High Octane

by Ashlinn Craven

  The quick shag was a dumb idea anyway. No way was she going down that road again.

  Not that he was asking or anything.

  When she opened her eyes, he was looking right at her with an unguarded expression of interest, piercing through the steam. She dragged her toes against the rough mosaic surface but kept the eye contact. She needed an interview with him. That was all she needed from him. But she’d have to work up to it. Gently.

  “You should take that watch off,” she said conversationally. “It’ll break in the heat.”

  His fingers clutched the rather tarnished-looking watch. The only shabby thing he ever wore, in fact. He didn’t answer.

  Great, back to the stony silences. Maybe she could remark on the weather ? Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny …

  “I’m frying up here,” he said. “Please tell me you’re ready to give up, too.”

  “How long you can hold out in a steam room is not a test of your manhood.”

  “In that case,” Adam rose, “you’ll find me at the water machine drinking copiously.”

  “Sure,” she said with a nonchalant wave. Water machine sounded like a good place for an interview. Nice and casual. So casual he wouldn’t even know it was happening.

  A blast of delicious cool air enveloped her as he stepped out. Her throat constricted at the sight of his wet swimming trunks clinging to firm buttocks, tracing a convex outline across firm muscle.

  Alone, she stared into the steam, calculating the last time she’d had sex. Right now it was impossible not to think about it; she might as well give in to the thought. Okay, seven months. Liam had set her up with a banker on a blind date that had developed into something. Kieran, the Liverpudlian of the ubiquitous gray suits, yellow ties, and Joop! after-shave, who’d had to decide between a job in New York and her. He’d chosen the Big Apple. In secret, she’d been relieved that they had been able to pin their incompatibilities on that external reason.

  She’d give this steam torture a minute more, so it wouldn’t look like she was chasing after Adam.

  Pushing the door open with a squelch, she released her roasting body into the coolness of the spa’s lobby. Adam was stuck in what appeared to be a serious conversation with his second driver, Pete Albany, engrossing him. He didn’t look like he was going to move any time soon.

  The last thing she was going to do was hang around, waiting for him, looking like a tomato, sweating like a pig. She threw her towel around her neck and headed for the changing room. She’d catch him later in the hotel bar. It was a driver tradition to meet on the last night of any continent.

  But Adam wasn’t at the rooftop 20 minutes later, only Reece’s and Ronan Hawes’s groups standing in two tight little circles on either side of a grand piano. She chose Reece’s group, as there was little new she could learn about Ronan, and she was determined to get something out of Reece by asking him the same question she’d asked Adam.

  She managed to maneuver Reece to beyond hearing distance of the rest of his group and launched into her attack without preamble. “So, were you surprised when your erstwhile teammate came back to launch a challenge on your title this year?”

  He stopped chewing his greasy chicken leg, took a swig of wine, and rubbed his eyebrow to clear a sudden frown before answering. “Frankly, I hadn’t given him any thought until he won on Sunday.”

  “Really? So now you do give him thought?”

  “Only when I have to.” Reece swung his fork. “When he’s in my way, in other words.”

  “But you used to be such friends.”

  He mopped his mouth with a napkin. “Did he say that?”

  “No. It was all over the press from two years ago. You went on day trips together. He never partied much, but you did some hikes together in Germany and Austria, did you not?”

  He pulled a sheepish face. “Things were better then, I’ll give you that. But Fontaine completely lost it in Malaysia, you know? He just couldn’t hack being second driver and backing down when he was supposed to. For the sake of the team.”

  Her internal lie detector was beeping loudly. “But wasn’t he nominated first driver before Malaysia?” she asked innocently.

  Reece’s blue eyes turned frosty as he scanned her face. “Oh you’ll hear a lot of different theories out there depending on whom you talk to. Be careful you can back up whatever you’re planning on writing down. Because I would hate to see the BBC embroiled in an ugly legal case.”

  Jackpot. She regarded him through narrowed eyes. Here was the real Reece at last. One expected a degree of self-absorption and arrogance from F1 drivers, but this guy was more sociopath than narcissist.

  “Hey.” Reece moved his hand to cover hers on the table. She flinched but didn’t withdraw. “You have to understand that Adam looked up to me. He got very attached to me, let’s just say. That was his first year of F1, and he didn’t have many friends, except me. He took everything so personally. As he still does.”

  He leaned forward. “The thing is—he got cocky after he won a few qualifiers.” Reece’s eyes shone with utter conviction on this point. He sighed and took a drink.

  “He’d worked on this car he had. Himself, you know? Tuning this, adjusting that, the obsessive stuff he does. And got it to go really fast. Faster than my car, which was supposed to be better. And then he beat me in the qualifiers for Japan. Well, it was like a switch had been flipped on, or off—hell, I don’t know which—but he changed that day, for the worse. No longer content with being second to my first. No, he became a single-minded, arrogant asshole.

  “See, not to get all Freudian on you and ruin your gin and tonic, but he saw me as some kind of brother replacement before that, which made it all the harder for him to adapt to the realities of competitive racing.”

  “Brother replacement?” She whipped her fingers away. “Oh come on, his brother is long dead.” She calculated. “Twelve years. It would have been ten years at that stage. Why would he see you as a brother replacement?”

  Reece raised his eyebrows in silent answer.

  “You were that close?” she pressed, puzzled.

  “How close would that be exactly?”

  “You tell me, Reece. You’re the one making all the claims of brotherly closeness here.” Her reporter instincts flared up, demanding more. What did she know about the brother? What did she need to know about the brother?

  “Don’t you see? That’s why he took it so hard when we accidentally rubbed wheels in Malaysia. For all I know he was re-enacting … oh, Viv, you’re the psychoanalyst here. You figure it out. I’m done with him and his problems. Can’t we just relax and enjoy our drinks? Please?”

  Re-enacting what? She glanced at Reece, but his attention was absorbed by the exquisite décolletage of the waitress topping off his wine glass.

  She felt a bit lost. How deep would she have to dig to uproot the real Adam Fontaine?

  • • •

  Next day, Viv bumped into Mack before she could get her second coffee.

  “Get that interview sorted yet?” he asked sharply. “April fifth is around the corner.”

  “No, but I’m working on it. I’ve noticed he’s not as popular as he could be. I’m thinking we could play our part in redefining his role. I mean, we could humanize him.”

  “Humanize him? Not part of the job description.”

  “No, but an interview at this stage isn’t going to achieve much either. People will switch over to another channel if you let him sit him there saying nothing. He’ll twist it all back to something impersonal or just … sit there. I know him; he could do it. He does it all the time. It’ll make for dismal TV.”

  “If you know him so well, why can’t you get one goddamn interview?” Mack shook his smartphone under her nose. “We’ve had enough studio interviews with Maddux and Reece to host our own fan shows for a decade.”

  “Working on it,” she repeated.

  “Did you use your,” he paused and lowered his eyelids, and his vo
ice dropped an octave, “charm? Come on, you have an advantage over Channel 4 and Sky and the rest of them—they’re all male.”

  “He’s not like that.”

  “Of course he’s like that, all men are like that.”

  “Well, I still think we can take a different angle.”

  “Spit it out then.”

  “I think … I think we need to contextualize him, build up a story around him. Explain to the public why he is the way he is. We build up a story—a story about how weak his fan base is. How he could be earning more fans, more adulation, more money, if he ... played the game, lightened up a bit, put on more of a show, acted more like a fallible human than a machine. Acted more like the other drivers. That’s what the fans have been telling me. He’s Mr. Spock, and they want Captain Kirk.”

  Mack harrumphed. “Wouldn’t be the first time in F1.” He looked like he was going to move on. Viv crossed her fingers behind her back.

  Mack frowned and retraced a step. “This angle of yours. That’s the beginning. What’s the middle, what’s the end? Come on, come on, run it by me.”

  “Well, we kind of take ownership for his transformation. We start off with the usual footage where he’s looking blank, avoiding everyone. We try to explain why this is. Then we introduce a photo where he’s smiling. It can replace that sour one we keep pulling up when there’s a profile of him on some news item—”

  “You ever seen a photo where he’s smiling? ’Cause I sure as hell haven’t.”

  “No,” she admitted, “but maybe we can catch him on camera while he’s watching a funny show, or someone’s telling a joke … or I … don’t know … I haven’t worked out the finer details, but how hard can it be?”

  “I notice your grand plan doesn’t include a live studio interview.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You’re making it very complicated when it could be so simple. If he wants to be a grumpy bastard, let him. Paranoid android Fontaine versus playboy Reece Marlowe works fine in my books.”

  “I’ll work out the details, Mack. I will. You just have to trust me on this.”

  “I want to. I really do. Look, everyone knows the facts: the rich wine-making family, the arduous rise through Formula Renault, F3, F2, blah, blah, blah. But I’ve heard from a reliable source that it wasn’t Daddy’s money that got him there. No, his first sponsor was Tony Villiers, a friend—and the whole privileged family story doesn’t add up. We’ve records of Fontaine working as an impoverished mechanic for a couple of years in a sketchy part of L.A. Something fishy there, Viv, so reel it in, filet it and grill it.”

  “Consider it done. Could you give me those records?”

  “Already have. Check your mailbox, you ninny.”

  “Yes, Mack, I’m on it. Anything else I should know?”

  He glanced at his watch. “You tell me.”

  “Do you approve my travel request to go to California?”

  “Are you kidding? You call, or you Skype.”

  She couldn’t press it. She was still in probation period. But her journalistic instincts told her there was something in the Fontaine winery that held the clue to unraveling the man. If she had the private funds, she’d go there herself. But she didn’t. All she could do was call on this Villiers guy.

  Chapter 10

  Austin, Texas

  “Read the attachment I sent to your mail before you go off to California,” Chad Teague said on the other end of phone. “I want all team members to know the new regulations by heart and that includes you drivers. We can’t afford any misunderstandings what with Reece’s antics last week.”

  “Sure thing,” Adam agreed. “Anything else?”

  “No. Well, have fun.”

  “Yeah.” Adam clicked off the call. He opened up his email and frowned. When was the last time he’d checked his mail? A month ago? Before Abu Dhabi? He had an entire screen here, which meant fifty unread emails. And he didn’t recognize a single sender. What kind of new virus was this?

  He glanced at the bottom of the screen and his breath caught. This was the first screen of sixty-seven screens of new emails. Three thousand three hundred and fifty messages? Just what he needed. A virus on kryptonite.

  He searched for Chad’s mail among them, found it and sent it to reception to print out. That done, he scanned the unopened mail subjects again to find a pattern in the scam. He shouldn’t open any; that was rule number one. But the names looked genuine, real sender names, not randomized characters.

  Curiosity overcame him. Hell, sometimes rules were too boring even for him. He clicked on one that seemed to have a legitimate address and even a personalized title: “Adam Fontaine—we love you!” Well, this was a virus on kryptonite with a sense of humor.

  It was an email from a fan club in Slovenia, sent back in March. Adam frowned in surprise.

  Dear Adam,

  We wanted to let you know that we joined your fan club (FontaineFans.com website—you have one at last—and we are the Slovenian branch!! We’re travelling to see you in Hungaroring. Don’t let us down!! Don’t let Reece-Bighead-Marlowe get the title this year!!!

  If you want to write us back, we will be ultra happy.

  Yrs,

  Anton Vracnik & Anton Lovrencic

  Who’d have thought it? A Slovenian fan club composed of two Antons? He closed the email and went on to the next one.

  A lady from Brussels wrote in French, saying that she admired what he’d done for the sport. Why? What have I done for the sport? She didn’t elaborate, but the tone was polite and very friendly. Too friendly. Then he clicked on the attached JPG, and the lady turned out to be a teenager with a skimpy T-shirt stretched over huge breasts emblazoned with the words “Team Adam”… one word for each breast. She’d left her phone number with a final line in English: Call me when you get to Spa-Francorchamps x Bettina.

  “Sorry girl, not interested,” he murmured and went onto the next one.

  Really, why did people write to him like this? Had they no lives of their own? It was clear where they’d got the address though—from FontaineFans.com.

  He went to the website to check it out, knowing he’d regret it. He got sidetracked looking at the pages in pink and green. So this is what a fan site looked like.

  The landing page displayed a big photo of him holding up the champagne in Bahrain. It was quite flattering, especially with Maddux and Anderson standing in obvious second and third on either side of him, drenched in champagne. And no Reece to spoil it. Eddie would get a real kick out of this. He’d write back to the fans.

  There were some photos of himself that he’d never seen before. “Latest News,” “Bio,” “Links,” “Contact.”

  He didn’t see any names under “Contact,” so he opened a command prompt window and entered the WHOIS command to find out the site’s registration. It was Dreyfuss Lane in London under the name of a certain Liam McCloud.

  McCloud. How very strange. How many of them could there be in London?

  • • •

  Adam flew from Fort Worth to LAX to the Santa Barbara airport and rented a car to drive to Santa Ynez. It was a long trip from the circuit in Dallas, and he knew Bruce and Chad considered him crazy for spending his free time doing yet more travel, but he had to check in with Saskia while he was in the country. No question. Even if he had to travel sixteen hours to see her for two.

  Saskia had been a complete angel and managed to get Dad out of the house to visit his friend down in San José this weekend; she’d texted to say the coast was clear.

  He drove over the national forest pass, past the Cold Spring Tavern on the old stagecoach trail. Once he got to Oxnard, he relaxed and let his mind drift. Winning Bahrain had allowed him to dare hope. To hope for something beyond the madness. The hope of making a step that he couldn’t articulate even to himself, but it had all to do with fulfilling Eddie’s dream. And it had a lot to do with showing Dad that a father had no right to dictate a son’s career choice, especially after what D
ad had done.

  As he neared the place his sister called home, the heavy feel of dread didn’t weigh down his chest as much as it usually did on this road.

  Beautiful, luscious, spring growth all around urged him to get out of the car for a moment and smell the fragrant foliage. If he’d had a whole week off, he could have made a leisurely road trip out of it. But there was only one holiday in the F1 calendar, and that was in July, not April.

  At the turnoff to the winery, he slowed the Audi to a walking pace to gaze at the façade of the family home perched on the dry brown, grassy ridge, flanked by flowering vines and plants—bougainvillea, morning glory. Lights blazed in the living room and the top-left bedroom. Saskia and Jeff must both be home.

  He swerved off on a dirt track toward the big stone barn that housed the farm equipment, where he’d arranged to meet Saskia, well out of sight of the house, just in case Dad refused to go at the last minute. They kept the rendezvous location for the sheer hell of it because they’d loved this barn as teenagers. He eased open the squeaky, wooden door.

  “Adam!” With a high-pitched screech, his sister leapt out of the shadows. Dust motes sparkled in the amber, dusk light as his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the machine-filled area. His sister’s frizzy hair blazed a deep auburn as she ran up to him. Her thick lumberjack shirt failed to disguise she’d gotten thinner in the last six months.

  He squeezed her tightly into his chest, the bittersweet joy of being near her filling him. “Thanks for coming, Sask.”

  Saskia pulled back and scrutinized him with her piercing green eyes. “Don’t worry, he’s not here. I told you. Jeff is, though.”

  “Say hi,” Adam said, hurriedly, lest she’d any notions of instigating a cozy get together with his future brother-in-law who would poach the precious two hours he had. “I haven’t got long, but I had to see you.”