Maeve was the kind of woman who had always depended on a man. It wasn’t weakness of character or want of intelligence, it was simply how she’d been raised and how Hilton had wanted her to remain. He made all the major decisions, and he spent money lavishly because he said they had plenty of it.

  Now those days were gone, and so was Hilton, whom Maeve had adored unconditionally. They’d met when she was not quite nineteen, and he was twenty-one. He was her first love, yet suddenly, after more than thirty years, she’d learned she’d never known him at all.

  But given her background, it seemed natural for her now to turn to a man for help, and that man, to Penny’s despair, was Craig. The twins were bright and had good business sense—but not the type Maeve so desperately needed. Plus, they had the most demanding of careers.

  Sawyer was brilliant at math, but to Penny, he seemed to live in his own private reality and didn’t trouble himself with practical details.

  Penny had learned to run her own career, but she had no inkling of how to solve the complexities that confounded her mother. Maeve was almost forced to depend on Craig. She called him constantly, and when she needed him, he was there for her. Drat him!

  Penny had moved back home with Maeve, but she always tried to leave when Craig arrived. She was cool and aloof to him, and he was maddeningly courteous to her—except he still hadn’t signed the divorce papers she’d served him.

  The worst thing about the situation was that Penny dreamed about him almost every night. Sweet, tender dreams of when they were first falling in love. Frightening dreams when she wanted and needed him with all her being, but couldn’t find him. She was so bereft she felt ill, poisoned by loss. Strange dreams, in which Craig moved into the house and Penny moved out.

  And, of course, Maeve, shattered as she was, had become Craig’s devoted champion. And he did do wonderful things for her. He quickly learned that Hilton hadn’t remortgaged the house. If Maeve could afford to maintain it, it was hers. If she couldn’t, she could sell it.

  He stood by her through the humiliating interviews with the FBI investigators and bank inspectors. He was helping untangle the Gordian knot of Hilton’s dirty finances, and he was the only one who could talk Maeve into seeing a therapist. He was perfect.

  Penny both loved him and hated him for making himself so indispensable to Maeve. He had the full confidence of both twins, and incredibly, even Sawyer seemed to warm up to him.

  She was putting her own condo on the market, hoping to sell it and help with Maeve’s expenses. She’d also gotten in touch with her former agent, Selma, to line up modeling jobs. She hated the thought of going back into the business, but she had little choice.

  By March, she needed a break, and E.A., her second cousin on Maeve’s side and a loan officer at the main bank, offered to fly her to Bristol to see the twins race. E.A., always called E.A., was a few years younger than Penny.

  He had worked at the bank for eight years, a tall, whip-lean man with auburn hair and dark brown eyes. He gave the first impression of being mild and even shy, but his quiet manner hid the heart of a thrill seeker. He was saving his money in hopes of one day climbing Mount Everest.

  He loved NASCAR with all his being, secretly yearned to be a driver, and had tickets to all the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He also had his own plane, a classic 1947 four-seater Beech Bonanza.

  At the track, he had passes to visit the twins, with whom he’d always been close. This time they’d asked him to bring Penny with him to Bristol. She accepted gladly.

  She’d always liked this speedway—it was called “the biggest little track in racing.” It was also one of the toughest tracks in the sport.

  Short, it was only a half mile, narrow and high-banked. The cars whizzed around it at impossible speeds, jockeying for position, fighting for space to pass, battling for a leading place. One driver compared it to “flying a jet in a gym,” and another to “a blender filled with marbles.” It was called the world’s fastest half mile, and Bart and Will could sit analyzing it for hours.

  And so, in late March, Penny headed for Bristol with E.A. His old plane was so loud, they could make little conversation, and once at Bristol, there was such a mass of people and so much crowd noise, they still could hardly talk.

  But the weather was fine, and the scenery would have been lovely, if Penny could see it, but the crowd of people and vendors was so thick, it blocked her view of the horizon. She’d always had a fondness not just for the race, but for the city of Bristol itself, which was really two cities. The southern part was in Tennessee, and the northern part in Virginia. You could move from Tennessee to Virginia simply by crossing the aptly named State Street.

  Although Bristol’s track was short, the facility itself was huge. The venue always sold out for this race, which was a thriller. Yes, it was good to be at Bristol again. And Penny had to admit it was good being outside Dallas, where Hilton’s disappearance was a favorite topic of gossip. She was ashamed to also admit it was also good to be out of the house, which no longer felt like home.

  Now the house felt like an evil illusion, one her father had created and furnished with money he’d stolen. It was a phantasmagoric place where they had all lived luxuriously, ignorant of how Hilton had schemed and cheated and stole to maintain it.

  Her mother had been happy at the house, but was happy no longer—most of her life had been based on Hilton’s lies, and heaven alone knew what Maeve’s future would be. Hilton was gone, perhaps forever, but his presence hovered ghostlike throughout all of the rooms of the house.

  So, yes, it was good to escape it, even for two days. Maeve’s older cousin, Rose Alice, had volunteered to come keep Maeve company. Rose Alice could be annoying, but at least Maeve had someone with her.

  But the NASCAR experience for Penny wasn’t what it had once been. The twins were soldiering on. They were lucky because they were both excellent drivers and their secondary sponsors were standing behind them fully, footing the bills. But more than that, they were likeable and personable. And although they normally had high spirits, they were gentlemanly—Maeve had worked very hard to make them so. Their fans were loyal and stuck with them. To the fans, Hilton was the villain, not Bart or Will.

  But gone were the days when Hilton always had use of the spectacular corporate suites, so his family could look out on the race like royalty gazing out at a great spectacle. She didn’t mind a regular seat at all, but she hoped she wouldn’t be recognized, pointed out and whispered about.

  If she were? She would simply lift her chin higher and pretend she didn’t notice.

  She was good at pretending. She had made a fine art of it.

  PENNY AND E.A. made their way to their seats in time to catch all the opening pageantry. She always loved every bit of it, the parachutists descending gracefully, holding a great American flag, the national anthem and especially the Blue Angels, the precision flying formation of U.S. Navy jets. E.A., of course, was mad for the Angels because he yearned to fly a jet.

  She saw her brothers and their teams go by, waving, like the other groups, from their trucks. She waved back wildly even though she knew they could never see her in this immense crowd.

  An electric excitement was running through the fans now, and it built until the magic phrase was finally and dramatically uttered: “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

  The crowd exploded. The race started slowly, with the pace car leading the drivers on track. Bart and Will had had mediocre qualifying runs, and their vehicles were in the center of the pack; so they would have to be as fast and precise as the Blue Angels to make it into the lead. But Penny didn’t care if they didn’t win. She was so proud of them being there after all this turmoil that tears stung her eyes.

  She and E.A. put on their earphones to listen to the race on their scanners. The scanners blocked the incredible thunder of the cars on the track and provided a running commentary on what was happening, for things could occur at such speed the normal human eye couldn’t catch it all.

  As the cars made the first few rounds of the track, the engines and the crowd almost drowned out the voice in Penny’s earphones. Like most people, Penny wore NASCAR gear to support her favorites, who were, of course, her brothers.

  She had a gold T-shirt with a black line drawing of Will’s smiling face and his number, 467. She wore a white ball cap with a Bart Branch autograph embroidered in red and his number, 475, embroidered in orange on the back.

  She was already bouncing up and down, as Bart made a daring pass to move closer to the leaders. E.A. sat motionless, silent, his arms crossed in fierce concentration. He wore so much NASCAR gear, including pins and badges, that he twinkled and glittered in the sunlight.

  Penny had her NASCAR survival kit in a large, clear plastic bag: sunscreen, a rain poncho, plastic bottles of water, energy bars, her camera and binoculars.

  The colors, the speed, the noise, the excitement! Most of the cars were wildly bright, and when Penny was younger she used to dream about them turning into strange rectangular hard candies—lemon-yellow, lime-green, cherry-red, orange, a rainbow of racing candies—and she’d always awakened happy.

  Today she felt the same childlike wonder, and was glad she was in the stands in her jeans and T-shirt, her ponytail, minimal makeup and her oversize sunglasses. The suites above them were lavish, with tables of delicious foods, and people dressed smartly, the women in their best jewelry and their hair and makeup as flawless as movie stars’. She’d once taken such suites for granted.

  She discovered that she liked the plainer seats and plainer clothes and spontaneous emotion in the stands. She enjoyed the neighborhood atmosphere of folks letting their hair down. This seemed like a real race, not one she looked down on from an ivory tower.

  In the meantime, both Bart and Will were having a hard time breaking from the center pack, although Will had edged ahead into eleventh place. So far, the race had been remarkably safe, a few spinouts, a few bad scrapes against the wall, lots of trading paint, but of the forty-three cars that started, forty-two were still in the race. One engine had blown.

  Suddenly a light rain began to fall. Penny sighed in frustration. Not only would rain stop the race, it might take over an hour for the track to dry enough to be safe again for the smooth racing tires. She took off her headset.

  But E.A. suddenly perked up as he put on his rain gear. He said that he’d spotted someone he knew and wanted to have a few words with him. Penny, slipping into her poncho, smiled and nodded to signal that she’d be just fine. And she was fine.

  Until five minutes later, when someone slipped into the seat E.A. had vacated, and a familiar low voice asked, “Mind if I sit here awhile?”

  She recognized the voice and speaker. She recognized him on a primitive level that was so deep it scared her. Turning, she looked into Craig’s blue-green eyes, and her heart did a slow, painful somersault.

  How could she forget how handsome he was? Why did it always strike her anew? He was dressed as plainly as she, his NASCAR T-shirt nearly covered by a short yellow slicker. He took off the cap, and his blond-streaked hair tumbled slightly over his brow, as usual.

  The roar of the cars had faded until there was only the noise of the crowd left. Craig smiled ruefully at her. “Would you talk to me for a while?”

  She was slipping back into her old physical infatuation with him, but she forced herself to change course. “Did you and E.A. set this up?” she asked, coolness and resentment mingling in her tone.

  The crook of his mouth was shy and slightly guilty. “Not exactly. Bart told me you were coming with E.A. I’d been planning on coming, too. I called E.A. and we talked. He asked where I was sitting. He found me, and I came up here.”

  He leaned nearer. “So will you talk to me?”

  She thought of how much he’d done for all of them, especially Maeve, and she felt petty and shallow for avoiding him. Still, she turned so she wouldn’t have to look into the seemingly endless depths of his eyes.

  She had always fantasized that his eyes were deep because his character, his strength and his honesty were deep. And she knew she shouldn’t treat him like this. She had no right to do it.

  “I asked if you’d talk to me.”

  She swallowed hard. She locked her hands tightly in her lap. And then she nodded.

  HE WAS A STRONG, HEALTHY MAN, but she made him feel light-headed. Here she was decked out trying to look like an ordinary woman. But she wasn’t really in disguise, and she was loyal enough to wear her brothers’ colors. Her platinum hair was fastened with a rubber band, her ponytail tucked to trail over the strap of her ball cap. She had the faintest touch of lipstick on, and her eyes were covered by oversize sunglasses, but she did not look like an ordinary woman.

  Her skin, lightly tanned, always amazed him because it was so perfect. Her body was lean and lithe without being skinny or too muscular. The baggy T-shirt couldn’t quite hide her delicious curves, and under the well-fitted jeans, he knew she had the longest, smoothest, most shapely legs he’d ever seen.

  But it wasn’t just her natural beauty that entranced him. It was the paradox of her character—usually so down-to-earth and forthright. She liked simple pleasures: horseback riding, hiking, climbing, even fishing, though she always winced and felt bad when she caught one.

  But lately, her personality was clouded by complexity and unhappiness. And she wouldn’t tell him why. She was as immovable as a boulder and stubbornly refused to explain herself.

  How was he going to break through this inexplicable wall of resolve against him?

  He had little cruelty in him, but he knew he was going to have to go, mercilessly, for her most vulnerable spot.

  He leaned closer to Penny. He could smell the flowery scent of her perfume and knew she could feel the warmth of his breath on her ear. “How’s your mother?”

  Penny shook her head and kept gazing at the track. “She’s still depressed. Doesn’t want to see her old friends. Doesn’t want to go out. She realizes what’s happened, but she hopes that my father’s going to call with a perfectly logical explanation and everything will go back to normal. And nobody’s life will have changed at all.”

  Suddenly she turned to him, her expression hardening. “Do they have any idea where Hilton’s gone? Whether they’ll catch him?”

  “You used to call him Daddy,” Craig said, watching her face.

  She looked away again. “I’ll never call him that again. I’ll never think of him that way again. I’ll never love him again. How could I? I never even knew him. None of us did. He was like the wizard of Oz. He seemed great and powerful, but he was just a little man hiding all his weaknesses behind a display.”

  “Can you really turn your affection off like that?” he demanded.

  “Yes, I can,” she retorted. She meant to convince him that she could turn her feelings for him off, as well, completely and forever.

  But he didn’t buy it. The chemistry was still there. He felt it thrumming through his system like a galvanic charge. He knew she felt it, too, could tell it by the flushed cheeks, her shallow breathing and her parted lips that seemed involuntarily to invite his kiss.

  But she raised her chin and said, “You didn’t answer my questions. Where do you think my father is and will they catch him?”

  “I’ve talked to an FBI guy. He thinks Hilton went to London because there’s a thriving business there of false IDs and passports. One of the specialties of the Russian mob in England.”

  She looked at him through the big, dark glasses. “IDs? Passports? Where would he go from there?”

  He shrugged. “For a guy on the run? I hear Southeast Asia’s a fairly safe destination. He might try South America. Or, if he’s feeling cocky, the Caribbean. But I don’t think he’s feeling cocky.”

  She took off her glasses and stared at him, stunned. She had such beautiful eyes, blue with a tinge of lavender, and fringed by thick lashes of dark gold. But she had circles under those lovely eyes, and suddenly he wanted to take her in his arms and try to kiss them away.

  She asked, “Why? Why don’t you think he feels cocky?”

  Her words shook him back into reality. “He had to pull out too fast. For some reason he didn’t expect to be discovered so soon. He was a desperate man and he wanted to escape with as much money as he could. He had to wing it.”

  “Didn’t he think he’d be discovered?” she asked, and he saw the glint of tears in her eyes.

  “Penny, it would be a lot easier to explain if we weren’t surrounded by people who’re shortly going to begin screaming again. Look, the rain’s almost stopped. Have supper with me tonight. Where we can talk in quiet. How about it?”

  He saw the hesitation in her eyes, the anxiety in the set of her mouth.

  But at last, she said, “I owe you. I know that. I haven’t been very rational about all this. Or mature. And I’ve shown you no gratitude at all. But tonight…I’m so scattered. I’m worried about the twins. Their future’s in jeopardy, their concentration’s compromised…now this delay…”

  Craig smiled, his face edging an inch nearer hers. “The twins are okay, Penn. They’re smart and they’re tough. You know that.’

  She nodded, but her body stiffened and she drew back from him. Her expression became shuttered and she put her dark glasses on again. “Yes. They can take care of themselves,” she said in a low voice. “I have to believe that. I couldn’t watch if I didn’t believe it.”

  But then she turned to him, trying again to seem cool and controlled. “Tonight?” she asked.

  His heartbeat speeded up until it hurt. “Yes?”

  “We have other things to talk about, too,” she said.

  The heartbeat stuttered and hurt more. “What?”

  “You haven’t signed the divorce papers,” she said. “You’re holding things up. I want this over and settled as soon as possible.”

  He linked his fingers together and let them dangle between his knees. He stared up at the sky, which was filled with milling clouds. “Yeah. I know. We’ll talk about that, too.”

 

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