to do was—”
“Do you have any idea what you are admitting to? NASCAR’s going to have your head.”
“I know, Boss, I—”
“Don’t call me that. You lost that privilege the moment you sabotaged your own team.”
My mouth gaped open. Lenny? Fired?
“I know, I get that, but listen to me for a second. Colton’s in trouble.”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“Carl’s got something planned. I wasn’t privy to this one. I refused to help him, but I think he plans to—”
“Did you see that?” The TV sportscaster’s words blared through the flat screen’s speakers. I snapped my attention to the broadcast. “It looked like a flash of flames from inside the number 129 car.”
“Colton, are you alright?” Dylan urgently came through on my headset hanging around my neck. My heart skipped. I held my breath and raised one of the earpieces to my ear, waiting for him to answer.
“Colton, can you hear me?” Dylan pressed on.
Colton’s car veered to the bottom of the track without any signs of slowing down.
“Colton!”
I banged on the wall. “Guys. Get in here now.”
Dean and Lenny ran in. “What?” Dean snapped. I pointed at the screen with my trembling hand.
“There seems to be movement inside the car.” The sportscaster continued as the cameras closed in on Colton’s car. “But he doesn’t seem to be stopping.”
Dean threw his headset on and cued his mic. “Colton …?”
“Officials are reporting that Colton Tayler is not responding to his crew.”
“Son of a bitch. Lexi, shut that damn guy up.”
I lunged for the remote on the table and hit the mute button.
“Colton, damn it, answer me,” Dean yelled again.
“I have no brakes, Dean … I have no brakes.” Relief came in a quick exhale at the sound of Colton’s voice.
“Coast her to a stop, Colt,” Dylan told him.
“I can’t,” he said, pausing to let out a hiss of pain before continuing. “Throttle’s stuck.”
“What’s wrong Colt? You sound in pain. Are you hurt?” Dean asked.
“My legs are burning. Something blew up at my feet and screwed everything up. The firewall’s fucked.”
My hands flew to my mouth.
“Damn it.” Dean turned around in circles, rubbing the top of his brow as he seemingly tried to collect his thoughts to order his next move. “Hit the kill switch, Colt.”
We all stared at the broadcast following Colton around the track, but he wasn’t slowing down. The vise grip of fear clamped down on me. This was it. This was Carl’s plan.
“It’s fried, Dean—nothing’s happening. I can’t stop it.”
chapter twenty-three
Dean bolted out the side door and ran out to the pits. Lenny and I followed.
Dylan ran over the second he saw us. “Boss, I don’t know what—what should I do?”
Dean patted him on the back. “It’s okay, Dyl. This ain’t your fault.” He gestured to one of the officials. “You! Call a caution—something, anything. Our boy can’t stop. We need to give him wide open space to run until we figure this out.” The man nodded and got on his radio.
Dean turned to Lenny, one hand propped at his waist, the other rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, talk to me. How long do we have? Fuel, tires …?”
“We just refueled on the last pit stop, but his tires aren’t going to outlast that.”
“What are his odds?”
“If the tires blow, there’s a slim chance it could slow him down enough to kill the engine, but more than likely it’ll put him in the wall. At full speed like that, with no way of slowing down …”
We all knew the end of that sentence. Bile rose to my throat.
“SAFER barriers should reduce the impact,” Dylan said.
Lenny’s head leaned slightly. “Do we want to take that chance? We don’t know what kind of damage that explosion did to the inside of that car. If it’s as bad as Colton says, the car could buckle right into him.”
“Red flag is out,” Jimmy said. “Race is on hold and all teams have been instructed to line up on the inside of the back stretch.”
Dean cued up. “Good. That’ll give us some room.”
“Guys, what do I do? Tell me what to do.” Colton sounded frantic.
“Just hold it on the track. Dip low in those turns to keep your apex wide. We’re working on a plan, just hang in there.”
“Ten-four, boss.”
Colton sped around the corners without any sign of slowing down, just like my heart was doing against my rib cage.
“What if we get him to drive through the grass?” Dylan suggested.
“The car’s running flat out.” Lenny shook his head. “He’ll just spin the wheels on that grass. It ain’t going to slow him down or be enough to blow the engine. He’ll just run out of room and dart right back onto the track, possibly even head straight into the wall.”
Dean threw his arms up. “Damn it. Then what other options do we have?”
“Crashing is the only option,” Lenny said. “Either we let the tires blow out and hope for the best, or we create our own controlled crash environment and funnel him in. Keep the impact to both sides of the car until he slows down enough to snuff the engine. And again … hope for the best.”
Hope for the best? That wasn’t good enough. Colton had no chance in hell of making it out of that car in one piece.
My body grew numb. I had to say something. “You can’t be serious. This is his life you guys are talking about risking.”
Dean spun around and narrowed his eyes in my direction. He was either pissed, or the track lights were too bright. I went with pissed. “You shouldn’t be out here. Get back inside that hauler.”
“No freakin’ way. Not with Colton’s life on the line.”
Dean ignored me. “Get security down here, we need to clear out the pit area. Media, the other teams—get them all out of here,” he instructed the officials. “Get some trucks, anything to block the end of pit road. We’re also going to need fire trucks and medics here, stat.”
The officials scrambled, and more joined them. The pit stall was in total chaos while I stood in disbelief, watching Colton circle the track. Intense pressure built behind my eyes and cheekbones, and I couldn’t get my chin to stop quivering. “Dean, you can’t do this. You’re going to kill him, you’re going to—”
Dean stopped what he was doing and glanced over his shoulder. “Lexi, I told you to go back to the hauler.”
“Dean, you can’t—”
He lunged toward me, gripped both of my arms, and shook me lightly. “Lexi, you can’t stay here. You have to go back inside the damn hauler.”
I leaned forward and kept my voice low. “Let me stop him, Dean. You know I can do it.”
He shook his head, his eyes creasing. “Absolutely not. Out of the question.”
“Tell him to drive down pit lane, and I’ll stop him. The track’s too big, I can’t r
each him that far out.”
Dean gave me another stern shake. “Lexi, no. This is exactly what Carl wants.”
“You think I don’t know that? But what other choice do we have?” I rolled my shoulder back to make him loosen his grip. He wasn’t hurting me, but the way he was holding me brought back way too many bad memories.
Dean let go, turned around, and waved me off. “Go back to the hauler, Lex. Let us take care of this.”
Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision. “It’s suicide. No, worse … this is murder. You can’t possibly—at best, he’d never be able to race or walk again. I can’t let you guys do that to him.”
He flung himself around again. “Lexi, damn it, I don’t have time for your tantrums!”
I stepped back and my brows shot up. “Tantrums? You’re about to kill your nineteen-year-old driver, and you’re angry about my tantrum?”
His shoulders dropped. “Fine. Stay there, but don’t you dare move a muscle.”
I felt so useless. All this power at my fingertips and I was benched. I sat on the edge of a discarded tire leaning against one of the toolboxes, biting off what was left of my nails, and bounced my knee, using the tip of my foot against the pavement.
Dean disappeared into the crowd of screaming officials, team crews, medics, and firefighters, all planning out their timing and positioning while Colton continued to dip low in the turns and keep high on the straights. Everything was happening at lightning speed, yet somehow it all felt too slow.
“How are you holding up, Colt?” I heard Dean ask him through my headset.
“Something cut through my suit. My leg’s burning like a bitch, but I’m handling her. So far, so good.”
“Keep it up. We’re working on getting you stopped. Keep trying the kill switch—you never know.”
“Ten-four, but no luck so far on that switch.”
A shadow cast over me. I knew right away who it was. The creepy crawly sensation snaking under my skin gave him away.
“You should be out there saving your boyfriend.” Carl stood behind me, breathing down my neck, but I didn’t dare look back at him.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Magnetic Shift Page 19