One Last Hold (11 page)

“Wearing a promo shirt?”

“It’s perfect. Reveals your vanity.”

“Vanity,” he scoffed, but posed anyway.

She snapped several pictures of him before he nodded her over, then he propped the side of his head on hers and let her shoot a few of them together.

He clasped her elbow. “Come on, let’s go see my workout room.”

His workout room was more impressive than most gyms and held all the contraptions a person needed to keep fit. The swimming room branched from the gym, holding a pool enclosed in glass, replicas of palm trees and even a sand bar. She followed him into the swim room and toed off her shoes.

She was proud of what he had become. He worked hard to be where he was, especially after the tragedy he faced. She admired him for taking care of himself, for following his dreams. Instead of milking off his family like a spoiled little rich kid.

“Your house is amazing.” She dipped her toe into the pool water and discovered it heated.

“Thank you,” he said. He swaggered to her and pretended like he planned to push her in. She sidestepped him. “You want to take a swim?” he asked.

“I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“Never stopped us before.” His voice was like warm sugar, melting in a bowl of butter—gooey and soft—with a steaming heap of rum.

She wanted to throw out all her inhibitions and jump into the pool with him, naked.

He stood so close Caitlyn smelled the mix of his soap—like a country road—and the familiar musk she’d missed. Butterflies swarm deep inside her. Caitlyn made her mind up then and there.

She was going to have sex with him.

She parted her lips.

He leaned forward and cradled her neck with his hand, his warm hands siphoning her resolve to stay strong.

Head bowing toward her, his breath seduced her cheek as he inched near and took his slow, sweet time. Her lashes fluttered closed and she moaned when his lips hovered closer, sweeping across hers before he captured her tongue in a sensual melody.

Shivers of heat swarm up the back of her legs and burst into her core. She swayed and planted her feet deeper into the floor as his mouth plundered.

The cell phone in his pocket rang. They both jumped away.

“Fuck,” Wesley snarled as he grabbed his phone and studied the screen. “I got to answer this.” Turning away, he clipped into the phone, “Yeah.” His shoulders slumped and he paced away. “What? When?”

Caitlyn’s belly cramped as Wesley turned toward her and continued pacing, his movements slowing, then came to a halt.

“No. No” His face scrunched, brows furrowed. He lowered his head in his hand. “What the hell happened?” She stood, motionless, watching him as he listened, nodded his head, rested forehead on a palm. “Okay, thank you.” He hung up, cursed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Is everything okay?”

He raised his head and looked at her, but the heat of his earlier gaze was now replaced with sorrow so deep, she stumbled.

“That was Adam. My crew member, Derrick, has been murdered.”

*

The warm water stroked Wesley’s skin as he dove into the pool. Instead of making him feel better, it made things a hell of a lot worse.

Derrick was dead. Murdered. With a knife, just like Chad.

Derrick had been a special part of his crew, always laughing and cutting up despite the fact he was undergoing hell at home. Wesley appreciated his jokes, the way he was always able to make people laugh. His invaluable insights and ideas made his car run better. Who in the hell would want to murder him?

His wife left him months ago and he had an eight-year-old daughter at home.

An eight-year old girl who would never see her daddy again.

No doubt the cops would be at his house tomorrow, questioning his whereabouts. Caitlyn was his alibi. Caitlyn, who was now asleep in his spare bedroom. He feared for her safety. A murderer was on the loose. The longer they followed innocent people like him, the longer it kept a murderer on the loose.

It was time for him to find out what the contents of that file folder meant. It was time to dig deeper and stop depending on the cops to solve this murder. They were too busy looking in the wrong direction.

His strokes became harder, deeper, faster, and he came up for air at the last minute when he thought his lungs would burst. He tried to deprive himself of at least the pleasure of breath for as long as he could stand it.

Derrick would never have the pleasure of breath again.

The warm water tore at his tears, but the ache in his throat was a tangible lump. He tried to push reality out of his mind, but all he pictured was Derrick. He’d been stabbed, and Adam said the cops guessed it was someone he’d known because there was no forced entry as in Chad’s RV.

Wesley didn’t believe in coincidence.

The only fingerprints found in Derrick’s home were his own. He lived alone, was going through a divorce, and didn’t have much company. With it being cold out, it wouldn’t be abnormal for a visitor to wear gloves.

The racing community attended another funeral, but this one was smaller and more personal. Wesley liked it that way, though it was harder to disguise his grief in a smaller group. The media packed into the back and, like an insult to the man and his family, flashed their cameras.

Caitlyn stood among them. It was hard not to notice her, but he didn’t offer her a seat. The article she’d written after Chad’s death had been touching, and Wesley expected the same for Derrick. She’d already talked to a few of his crew members about Derrick and confiscated some pictures from them to share in the magazine, but he wouldn’t share his grief or let her share it with his fans.

He just wasn’t in the sharing mood.

He remembered another time, another funeral. The memory exacerbated today’s grief. Caitlyn was in the hospital, crying because she couldn’t pay her respects for his mom, but he didn’t even have the strength to cry with her, to notice she was hurting just as badly, if not worse.

Tim had sat beside him then just as he was now, and the preacher spoke eloquently of another person he didn’t know.

Guilt followed Wesley’s life on a daily basis. He’d learned to live with it, to almost look past it, but now it clobbered him, demanding his attention.

The cops released a statement in the newspaper about how they were investigating it to determine whether the two murders were related, but it was obvious to Wesley they were. They believed the ‘person of interest’ belonged in the racing circuit. They also stated they believed it was someone familiar to Derrick and Derrick had let him in his RV.

He sat as the rows emptied, studying people as they paraded by the casket to say their last goodbye. The media piled outside, waiting. He studied those he worked with closely and those he didn’t know well but who were out on the track every week just like him, and wondered if the murderer was here, sitting and mourning with them. Cold rushed down his spine.

The dreaded moment came of walking by the casket and saying his good-bye. He wanted to run, to deny any of this ever happened, to hole himself in his home. But that wouldn’t make any of this go away.

Why couldn’t the media let them mourn in peace?

He walked by the casket, forcing his eyes to cooperate and his mind to shut off all emotion. He was used to closing himself off by now. Though his fans may love his tears, he wouldn’t shed them.

The makeup artist covered the knife wound. You couldn’t even tell he’d been…

God.

He swiped a hand over his face and studied the floor as he trudged away, managing to keep the tears from falling. Tim walked beside him, and the media fired their cameras as soon as they stepped out.

He cursed himself for forgetting his shades, leaving his tears and vulnerability exposed to the world.

Chin lowered, Wesley glanced up and his gaze collided with Caitlyn’s. His breath shot out of him. She stood there, watching. No camera, no notebook or phone in her hands. Just her, watching him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Time stopped a moment, save for a voltage planting a fine line between them. He wrenched away, severing their link. The media buzzed, thrusting microphones in his face, but Tim took over and performed a speech he’d prepared in advance. Wesley escaped, but turned when he felt a hand on his arm.

“Are you okay?” Caitlyn asked.

“Fine,” he snapped, flinching away from her. He didn’t want her here. He wanted to be alone to grieve.

She remained at his side as he lumbered to the truck, her steps staying even with his. Before he got to the truck, Caitlyn lengthened her strides and moved in front of him, shifting her body to face him. She leaned against the door, hugged her arms and locked her ankles, making herself comfortable.

His gut clenched. He considered shoving her out of the way but didn’t. Instead, he let his eyes drink in her beauty, the dip of her cleavage and the way the hem of her dress grazed the top of her shapely calves. He clenched his jaw and ravished her with his eyes, doing his best to put her ill at ease.

“You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” he said, resenting her for saying anything, for giving him pity when he didn’t want it. “But I already know there’s nothing.”

“Yo, Wes, get the truck ready,” Tim shouted from a distance. He turned to see Tim hurrying their way, the media hot on his tail.

Wesley gripped Caitlyn’s elbow. “Get in.” He opened the door and nudged her inside.

Caitlyn shifted herself to the passenger side and locked the door. Smart woman. He cranked the truck and waited. He should have left Caitlyn outside to deal with the paparazzi, but a strong urge to protect her outweighed his need for privacy.

Tim’s face flushed as he crawled into the back seat and slammed the door. “What’s she doing here?”

“Couldn’t leave her out there with those wolves,” Wesley said as he drove the truck past the mob and onto the highway.

“Why not give her a taste of her own medicine?”

Caitlyn swallowed. Tim was being unfair, but he let him have his say.

“You couldn’t have picked a worse time to be here,” Tim chastised Caitlyn. “Wesley’s stressed enough as it is. He just lost a team member, a friend. He has to worry about proving his innocence and about what you might be writing in your damn magazine. He doesn’t need your stress, too.”

“I haven’t written anything in my magazine—”

“Yeah, that bullshit about his RV being searched couldn’t have come from you.”

“Tim,” Wesley warned.

Tim ignored him. “What happened that night screwed up his head,” Tim said, referring to
that night
, ten years ago. It was a title now, and no one wanted to refer to it in any way except
that night.

That night he killed his own mother.

Tim continued. “It’s like, when he goes out to race he goes back to that night and tries to correct the mistakes he made by controlling his car. He does a damn good job of it, I might add, and he doesn’t need you to screw it all up again. He’s learned to live with his guilt and you bring it all back.”

“He shouldn’t have to learn to live with his guilt because he has nothing to feel guilty about,” Caitlyn responded.

Wesley tightened his fingers on the steering wheel as he entered the interstate. He had no idea where it was going. He assumed Caitlyn’s car was still at the funeral home and he wasn’t about to go back there.

“He ran away from you before, why did you decide to follow now?”

Tim crossed the line. Wesley signaled off the interstate to find a safe place to park, choosing a gas station, and let the truck idle.

“You both need to calm down and talk about this like rational adults. Caitlyn, you’re doing a story. We’ll talk on a weekly basis if need be, I’ll help you if you want to write about any of my crew, but it will not be that gossip shit other magazines print.” Wouldn’t that be the easiest way? Help her, get rid of her faster. “Tim, you need to accept that Caitlyn will be hanging around for a little while. You can show her the ropes. We’ll all act like professional adults.”

Yeah, professional, even if all he thought about was getting her in his bed.

“You know, I wonder if you casting blame isn’t fucking him up worse.” Everything he’d just said ignored, Caitlyn grabbed the door handle and shoved the door open. “You both need some serious counseling.”

*

Caitlyn stepped outside with no thought of where she’d go. She’d call a taxi if need be but would not sit in that truck a second longer to be abused, verbally or otherwise.

“Caitlyn, wait.” Wesley hopped out of the truck and clasped her elbow before she made her way into the gas station. “I’ll drive you back to your car.”

“No thanks.” She broke away and dug in her purse for her phone.

“Look, I agreed to help you with your damn story. That doesn’t entail you stalking me.”

She whirled around. “I’m not stalking you.”

“You were at Derrick’s funeral.”

“Covering a story.”

“Pow-wowing with the paparazzi.”

“God,” she muttered, wheeling away and dialing a number, any number, in a cell phone that wasn’t picking up shit.

“Get in the damn truck. I’ll drive you back to your car.”

She gulped, fought back tears, but did not move. So her cell phone wouldn’t work. She’d use the station’s phone or borrow a phone but refused to stand out here another minute with him. Her feet would not move. She was angry,
so angry
and afraid she was going to cry at any moment.

Caitlyn pivoted around to face him. “Tim is such an asshole.” She swiped at a piece of hair falling into her tears. She hated herself right now for letting her emotions get the better of her.

“He doesn’t mean to be,” Wesley said. “He’s always been a little over-protective of me.”

“Yeah,” Caitlyn scoffed. She doubted Wesley would ever defend her against his uncle. She wasn’t important enough for that.

“Let me take you back to your car,” Wesley said as he touched her elbow.

Her posture tensed. She glanced at the vehicle to see Tim with his head bowed, fiddling with his phone. A strong urgency to walk away overwhelmed her, but she didn’t.