One Last Hold (19 page)

“No. Blake wasn’t there that night. And what was his motive? But the fact he had the same information Chad did is suspicious.”

“Maybe it wasn’t the same information. It was taken, so we have no way to know.”

“Maybe your dad—”

“My dad is no murderer,” he snapped. He might not trust his dad, but he’d never believe his dad would take a life.

Caitlyn’s long breath cut knives under his skin. His jaw tightened and he lowered his gaze. He had nothing left to say.

“You have to believe me that I didn’t write that article, Wesley.”

He gave her a blank expression. He had suffered tremendous pain and now there was nothing left.

“I confronted Blake and he agreed to correct the byline.”

“If you didn’t write it, then who did?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“There were things in there no one could have known but you. If you didn’t write it, you at least told Blake stuff he didn’t need to know.”

“I didn’t tell him shit. Your dad knew. Your dad is his business partner. Maybe he told him a long time ago. Maybe Blake knew.”

Wesley shook his head and glanced out the window, not that there was anything to see where he sat except blue sky. His dad had worked too hard at covering it up. He’d even managed to make the police believe Samantha was the one driving. Even when Wesley became semi-famous, none of the officers there at that time revealed anything they might have known about what happened that night. Why now?

He needed to contact his dad, ask him about Blake. Ask him about a lot of things he’d chosen to ignore over the past ten years.

He wanted to believe Caitlyn, but her name on the article was too damning. Many journalists had contacted him over the years and fluttered their heavy-lidded lashes, expecting him to give them dirty details of his day-to-day or offer an adventure they wouldn’t find in their normal life.

Tim had been involved with a reporter for almost a year before realizing she was a journalist who merely wanted to get inside the racing community, and she’d been screwing at least one rival’s team member. Maybe more. Not to find secrets, necessarily, and certainly not to uncover Wesley’s, but because she was a groupie who got her kicks off being indirectly involved in the sport. Tim had almost married her before realizing she was using a pseudonym and posting status updates, pictures, and blogging about sticky topics. Nothing too libelous and nothing to cause damage, so Tim hadn’t seen the need to pursue legal action. But he’d suffered a broken heart. Was still suffering. Some people even loved her for it, and she published a book about being the girlfriend of a racecar driver that quickly nosedived.

Last time they’d checked, the woman had moved on to hockey and was publishing short stories while working for a small newspaper. But it had changed Tim’s life forever. Wesley’s, too. And it had taught them to trust no one.

*

“Want something to drink?”

Caitlyn glanced up from the stack of paperwork covering the floor. “More water would be great.” She pushed the documents aside and lolled on the floor while Wesley stepped around the piles. It was like maneuvering a maze to get to the kitchen.

He brought back a bottle of aspirin and water. She declined the aspirin but gratefully took the water and sat up to take a drink. She screwed the top back on the plastic bottle and placed it beside the couch, then rested her back flat against the floor in a Yoga corpse pose. The floor offered no comfort for her aching neck.

“I’ve been sitting on this floor too long.” She held up her hands, “and I have ink all over me.”

“Sit on the couch a minute,” Wesley said. “Take a break.”

“I did that once. Ended up falling asleep.” She moved her head from side to side to stretch her neck before sitting up again, then took another swig of water and grabbed the last document she’d been studying. It was a partnership contract between Blake and Johnson and the business. Something anyone would keep, just not in this pile of mess. “You might want to look at this one,” she said, handing the contract to him. “You have a law degree, you can make more sense out of it than I can.”

She and Wesley had combed through the information all night. It was already mid-afternoon the next day. She explained the conversation she had with Blake to Wesley and showed him the original article meant to be printed. She didn’t know if he believed her, but the fact he let her stay spoke volumes.

“What else did Blake have in this cabinet you weren’t able to get copies of?”

“Folders full of documents,” she said. “Large manila folders and envelopes stuffed with things. I grabbed a few out of each one, made copies of some and then just took others. I didn’t actually take a whole envelope with me. I thought it’d be too noticeable.”

“I’d love to go through it,” Wesley said. “What if we took it all to your house to study it then brought it back before he ever noticed it was missing?”

“That would be risky.”

“And what you did wasn’t?”

Caitlyn shrugged but had no reply. Yeah it had been risky. Being alone in the office at two AM wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. But she had to do something and she didn’t regret what she’d done.

“Maybe there’s more to this than even you’re telling me,” she said as she wriggled her butt up and rested her back against the couch.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re part of the witness protection program.” Wesley wrinkled his forehead at her, then shook his head. “Why not? Your parents were both attorneys. Maybe your dad defended a mob boss or was working on a big case and lost, and maybe his life and that of his family was threatened.”

“You
should
write a novel,” Wesley interjected. “You have an overactive imagination. How could a famous racecar driver be in the witness protection program and get away with it?”

*

“Maybe Blake is just a freak,” Wesley said, which he was more inclined to believe. If her boss used her to do a story on him, then completely changed her story and tried to harm Wesley’s career by printing about the horrible wreck in such gory detail,
and
lied to her about starting the magazine on his own, what kind of person was he?

What else had he lied to her about?

“How do we know Blake didn’t kill Chad?”

“How would he have gotten into his RV?” Caitlyn asked. “Isn’t the security pretty tight? I didn’t think just anyone could get back there.”

Wesley shrugged and snatched the copy of his family tree—possibly the same family tree Chad had in his possession before he was killed—and studied it. Nothing made sense together or apart. There were too many gaps. Some birth certificates, things anybody would save, yet Blake had them on a family that wasn’t his and on people Wesley never heard of.

“We have to find out who this Jack Forrester is,” Wesley said, ignoring her statement. He had nothing further to discuss with her and even if he did believe she had nothing to do with that article, he’d still carry doubts.

“I can get Rayma to look in to it. She has connections.”

“And why did Chad have this shit?”

“We don’t know this is what he had.”

Oh he knew all right. Somehow, her boss was involved with Chad and if that were true, Caitlyn’s life could be in danger. Both of their lives could be.

Why this information would be worth killing over was beyond him. Maybe it wasn’t. All they had found in Chad’s trailer was a family tree and a large file folder with his name on it. It could be just coincidence.

Yeah right.

He thought his life was fairly simple, he thought he knew his parents’ life story.

But what if he didn’t?

“We have to go back and look through this information,” Wesley said. “But I don’t want you to go by yourself.”

A knock at the door startled them. He’d called Adam earlier and told him he wouldn’t be available and didn’t want to be disturbed. He should be running practice laps, working on his car, greeting fans. He had canceled his plans and holed himself in his RV, this new information consuming him. The curtains were closed tightly against the sun but it still shined through the cracks.

They hurriedly stuffed the papers back into the box, losing the order they had spent hours placing them in. The knock grew more forceful.

“Just a minute,” Wesley yelled as Caitlyn took the case and scurried to his bedroom. He wasn’t sure why there were worried about hiding it, but all he needed was some cop to search his home again and find it, then naturally think he had taken it out of Chad’s trailer.

There was his motive.

“Damn,” he said as the thought struck him. If Chad had this information, and now Wesley had it that could create an assumption of guilt. The headlines reeled through his head.

Wesley Webb kills Chad to protect his identity.

He peeped out the spyhole. The ground dropped out from under him.

Dad?

He opened the door and scowled. “What are you doing here?”

The sound of Wesley’s voice proved he wasn’t pleased with whoever knocked on the door. Caitlyn only heard low voices and not enough to figure out who it was, but her heart pounded furiously nonetheless. She hid the box full of documents in the back of his closet, and finally sat on his bed to take a deep breath.

As an invited guest, she had no reason to be scared. No reason to hide.

But the box…she was concerned about the box and the information in it.

She hadn’t slept much last night. Wesley had taken a nap on the floor and she stretched out on the couch, but nightmares had plagued her.

She’d dreamed she was in a tightly closed room, surrounded by stacks of papers on walls, stuck to corners and along the ceiling. As she removed the papers in an attempt to escape, they grew into larger stacks. The only way to get out was by figuring out how the pieces fit together. Only, every time she took one piece apart to fit it to something, another room opened revealing more of the same things, sinking her further into a hole.

Coffee and data buzzed through her veins, and though her body was tired, her mind wouldn’t rest.

Wesley opened the door and his normally healthy complexion was mixed with the weariness already present, and a new pallor. One not there before. She just stared, waiting for his next move. Waiting for him to say something.

“What’s wrong?”

“My father,” he said. She sprang from the bed, quickly going to him. She thought something happened to his dad but before she said anything, he corrected her. “He’s here. He wants to see you.”

“Me?” she asked, taking a step back. “Why? Did he say?”

Wesley nodded.

She stepped through the doorway, limbs heavy. What was he doing here? Why did he want to see her?

Johnson regarded her, grimaced, and tried to cover his pained expression. He failed. She'd been pulled uphill on an emotional roller coaster for the past few days. Seeing his face gave life to her fears. The roller coaster lost control and plunged, only she forgot to scream.

“I’m afraid I have bad news,” Johnson told her, confirming her fears that whatever the reason for his visit wasn’t good. “Blake has been in an accident.”

“Blake?” She placed a hand over her chest to steady herself. It didn’t work. She had expected bad news but never expected it’d have anything to do with Blake. “Is he…”

“He’s in ICU.”

Caitlyn’s legs buckled. Wesley’s arms snaked around the back of her and held her upright. Didn’t he know she didn’t want to stand? She just wanted to sink to the floor and let it consume her.

She clutched her throat. “What happened?”

“Car accident. The Jaws of Life had to get him out. He’s alive, but we’re not sure if he’ll make it. We’ve been trying to find you. I’m not sure if he told you, but I’m a partner in the business, so I rushed over as soon as I heard. I’m going to be taking care of things for a while.”

Blake. She hated him sometimes, was furious with him now and their last encounter hadn’t gone well. She would never trust him again but he’d been her mentor. Gave her a start in this business. She’d worked for him so long she didn’t have a choice but to develop some type of relationship with him. She never wanted him hurt. Not seriously anyway.

“How…” she began, “how did he wreck?”

“Nobody really knows,” Johnson replied. “It was a one car collision. He seemed to go off the road, maybe hit the ditch, and flipped several times. It was early in the morning so we’re assuming he was going to work. Maybe he swerved to miss an animal. Maybe he was still tired and fell asleep. It’s all speculation right now.”

She wrenched herself from Wesley’s supportive embrace and slumped to the couch. Maybe without those strong arms around her she could actually think.

Blake was alive, but might not make it. He had information, possibly the same Chad was killed over, and now he could lose his life, too.

Or maybe somebody had tried to kill him. Maybe someone tried to run him off the road. She didn’t voice her opinion aloud but wished she could trust Johnson and tell him what they found. Why would information about Johnson’s life be involved in all of this?

“Are you okay?” Wesley rubbed his knuckles on the back of his neck as he sat beside her on the couch.

No she wasn’t okay. Someone tried to kill Blake, she suspected, and over information that was, at this moment, hiding in Wesley’s closet.

“We need to talk about some things,” Johnson said. “I’ll be running the office for a while, so I’m your boss right now.”

“Why’d you come all the way here?” Wesley asked, the tone of his voice clearly stating he didn’t like it. Caitlyn wondered if he suspected his dad of something.

“We couldn’t locate Caitlyn and I knew she was doing a story on you. I finally found out she came here. It’s not really something I wanted a complete stranger to tell her, and it’s not something I wanted to tell her over the phone, so I flew down. Besides, you’re my son and I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

*

Caitlyn hated hospitals.

She’d spent a few days in one when she’d been hurt in the wreck involving Samantha’s death. That recollection only intensified her distress as she walked down the hallway to Blake’s room, her shoes squeaky against the puke-colored floor.