Read Online Dangerous Curves by Pamela Britton - Free Book Online Page B

Apparently the man didn’t like being interrupted on race day, so he turned off his cellphone. Track officials were no help. Nor was anybody at his shop. Thus Cece found herself fighting race fans on their way to the Busch race. Returning to the track made her feel…anxious. Yeah, anxious.
    She’d spent the whole night analyzing her feelings for Blain. Scratch that. She’d spent the whole night replaying the look on his face when he’d said goodbye. She could have sworn she’d seen regret in his eyes, regret she felt, too. And now here she was, about to face him again, and instead of concern over the news she had to impart, what she felt instead was anxiety that she was about to see him again.
    She parked in the infield again, only today she was wearing regular jeans and a comfy off-white sweater that, perversely enough, was too warm,since today there were no thunderclouds in the distance. Thus she was overheated, out of sorts and not in a good mood when she finally tracked down Blain in his Cup car hauler, not the Busch car garage where she’d spent the last half hour looking for him.
    “Cece,” he said when he spotted her outside the sliding glass doors.
    Cece almost didn’t recognize him. He wore a different shirt—this one for a different sponsor—the blue polo shirt making his eyes all the more striking.
    And there went her heart.
    Thump, thump, thump, just as it used to do when they were kids. When he’d been out of her reach and she’d wished he wasn’t, and now, oddly…he wasn’t.
    “Changed your mind, did you?” he asked with a huge grin.
    “No,” she said, suddenly feeling strange. Okay, so she probably wasn’t looking forward to telling him her news. That was to be expected. But she had a feeling her sudden tension had to do more with seeing him face-to-face again than any official business.
    Maybe, but that didn’t make it any easier.
    “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all morning,” she said, suddenly wanting to get this over with.
    He looked wary, his smile dimming a few watts. “What’s up?” he asked.
    She took a deep breath, wishing she’d never gotteninvolved with this stupid investigation in the first place. But there was no sense in sugarcoating things.
    And so she let out the breath and said, “Forensics came back with a preliminary report on the wreck that killed your friend.”
    “On a Saturday?”
    “They work round the clock.”
    “And?”
    Damn it, why did she hate doing this so much? “They found evidence of nitrates.”
    His mouth hung open, the smile completely gone now. “Explosives?”
    She nodded, quickly and sharply. “It’s nothing for certain yet, Blain. Just a chemical swipe that came back positive. They still have to run things through the computer, but I thought you should know.”
    The crowd roared. Blain looked off to the infield. Two paratroopers were in the air, red and blue streamers trailing behind the lower one, an American flag trailing behind the upper one.
    Yeah, the American dream. Chasing killers. Whoopdedoo.
    “Damn,” he said. “I guess that means they’re canceling the race.”
    She shook her head. “They’re not. My boss has been on the phone with Daytona all morning. Until we come back with something positive, they won’t do a thing.”
    “A chemical swipe isn’t positive?”
    She shook her head again. “No, it’s not. The positiveswab might have resulted from racing fuel mixing with some unknown compound. We won’t know anything for certain for another day or two.”
    “But you’re worried.”
    His perceptiveness surprised her. “I am. I watched the tapes last night. Maybe if I didn’t know a lot about racing I might dismiss what happened as an accident, but you’re right. The sequence of events is off. It looks like Randy’s car exploded before he hit the wall.”
    Blain looked at the ground, and for a second Cece could see the grief in his eyes.
    “Blain, I’m so sorry.”
    She had no idea why she’d said