BM03 - Crazy Little Thing Called Dead by Kate George Page A

pressure on my foot. Apparently he thought he knew what he was doing.
    “This team is my last hope. The owner took a huge chance on me. I throw this race I might as well kill myself.” Grant ran his hand through his hair.
    “Better dead than alive but not racing?” Jim asked.
    “Pretty much.” Grant said. “I mean it’s hokey, but racing is my life.”
    Jeez, talk about screwed up priorities.
    “Hey, now, Grant. That’s no way to be talking. We can sort this out.” Willard the weasel rubbed Grant’s shoulder and for a second it reminded me of Gollum with Frodo, kind of creepy.
    “No, we can’t, Willard. She knew who to target. I’m dead.”
    “That’s why I got Jim here. He’s a lawyer, he can help.”
    Jim looked at me. “Maybe this would be good time for you to get some fresh air. There could be confidentiality issues.” Jim slid out of the booth. I followed. I searched for something encouraging and appropriate to say but nothing surfaced from the recesses of my brain so I just let myself out.
    I sat on the steps and strained my ears. Couldn’t hear a thing from inside the RV. “Damn!”
    I wandered toward the track hoping to see some of the race. There was an old sap bucket with a rusty rim next to the steps of the RV closest to Grant’s. I walked past it, looking to see a beer can floating in ten inches of water; the leftovers from last night’s ice bucket. Across the tarmac the race leaders flew around turn two and the growl made me wince. I pulled earplugs from my pocket and shoved them in my ears. I love racecars, but they are freaking loud when you aren’t the one driving.
    A hand on my shoulder made me jump and I spun to see Jim at my side. He slid an arm around my shoulder and steered me back down the hill.
    “What’s up?” I asked behind the stands, where at least you could hear yourself think.
“Did you solve his problem?”
    “I think he’s going to the race officials. That was my second piece of advice anyway.”
    “What was so confidential about that?” I asked.
    “I didn’t want you implicated if he told me he was doing something illegal. If you didn’t hear it, then you aren’t responsible for doing anything about it.”
    “Right. Good idea.” I followed Jim back to the stands feeling a squishiness in my stomach that had started at the mention of a French woman and gotten worse from there. I climbed the endless stairs and sidled past the fans to our seats. There was no talking over the noise of the engines, not that I had anything to say.
    The race was uneventful, not that I would have noticed much. My mind was fixated on one thing: A man that I would consider pretty much fearless—you had to be to race cars—was afraid for his life because of a French woman who might or might not be Margaret, and could possibly be Michèle. Not that Michèle had done anything but cry all over the place, but still. Everywhere I looked—too many coincidences. It unnerved me.
    “Come on, Bree,” Jim said when the race was over. “I’m taking you home.”
    “Wait, did my driver win?”
    “He came in second. Are you feeling all right?”
    “Yeah. I’m fine.” If you don’t count the fact that something is not adding up .
     
    ***
     
    “Do you think it’s a coincidence,” I asked Jim on the way home. “A guy shows up dead at Planet Hair, and now Grant is being threatened?”
    “I don’t see what they could have in common.” He had his eyes on the road. “Am I missing something?”
    “That’s a lot of violence to suddenly show up in one place.” I was pretending to watch the road in front of us, but I out of the corner of my eye I was gauging his reaction.
    “It didn’t show up in the same place. Grant was nowhere near South Royalton when he was threatened.” There was no tension in his face, he just looked tired.
    “But he’s from South Royalton.” I was turned in my seat, focused on him, but he wouldn’t look my way. I wasn’t getting any love