Dangerous Curves (12 page)

“Yeah, but the words
murder
and
terrorists
haven’t been associated with their names.”

And there it was out in the open. Blain’s fears coming true. “So you’re pulling your support because you think consumers will view Star Oil negatively.”

“It’s subliminal, Blain. Any advertising firm will tell you that. Plus, word is you’re going to be grounded, in which case our logo won’t see any air-time at all.”

“Who told you that?”

Steve smiled tightly. “Barry Bidwell.”

Which made Blain sit up in surprise. Rumors were one thing, but if Steve was telling him the truth…

“He told me he’s coming over to speak to you about it today.”

So then the message he’d left wasn’t his way of reminding Blain that he’d promised to keep quiet.

“Mr. Oxford,” Cece said, “don’t you think your withdrawal is a bit precipitous?”

“I take it you didn’t know about that?” Steve asked Blain, blatantly ignoring Cece.

“I only just got in.”

“We might catch the perpetrator today,” Cece interjected.

Steve turned to her, his expression clearly one of impatience. “Miss Blackwell, with all due respect, this has less to do with Randy’s death and more to do with performance.”

“Bullshit,” she said, which caused Steve’s eyes to widen—Blain was looking right at him when it happened.
“This is a blatant crap-out by a major sponsor who’s too much of a coward to stand by a race team that’s proved itself over and over again, and that needs your support now more than ever.”

“Cece,” Blain warned, even as part of him wanted to lean across the table and kiss her soundly. “I think what Mr. Oxford is saying is that his mind is already made up and nothing we can say or do will help our cause.”

Steve’s steely eyes had narrowed so much Blain wondered how he could see out of them.

“You’re right,” the man said tersely, his square face red after Cece’s attack. “We have made up our mind. However, I’d appreciate being brought up to date on the investigation so we can address this issue with the press. Miss Blackwell, if I could have the name of your superior for that update.”

“Miss Blackwell could update you herself,” Cece said, and Blain could tell she was livid…absolutely, positively livid. On his behalf. “But since Star Oil no longer has a vested interest in the case, I won’t be able to share that information.” She leaned forward, tugging her lips up in a sarcastic smile. “In other words, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Color spread into Steve Oxford’s wide neck. “Fine. I’ll call your superior myself.”

“You do that,” she said, tipping her chin. “But he’s only going to tell you what I just told you.”

“And while I’m at it,” Steve added, “maybe
we’ll have a little conversation about you and your unprofessionalism.”

“Go ahead. Maybe they’ll fire me. I’d kinda like to go home instead of handling bomb threats.”

Steve pushed himself to his feet, the buttons on his jacket catching on the table. “Blain, our attorneys will be in touch.”

“I’m sure they will,” Blain said.

And that was it.

All the years of sponsorship. All the friendships he’d made within the company—all gone—like that.

“That arrogant, sexist son of a—” Cece got up from her chair, splayed her hands. “How can he pull his support like that?”

“Racing,” Blain said with a shrug.

“Well, racing sucks,” Cece said, pressing her palms flat on the glass. “And I don’t know how you put up with it.”

“Actually,” Blain said, “I’ve been pretty lucky. Star Oil has been with me for almost five years. That’s longer than a lot of teams get to spend with one sponsor.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Cece asked, swiping an irritating strand of hair out of her face. “I’m supposed to just pat you on the back and say ‘tough luck, Blain’?”

She crossed her arms as he came over to her side of the table. On the walls around them were pictures of his race cars, most of them with the Star Oil logo
painted on the hood. Cece looked like she wanted to toss them out after Steve Oxford.

“Cece, you amaze me.”

She raised her brows. Blain lifted his hand to stroke the freckles he remembered from their childhood, but she darted away before he could do it.

“No touching,” she reminded him.

“At least not here,” he said in a low voice.

“Not anywhere,” Cece corrected even as her stupid body warmed at his words. He’d just been fired by his sponsor. She’d just lost complete control of herself in front of said sponsor and acted in a way she probably shouldn’t have, and yet all she could think about was that she wished Blain would try to touch her again. Jeesh.

“And what do you mean, I amaze you?” she asked, pressing her lips together as she peered up at him suspiciously.

His smile widened a few notches. “When we were first reunited you practically spat on my shoes, and now here you are defending my team and my abilities to a man most people are afraid of.”

“Afraid of that overfed pile of pig meat?” She raised her chin. “I’ve eaten men like him for breakfast. Sexist—”

Blain bent down and stopped her words with his mouth.

“Hey,” she said, jerking back. “No fair.” But her lips tingled.

“Thank you,” he said, his silver eyes suddenly serious.
And this time when he lifted his hand, she didn’t move. “Thank you,” he said again in his soft drawl, his thumb brushing her cheek. “I appreciate your righteous indignation.”

That almost made her smile, except she wasn’t
really
liking the way his finger made her feel. She didn’t
really
want him to go on touching her. She didn’t
really
feel the urge to tug his head down so he could kiss her again—

“Mr. Sanders, you have Mr.—oops,” Linda said, Cece glancing over at the conference room door just in time to see the flashy brunette stiffen, the woman’s eyes narrowing as she took in the scene.

Blain’s hand dropped, but he didn’t blink as he said, “Mr. Oops?”

Linda’s lips tightened. Cece watched them go as flat as a heart monitor. Ah…so that was it. Not that she blamed Linda for having a crush on her boss. “Mr. Bidwell is on line three,” she said.

Blain finally looked her way. “Great,” he muttered sarcastically. “I’ll take it in here.”

“That’s the president of the racing association, isn’t it?” Cece asked after Linda-of-the-big-boobs left.

“It is,” Blain said.

“You think he’s calling to tell you you can’t race?”

“I think there’s a good chance that he is.”

“But…they can’t do that!”

“Yes, Cece, they can.”

“It’s not fair.”

“That’s—”

“Racing,” she finished for him. “I know. But it sucks.” And at the look of resignation on his face, Cece found herself touching his jaw, despite telling herself no, no, no. “We’ll break this case, Blain. Soon. You’ll be out there racing again before you know it.”

“Yeah, with no sponsor.”

“Are you kidding? Once this is all done, you’ll have sponsors lining up at the door.”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a very convincing one. “From your mouth to God’s ears, Cece.”

“I mean it, Blain. We’ll catch this guy. I promise.”

B
UT SAYING THE WORDS
was a lot easier than doing it, especially when it was obvious Agent Ashton really didn’t want her investigating, something that became more and more apparent after her cellphone beeped later that day, the preprogrammed display revealing the big cheese of the Charlotte office himself. Damn.

“I just got off the phone with Steve Oxford,” Agent Ashton said without preamble.

Cece sank down in the conference room she’d appropriated as her own little office. Jeesh. What’d Oxford do? Race out and go tell Mommy?

“Agent Blackwell, would you say that you acted professionally this morning?”

It was a leading question. Cece hated leading questions. “I would say that I acted honestly, Agent Ashton.”

“And so professionalism does not go hand in hand with honesty—is that what you’re telling me?”

“No—”

“Because I have to say I don’t find it very professional
to tell a civilian that his company was ‘crapping out.’”

Cece winced. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a point. “The man treated me like a junior secretary,” she said, but she knew it was a weak excuse at best.

Agent Ashton picked right up on it. “The man is a civilian whose impression of the FBI is now less than favorable, especially when it appears to him that I was taking your side by refusing him information.”

“But surely he understood that as a civilian, he doesn’t have a right to know.”

“What he
knows
is that an agent under my direction started mouthing off to him.”

Cece tipped her head down, rubbing her temples as she spat out the inevitable. “I know. And I’m sorry.” And even though she technically worked for Bob and the San Francisco office, she said the words with as much sincerity as she could muster. “It won’t happen again, sir. The stress of yesterday must have affected me more than I thought.”

She had to stay on good terms with the Charlotte office. They were her only “in” to the investigation, and if she stared alienating people, they’d keep her “out.”

“See that it doesn’t happen again,” Agent Ashton said.

“Any word on who tipped off the press?” Cece asked.

There was a pause, and for a moment Cece thought he wouldn’t answer. To her shock, he said, “It appears one of the perps did.”

“One
of the perps?” she asked.

“We’re going under the assumption that this is a terrorist faction we haven’t heard of before.”

Terrorists? But that didn’t make a lick of sense…unless they knew something she didn’t know.

“Did we get another communication from them?”

“We did.”

Well, what did it say? “Is it possible to have a copy faxed to me here?” she asked.

“Negative,” Agent Ashton said quickly and firmly. “You’re to continue in your capacity as protection for Sanders.”

“But I can still help with the investigation while I’m doing that.”

“Frankly, Agent Blackwell, my office is more than capable of handling the investigation on its own. This has now moved to our jurisdiction, thanks to the attempt on your life yesterday. We’re not a bunch of backwater rednecks here, contrary to what you might think.”

Whoa! Where the heck had that come from? “Of course not,” Cece said. “I don’t know what gave you the impression that I thought that.”

“I’ve had dealings with the San Francisco office before.”

Oh, jeesh, so that was it. This wasn’t personal, this was politics. Someone from her office had stepped on Ashton’s toes before. Was it Bob? Was that the reason for this thinly veiled hostility? She sighed.

He must have heard it, because he said with more
venom than before, “So while I appreciate your offer of help, your orders are to stay glued to Sanders’s side.”

Glued to Blain’s side. Terrific. Just what she didn’t want to become—a human Post-it note. She’d hardly be able to help with the investigation that way.

“Surely there’s something—”

Click.

Cece folded her own phone closed.
Jerk.
She wrapped her hands around the cellphone as if it was Agent Ashton’s neck, shaking it for good measure. She’d like to toss the thing on the floor and stomp on it, but that was just a nice fantasy. Besides, there was more than one way to skin a cat.

She turned on her sensibly short heel, heading for the fabrication shop. She didn’t know where Blain was, but she didn’t need his help for this. In fact, she’d rather he be out of the loop.

She found Mike Johnson, Blain’s crew chief, right where she thought he’d be, standing in front of a giant red toolbox organizing the contents of its drawers. Cece doubted that he was their suspect, but she hated the fact that she couldn’t be sure. She’d run into him earlier when she’d poked around the place, and wasn’t surprised he hadn’t moved from his spot. The drawers were a mess, as was the whole shop. It looked as if a tornado had come through—or the FBI.

He glanced up when she walked in, seeming less than pleased to see her.

“I had nothing to do with this,” she said, lifting her hands, having to squint against the light reflecting off the cement floor, thanks to an open roll-up door. When she’d reconnoitered earlier, she’d gauged the back of the shop to be secure enough that she didn’t have to worry about explosives being tossed inside.

Mike flung a shiny socket that probably cost a couple hundred bucks into the drawer, where it bounced and tinged off other sockets.

“Can’t they search a place without destroying it?” he asked, his Southern drawl much more pronounced than Blain’s. “I swear they dusted everything in this place for prints.”

They probably had. “They were looking for evidence,” Cece said. The room was huge, bigger than the average home, with light blue walls and spotless red toolboxes around the perimeter. Numerous race cars were lined up near the toolboxes. On the shorter walls were doors that led to different departments: engine, fabrication, dyno room. She could hear a motor being tested now, despite the fact that the walls were supposed to be soundproof.

“Well, what the hell am I supposed to use to clean this stuff off?” he asked. He held up a hand black with powder.

“Hand lotion will get rid of it.” He didn’t look pleased to have to use
anything
to take the stuff off. “I’m sorry, Mike, but it had to be done. We’re running pretty low on clues.”

The crew chief looked away, but not before she saw his resigned expression. “You guys have any idea who’s doing this?”

“Can’t say,” she replied.

He nodded and picked up another socket, wiping it down before snapping it into place next to a slightly smaller version, and for a second Cece thought about how many people this thing had affected. These men might be forced to find new jobs if the Charlotte office couldn’t break the case in a reasonable amount of time. Hell, the whole sport might suffer with tighter security, no more pit passes, no more autograph sessions, no more shaking drivers’ hands. She could only guess at the kind of security measures that would be put into place this weekend. If they even held the race, which was all the more reason why she should work the case on her own, something she intended to do, starting now.

“Hey, I need to speak with whomever the Charlotte office planted undercover.”

He looked up at that. “You don’t know?”

She frowned in frustration. “I haven’t been told bubkus.”

Mike’s eyes widened.

“That’s the reason I can’t tell you anything, not because I don’t want to.” Not precisely true, but she needed to treat him like a suspect. “I think it’s because I’m an outsider. Stupid. So I’m going to take matters into my own hands, starting with a little chat
with whoever’s working the case here. Hopefully, they can tell me something.”

Mike nodded, and for the first time he smiled. “Nothing wrong with that.” He pointed with a ratchet toward a doorway. “They’ve planted a couple of people. One of them’s in the dyno room.”

“Thanks,” Cece said, heading off in that direction.

“He should be out here helping us clean up,” he called after her.

She couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll tell him that.”

If Mike said anything else, Cece didn’t hear him, because the moment she opened the dyno room door she wished she had a set of earplugs. Good Lord, she couldn’t believe how loud it was. Even with the engine being tested behind a thick wall of what she assumed was soundproof glass, it sounded like the inside of a tornado, not that she’d ever been inside one of those.

Two heads turned to her when she entered, one of them Agent Thurman.

“Hey,” she said in surprise. “I thought you were doing surveillance.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “When I could be undercover at the corporate headquarters of Sanders Racing?”

Cece shook her head. The other guy looked back at the controls of the dynometer, the sound of the engine abruptly lowering after he dialed one of the knobs.

“I see your point,” she said, noting that the guy
at the controls looked more like a computer geek than a motorhead, with his skinny face and wire-rimmed glasses.

“Can I talk to you?” Cece asked Agent Thurman.

When they were outside the room, she couldn’t resist saying, “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

“Can you believe it?” Thurman said. “That engine might be used at Daytona.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, neat. Cece wasn’t exactly in a rah-rah racing mood today. “Listen,” she said. “I need to know what’s going on with the investigation.”

Apparently, Agent Thurman hadn’t been told not to talk to her because he said, “We found a few things yesterday that look promising.”

“Like what?”

“A few fingerprints that don’t match our list of latents. A broom handle that looks like it was used to push the load into place.”

In other words, not much.

“But our biggest break was a former employee with a criminal record who was fired two months back.”

Cece perked up.

“Apparently, he went ballistic when he was let go.”

Definitely
good news.

“They took him into custody early this morning.”

Cece turned on her heel.

“Where you going?” Agent Thurman asked.

“Out,” she answered.

I
T DIDN
’
T TAKE
but a few minutes to find out who the suspect was—thanks to the steely-eyed Linda, who looked only too happy to give her the address if it meant Cece would leave. A stop at a vacant computer terminal and she had driving directions. When she told Blain she was leaving, he didn’t even ask what she needed his car for, probably because he was too busy meeting with his general manager, and it didn’t look pretty. In fact, the place was as grim as a dentist’s office, not surprising given what was going on.

And so Cece found herself on her way to the Charlotte Bureau’s number one suspect’s home—or apartment, as the case may be. She called her real boss on the way, but Bob wasn’t in and so she left a message telling him what she was up to. To hell with Agent Ashton. She reported to Bob, and she’d do exactly that.

Beep.
“Five Bravo Five, where are you going?” The voice rang in her ear as she started the car.

“Just a little errand, boys,” she said cheerfully.

“You’re not authorized to leave—”

She shut off her radio. They were just going to tell her she couldn’t go. To hell with them. Maybe they’d follow her, maybe they wouldn’t. Chances were they’d stay with Blain, since they’d figure she didn’t need protecting, and by gum, she didn’t.

It didn’t take her long to get to one Brian Johnson’s two-story apartment complex. It was the kind of complex frequently featured in
Cops,
one with a flimsy wrought-iron rail across the top landing and
parking spots in front. She pulled in, and when she got out, a glance to the left and right revealed no feds parked nearby. Gone. Humph.

The door to the suspect’s apartment was closed, but it took her less than a second to jimmy the lock.

“Jeez-oh-peets,” she said, staring around at the dim interior. The place was messier than her own apartment, which was saying a lot. Mr. Johnson appeared to be something of a slob, because it hadn’t been her fellow agents who left the place like this. Tossing a suspect’s home only happened on TV.

She closed the door behind her. To be honest, Cece didn’t know what she expected to find. Any evidence would have already been taken away. But there was always the slim chance the Charlotte Bureau might have missed something. Hell, in the movies they always missed something. But, Cece reminded herself, real FBI life rarely worked that way. Like she really had a chance of finding a race car schematic with a giant X circled where a bomb should go.

So she didn’t hold out much hope of spotting anything. But she
did
hope to get a feel for the person they had in custody, maybe get a sense of whether he was good or bad. There were ways to do that. A look at the kind of stuff the person read—
Guns & Ammo
or
People? Guns & Ammo,
she noticed, along with race magazines, a couple of them dog-eared. She turned the pages to see a picture of
Blain and his team in the winner’s circle, with Randy Newell grinning from ear to ear.

To her surprise, she felt a brief stab of sadness. Such a talented driver to have been snuffed out.

Was she standing in the killer’s home?

She put the magazine down, absorbing the place. There were no photographs. Another telling clue. Loner. Fit the profile.

All firearms would have been taken away, but she looked for a gun safe. There wasn’t one, but that didn’t mean a pistol couldn’t have been hidden beneath his mattress.

Not only had the place been dusted for prints, swabs had been done, too—likely looking for signs of nitrates. Nothing appeared to have come back positive. Interesting.

Further poking around revealed little else. Frankly, she didn’t know much more than before, except the suspect appeared to fit the profile of a killer, but that didn’t mean much. A few combat magazines and a pink slip did not a killer make.

Sighing, she let herself out.
Damn.
At this rate she’d be better off buying a game of Clue.