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  Tom still looked grim.

  “The bad news?” I asked.

  “The Ringer’s got a post addressed to the entire ALMS paddock titled, ‘Brace Yourselves for Calamity Kate.’”

  “What happened to Kate Violent?”

  “He uses that, too.”

  I turned to Leon. “Have you heard any of this?”

  “The Ringer’s side, but I’m not witless enough to believe everything he says. Sorry about the loss of your friend.”

  “Thanks.” I looked at Tom. “And?”

  “He says, ‘Attention ALMS paddock, fans, and race attendees. Series regular—but for how long?—Kate Reilly, aka Kate Violent, aka Calamity Kate, has arrived in Georgia. A walking, talking, driving disaster. Consider: in the past two weeks, she’s wrecked a racing legend and herself, found a friend dead, lashed out at hardworking Southern folk, and pulled a bait-and-switch on innocent media representatives doing their jobs. Defying logic, she scored a plum sponsorship deal the likes of which the ALMS has never seen and is in the running for the fan-favorite driver award. Undeserved? Many think so. Frankly, readers, I can’t wait to see what happens next…but I’ve got a Benjamin says we’ll see more missteps than triumphs. For those of you in her orbit, watch your back!’”

  Leon finally broke the appalled silence. “What’s a Benjamin, again?”

  I sighed. “Hundred-dollar bill.”

  “I always forget your currency. Also, good job on the makeup gig. Photos make you look fantastic.” His voice was calm, even bored. He collected another two cookies, offering me one with a raised eyebrow.

  I shook my head. “I’d give a lot to know who that guy is.”

  “Aye, they’re wondering that throughout Europe as well. His range of sources is impressive.”

  “Are you all right, Kate?” Tom looked worried. “This is awful. Rude.”

  I felt frustrated, angry, scared about reactions from others—for a minute I thought I’d burst out crying. And then I moved beyond it. I let it all go. Felt free. Calm. “I’m really, truly bored of this. Time to focus on racing.”

  Mike nodded. “If your sponsor doesn’t tell you to take a hike, and Jack has no problem with it, screw what the Ringer says. He’s an anonymous bully.”

  I looked from Mike to Leon. “Thanks. I’ll try to keep the drama away from you.”

  “There’s one great thing to come out of this.” Mike grinned.

  Tom looked hopeful. “Yeah?”

  “I’m absolutely calling her Calamity now.”

  So was the rest of the paddock—usually in jest. As I walked around with Leon, briefing him on different cars and drivers we’d compete against, I did my best to ignore speculative looks and disdainful repetitions of the Ringer’s nicknames. For the first time, recognizing faces of people I didn’t know disconcerted me—I imagined stalkers and poisoners at every turn. I needed to get a grip or I’d be a mess when 90,000 fans showed up over the weekend.

  Leon and I stood chatting with Holly in front of Western Racing’s paddock when sometimes-racer, sometimes-reporter Scott Brooklyn approached.

  “Hi everyone, sorry to interrupt.” He gave each of us a friendly nod and smile, greeting Holly by name and introducing himself to Leon. Then he held out a hand to me. “Kate, I’m Scott Brooklyn. I think we met last year.”

  I shook. “You’re not driving this weekend?” He’d raced at Petit the year before, and I wondered if he’d made the transition from driver with fill-in reporting jobs to reporter with fill-in driving jobs. He was handsome enough for TV, with expressive brown eyes and an engaging smile.

  “Not this year.” He held up a small notebook. “Paying the bills with field reporting for a couple motorsports sites and a huge health and fitness portal. Would you have time for a short interview in the next couple days?”

  I gave him Matt and Lily’s information and explained I was routing all requests through them. “If you’ll check in with them, I’ll make sure it happens.”

  “Will do,” he said, slipping his pen into the spirals of his notebook. “One good turn deserves another. Guy down in the Benchmark garage asked me and another reporter lots of questions about you. More hostile than friendly. You might steer clear.”

  I glanced at Leon, who nodded and said, “Dominic Lascoula?”

  “That’s the guy,” Scott responded.

  “Not much I can do, but I’ll stay away.” I thought for a moment. Take control, Kate. “Scott, did you know Ellie Prescott?”

  “I met her once, and I know Ethan. Such a shame.” He looked sad.

  “You were in the Tavern that night, weren’t you? Didn’t I see you there?”

  He nodded. “I was, but I left to meet a friend before anything happened.”

  “I guess you didn’t see anything strange? No one near our table?”

  “You were at the back of the main room?” He crinkled up his forehead. “I can’t think of anything. I told the police that also. I sure hope they catch the guy.”

  “Me, too.” I tried for more. “Were you in downtown Atlanta on Saturday night? I thought I saw you outside a restaurant.”

  To my surprise, he nodded. “I met someone for dinner. Was it Ray’s in the City?”

  “Near there,” I said, wishing I had a good way to ask who his friend was.

  “Must have been me. I’ll talk to you in a day or two, thanks.” He waved at the others and headed back down the lane. Leon and I said goodbye to Holly and finished our paddock tour.

  The team activity that evening was a private party at the corporate offices of our longtime sponsor Active-Fit, a sportswear company Steve and Vicki Royal founded after Steve’s pro-hockey career ended. We spent an hour mingling and taking photos with Active-Fit employees, then sat at long tables eating the best pork ribs I’d ever tasted.

  Vicki and I talked about makeup while we ate. She was grounded, friendly, and funny—and as polished as you’d expect a former professional cheerleader to be. That meant intimidatingly gorgeous, with long, blonde hair and sky blue eyes. If her laughter was any indication, I entertained her as much as she tutored me in why and when I’d use different types of products.

  “You think eyebrow gel is bad?” She wiped tears from her eyes from laughing so hard. “Has anyone told you about the tricks they use in pageants?”

  I shook my head.

  “Vaseline for teeth, tape so bathing suits stay put, hemorrhoid cream for the bags under our eyes.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  Another peal of laughter. “It’s what you do to win.”

  “Were you in pageants?”

  “Miss South Carolina, twenty years ago now.”

  I was astonished. “You don’t look a day over thirty.”

  “You are now my best friend.” She beamed at me.

  “Would you know Juliana Parker? She was Miss Alabama at one point.”

  “I know of her, met her somewhere. She was ten or fifteen years after me. Beautiful girl.” She finished eating her chicken and arranged her plastic utensils carefully on her plate. I was awash in barbecue sauce, but she’d stayed neat and clean. “Didn’t I hear she’s with SGTV? How did that come about?”

  I explained Juliana’s early focus on both racing and pageants and her change of career direction since her mother’s death. “We bonded the one year we raced together—with Ellie also. Especially then, it was great to have other females around. I wasn’t the only fish out of water.”

  “I realized as the only woman in the ALMS you have to do some things differently—not change in the main transporter space with the guys, for instance. But I never thought you might be lonely.”

  “Once in a while.” I wiped sauce from my mouth and fingers. “I can’t be ‘one of the guys’ all the time.”

  She put her arm around my shoulder. “Anytime you need a girlfrie
nd around, you let me know. I can talk makeup and shoes and cute boys with the best of them. Now tell me,” she leaned her head close to mine. “How is that new Beauté line?”

  I laughed and promised her samples.

  Near the end of the party she and I sat with Jack and Tom, discussing the idea of Jack taking the team to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

  My mind was on my current predicament, not future shots at glory—though I was eager for a crack at the famed race. I spoke into a lull in the conversation. “Who would you hire if I weren’t driving for you, Jack?”

  He turned to me, the look on his face a mixture of surprise and concern.

  I held up my hands. “Just wondering who’d benefit if someone bumped me off.”

  “I did that last year, can we not go through that again?”

  It hadn’t been an easy time for me or for Jack when he hired me as a replacement after Wade Becker was killed. But I needed to know. “This is hypothetical. You must have ideas.”

  He sighed, seeming reluctant. Wary. “I keep my eye out. Might try to get Leon, if he’d run a full season. The Forbes kid running IMSA Lights this year looks good. Another kid over in World Challenge, that Colby girl, she’s got some talent. Or I might give some guys with more experience a try, depending on what I needed…Scott Brooklyn comes to mind. Joe Jones. Evan McCoy. That enough for you, Kate?”

  “Yes, only curious.” I hadn’t expected to hear Scott and Colby’s names. I knew Scott had been at the Tavern, but I’d have to find out if Colby had been there, too. Or her brother. “One other question. Were you around when Felix was racing?”

  “I think my brother was on a team with him at one point. Why?”

  “I wanted to know if his bad attitude was about me or about all women. People who know him now don’t know anything. I wondered if you knew him then.”

  Jack stared at me without speaking, long enough I became uncomfortable. Finally, he spoke. “My dad told me a story once about a season of go-kart racing back in the nineteen-sixties or seventies. A bunch of boys in the field, and one girl, who was really fantastic—later qualified and ran the Indy 500. You know how there are horrible fathers these days who get violent over their kids’ little league?”

  We nodded at him, and he continued. “There was one of those fathers that season who was so outraged at his son finishing behind a girl that he made his son wear skirts to the racetrack until the son beat her—berated him publicly, too. It was only three races, but we’re talking ten-year-olds. Some parents tried to talk to the father, but he took it out on his son, so they stopped. But everyone pitied the poor kid.”

  Vicki lowered her hand from her mouth, shock clear on her face. “That’s abuse.”

  “I won’t argue. ‘Motivation’ has a lot of ugly faces.” Jack turned to me. “That boy was Felix.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  After Jack swore us to secrecy, I spent a good portion of the night pondering the size of the chip on Felix’s shoulder about female drivers, instead of sleeping. The next morning, I retained feelings of horror and sympathy for the young man, even if I despised the choices he made as an adult.

  After a workout in the hotel gym, I met Juliana at a breakfast café. We hugged hello and went inside to be seated.

  “I felt like a ghoul, doing that interview.” She smoothed her napkin across her lap.

  “It’s your job. Besides, it was about Ellie more than me.”

  She looked up from the menu. “Until the end.”

  “That’s why I called, to see if you could help me with something. How well do you know Felix?” Hearing Jack’s story changed my approach only slightly.

  “Not well. I shadowed him to learn the ropes at SGTV for five races.”

  “We don’t get along—that’s no surprise—and I don’t know why, but I’d like to change that. I don’t like someone being mad at me, and it does me no good for the outlet covering our races to hate me. I was hoping you’d talk to him, find out why he feels that way—possibly mediate a cease fire?” The idea of being conciliatory irked me, but for the sake of my career and my team, playing nice with the media was vital.

  Juliana smiled and reached across the table to pat one of my hands. “I’m happy to see what I can do.”

  “Thanks. I also need to find out why the Racing’s Ringer dislikes me so much—don’t suppose you have pull there?”

  We laughed as the waiter approached to take our order, and then we chatted about our plans for the off-season. She’d be covering events and developing features to use throughout the coming year’s broadcasts, as well as finding a house in Charlotte, North Carolina, near SGTV headquarters. I’d be lining up rides for the next season, fulfilling commitments for Beauté, and going home to my grandparents.

  “Where do you want to end up, Kate? I remember your dream was Formula 1.”

  “And you were going to be the first woman to win the Indy 500.”

  Her mouth twisted into a grimace. “That wasn’t in the cards, apparently.”

  “You’ve had amazing experiences, though. And you’re so good at what you do.”

  “That’s sweet of you to say, Kate.” Her face lightened, and she raised an eyebrow. “Did you know my mother used you to encourage me? If I was tired, didn’t want to do another practice lap, didn’t want to study my racing books, she’d tell me, ‘If you don’t, Kate Reilly will come right in and steal your wins. She’ll take your victories. She’ll get all the podium glory and press coverage.’”

  My jaw dropped. “Good grief, Jules, I’d never—”

  “It wasn’t about you, silly. It was about my mother inspiring me to be better. She knew saying ‘Be the best,’ wouldn’t be as effective as saying, ‘Kate is better than you.’”

  “Still. I’m sorry?”

  She laughed. “You had to be true to yourself, and so did I. We were competitors. It didn’t stop us being friends then, and it won’t stop us being friends now. Deal?”

  “Deal.” I recognized Jules was the same victim of a relentless parent as Felix—fortunately, with less bitter consequences.

  She smiled. “Good. We need to hold on to our friendship this time. For us and for Ellie.”

  “I can’t get over the fact she’s gone.” I signaled to the waiter that I’d finished my omelet, and we both accepted coffee.

  “Her poor kids—it’s tragic. Have the police come up with any information?”

  “I haven’t heard. I’ve been meaning to call them again and ask.”

  “Have you received other threats?”

  I nodded. “I’m not sure how many, since I turned my e-mail account over to my PR people after the first death threat.”

  “Kate, no!”

  “NASCAR fans, I assume. The messages I opened referenced Miles. Otherwise, a car nearly ran me down after our interview the other day.”

  She gasped and reached for my hand. “Was it deliberate?”

  “I was rattled from losing my temper at Felix, so I don’t know—but the driver did run a red light.”

  “What did the police think?”

  “We couldn’t describe the car well. They can’t do much.”

  “It’s been a hell of a week for you, hasn’t it, Kate?”

  I huffed a laugh. “You could say that.”

  “Promise me you’ll let me know if anything else happens or if there’s something I can do, besides talking to Felix.”

  “You could tell me who was near the table at Siebkens while you were alone there. Or anyone you remember seeing that night.”

  “Aren’t the police doing that?”

  “I’m trying to cross-reference with people in Atlanta this weekend.”

  “I chatted a minute with Scott Brooklyn, also with Stuart. Felix blew past, looking surly as usual. Zeke Andrews and a tired-looking woman—his wife?—walked through the room but o
nly paused a moment.” She thought more. “A couple drivers and crew I could pick out of a lineup, but that’s about it.”

  I jotted new names on the back of a receipt in my purse. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  “For payment, tell me about you and Stuart.”

  I kept my groan to myself. “Not much to the story.”

  “Liar. I see the way you look at each other. There’s something there.”

  “It’s complicated, and the thing with Ellie is weird.”

  “That he found her?”

  “That they’d been engaged.” I saw the surprise on her face. “You didn’t know either? I thought you and Ellie stayed in touch.”

  Juliana shook her head. “We’d only reconnected a week before the Road America race, when she called me out of the blue.”

  “Yes, Stuart and Ellie were engaged, and she broke it off. I’m not sure how I feel—and I don’t have spare energy now for more drama.”

  “I understand. Forget I asked.”

  “What about you, Jules? Any husbands or boyfriends?”

  Her expression turned mischievous. “I’ve been seeing someone recently who makes my heart go pitty-pat, but I’m still toying with him.”

  “Not sure you like him enough?”

  “I like him plenty, but it’s early days. I’ve got to be careful he’s not just using me to get a job.” She saw my frown and went on. “I’m teasing, though he is out in the cold this year with the change from SPEED to SGTV.”

  “Scott Brooklyn? I’m doing an interview with him tomorrow.” I’d gotten word that Lily and Matt had set a time for us.

  “I left the Tavern that night to meet him—though he was annoyed I waited to say goodbye to you two and didn’t go with him.”

  That explained his glowering expression.

  Juliana smiled. “Over wine some night, I’ll tell you about the country singer and the NFL running back I dated. You won’t believe the entourages, drama, and big hair.”

  I promised to take her up on that as we left the café. We were outside next to our cars when Juliana stopped me with a hand on my arm. “One other thing. Is your contract settled with Jack for next year?”