Dangerous Race (28 page)

“I did too,” she admitted softly. She leaned away from him and stared into his eyes. “Did you really mean what you said?”

Mac nodded, brushing her cheek with his thumb. “I thought I could walk away from you if I told myself you’d be fine, but after this,” he gestured to her car, “I realize I can’t do it.”

Hope blossomed in her eyes. “You can’t?”

“No, I can’t.” Mac eased a lock of hair from her damp cheek. “You were right. Everything you said is true. I want to live my life and I want to do it with you. I promise I won’t ever walk away, Tracey. You have to trust me. Trust that I love you enough to last a lifetime.” He searched her eyes. “What about you?” he asked. “Can you handle a lifetime with me?”

She nodded and gave him a tremulous smile. Mac loved the emotion on her face. He took her chin between his fingers and kissed her. A soft kiss that carried every ounce of love he had for her.

Tracey pulled away and looked at her burning car. Mac felt her raw sadness. Saw the desolation in her eyes. The next instant it was gone, replaced with panic.

“Oh my God—Chelsea. We have to find Chelsea,” she insisted. “God, I love you, Mac, but I have to find my sister.”

Tracey scrambled off him and broke out in a run.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he called, keeping her pace.

“No,” she said, as they moved across the field. “But I will be as soon as we get Chelsea back.”

As much as Matthew hated leaving Tracey in a time bomb, his heart went the way of Chelsea. He’d snagged four crewmembers and organized a search party. In minutes, he’d reached track operations and security, and sent the guys out with orders to check every locked door under the track. The odds of finding Chelsea were slim, but he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t try.

He’d taken his own section under the chute at turn four and waited for security to arrive with keys. When a huge boom sounded from above, he flinched at the sound, heard the awe of the crowd, and the silence.

Holy God. Trace. Had she gotten out in time?

Then the stampede as people ran. Pandemonium broke out. It didn’t take much to start a riot with a crowd of over four hundred thousand mostly-inebriated people, and apparently an explosion did the trick in a quick second. Matthew watched the rush of fans as they ran in every direction.

Not a minute later, he heard a toe-curling scream from behind a door twenty feet away. Matthew fought the crowd to get closer. He snagged a maintenance man rushing past him. “Hey! I need to get in this door. Do you have the key?

“I can’t just give you the k—”

Matthew grabbed his collar. “Give me the fucking key,
now!
”

“Jesus. Fine. I hate this job. Here,” he said, pulling out of Matthew’s grip and fishing for the key ring. It’s all yours. Number 37.” He bolted away as fast as the fans around them.

Another scream came from behind the door.

Matthew’s fingers refused to listen to his mind as he fumbled with the ring. He finally shoved the key in the slot and shouldered the door open with fury pounding through his bloodstream.

A man with a pipe in his hand stood over Chelsea, her battered body huddled against the wall, cringing in pain and fright.

The sight nearly destroyed Matthew. Pure hatred crashed down on top of his rage.

The man turned.

“Eddie?” The word was a question, accusation and curse. Knowing his old friend had been behind Tracey’s problems sent fresh, hot anger coursing through Matthew as he advanced. “You sorry son of a fucking bitch,” he ground out. Nothing could have stopped him at that moment.

Matthew caught the pipe Eddie swung at him in midair. Then he leveled his pal with a solid right hook. He picked him off the ground and hit him again. The only thing that mattered was causing the man severe pain. “How does it feel to be hit by someone bigger and stronger than you, Eddie?” Matthew stood over him. “Get up, you piece of garbage. Give me a reason to nail you again.” He took small comfort in the dried blood that already stained the side of Eddie’s face. Maybe Chelsea had got in a shot of her own somehow.

Eddie, sporting a new bloody lip and cut above the eye, lunged off the floor as angry as a bull into a red cape. Head first, he shoved Matthew against the wall.

Fisting his hands together, Matthew brought them down hard on Eddie’s back. He slammed a knee into Eddie’s chest before hitting him again, sending him across the small room. Matthew moved toward him but Eddie fumbled with something in a duffel bag and spun around from his place on the ground.

Matthew froze as he stared down the barrel of a gun. Breathing hard, he clenched his fists and his jaw in frustration. Fury coursed through him, strong and hot.

Eddie’s hand shook as he slowly rose to his feet. He wiped his lip against his sleeve, never taking his gaze from Matthew. “Not feelin’ so sure of yourself anymore, are you, Matty boy?”

“Fuck you, Eddie.” Matthew took two steps back as Eddie advanced with the gun straight-armed to his chest.

“When are you going to face the facts, man?” Eddie said, smiling through lopsided lips. “I’ll always come out ahead.” His grin turned into a snarl. “You’re not better than me, or smarter than me. Example—who was the one at the police station for questioning? I’ll give you a hint. He’s a stupid, fucking mechanic.”

Old feelings surfaced. Matthew wanted to kill Eddie with his bare hands, just as he had wanted to years ago when Eddie had left Trace. His eyes narrowed. “You never loved her, did you? What was your plan, marry her, get her pregnant so she’d quit ra—” All the answers hit Matthew as clear as crystal. “That’s it, isn’t it? You knew as long as Trace was driving, your dad would never put you behind the wheel. She was always a better driver and it drove you crazy. Admit it, Eddie.
You
tossed the balloon over the fence.
You
caused her accident and when she didn’t die, you left her.” Disgust turned Matthew’s stomach.

“You never saw her scar, Matty,” Eddie said, as if they were having a buddy-to-buddy chat and he wasn’t holding a gun. His lip curled in distaste. “She’s a fucking freak, man.”

“You did it to her!”

“If you care so much then why didn’t you go for her once I left?” Eddie asked.

Matthew snorted. “You can’t pull me down with you, Eddie. She never loved me, asshole. It was never like that between us and you know it.”

Chelsea whimpered. Lying on her side, her teary sapphire eyes gazed up at him in a mixture of love and panic. And something else Matthew couldn’t read. His heart squeezed tight and his gut twisted into a knot. If he survived this, he’d be her personal nurse…for the rest of her life.

“Yeah…I’ll bet,” Eddie muttered. “That’s why you’re making it with her twin.”

Matthew looked back to Eddie as something else dawned on him. “You planted that fucking pocket knife too, didn’t you?”

“It was an easy way to make two suspects out of two idiots. It worked.” Eddie snapped his neck to the side and cracked his vertebrae. “Enough bullshit already. I’ve got six shots, Matty. There’s nothing I’d rather do than empty them all in your chest…but I think two will do the job.” He aimed the gun higher—right between the eyes. The crazed look on his face said it all. He had no remorse in what he was about to do. His lopsided smile gleamed behind the gun.

Fear edged its way into Matthew’s chest. He bluffed with the first thing that came to mind. “There’s no way out, Eddie. They’ve sealed the place.”

“There’s one entrance no one knows about. Did you forget it already?”

No. He hadn’t forgotten at all.

Chelsea moaned and both men glanced at her before squaring off with each other. Eddie readjusted his aim and Chelsea struck. With the flat of her foot, she pounded the side of his knee.

A shot rang out as Eddie collapsed. A slap of pain rocketed through Matthew’s side as he lunged for the gun. They both fell and Matthew slammed Eddie’s hand against the floor. One shot went off, then two, three and four. Matthew counted them off. The last shot never went off as the gun bounced out of Eddie’s hand and slid toward the open door. They struggled until Eddie fisted Matthew’s waist and squeezed. Shooting pain ripped through him. Eddie took his moment and clocked him squarely in the jaw. The blow knocked Matthew to the side.

Eddie scrambled for the door, picked up his gun and disappeared.

Relief tunneled through Matthew until he looked down and saw his bloody shirtfront. Throbbing pain had him clenching his teeth. Son of a bitch. Why did the sight of blood always make something hurt worse?

But he wasn’t alone. Chelsea was watching him and tears streamed down her bruised cheeks. “Matthew,” she cried between swollen lips.

“Shh, sweetheart,” he said, crawling toward her and ignoring the sharp ache in his side. He spotted the headset on the ground and picked it up. “Mac? Trace? Anybody out there?” he called.

“Did you get her?” Trace’s voice, worried and hopeful. “Is she okay?”

Relief rushed though him at the sound of Trace’s voice. “Got her,” he said, looking into Chelsea’s eyes. He glanced toward the door. “It’s Eddie, Trace. It’s fucking Eddie. He hurt her and he’s headed for our entrance. He’s got a gun with one shot left. Tell security. They need to know which entrance.”

“Oh God, Matthew. Is Chelsea okay? Does she need an ambulance?”

Matthew looked down at the woman he loved. If he could, he’d have taken her pain in a second. “Yes.” He pressed his hand against the wound on his side—shit, it hurt. “I think we both do.”

“Done,” Trace said. “I’m passing the headset to security. Tell him where you are. Help’s coming.”

After relaying their location, Matthew put the headset down and gazed at Chelsea. One eye was swollen shut, a bloody cut split her cheek and her lips were swollen to almost twice their normal size. Eddie had beaten her nearly senseless. Gently, he stroked the hair out of her face and anchored it behind her ear.

“Hey, girl,” he soothed. He couldn’t help the husky sound of emotion in his voice. “You’re going to be okay. I don’t want you to worry.”

“I was coming to tell you something,” she mumbled. Her lips barely moved. She’d been ready to give him an answer.

“You can tell me later,” he whispered, his heart breaking for her. The sting in his eyes hurt nearly as much as his side. Seeing her like this simply devastated him.

“He grabbed my arm,” she continued, “thought I was Tracey. I tried to—”

“Shh.” He couldn’t hear it now. Didn’t know if he’d
ever
be ready to hear it. “You don’t need to tell me right now, Chels. Try to relax. An ambulance is coming.”

“Matthew…” Her voice cracked and she swallowed. She gazed up at him with an expression that would’ve brought him to his knees if he hadn’t already been on the floor.

“What, sweetheart?”

“I love you. That’s what I was coming to tell you. I love you.”

Matthew swallowed back the ball of emotion in his throat. Gently, he stroked the one small spot on her cheek that didn’t have a mark. “I love you too, sweetheart. I love you too.”

“Eddie,” Tracey panted as she ran with Mac for the trailer. “That’s why security didn’t matter. It was Eddie. Eddie had access to the car almost any time he wanted. It all makes sense,” she said. “The way he acted in the hospital, the way he tried to get me out of there before his dad showed up.”

Mac kept her pace. “And that night at the hotel bar when he grabbed you and tried to rush you out the door.”

Tracey stopped at her small room in the trailer. She grabbed a set of keys from her pack and an old combination lock in the back of a drawer, and bolted out the door with Mac on her heels.

“That’s what Chelsea was trying to tell me,” she thought aloud.

“What are you talking about?” Mac asked.

“Chelsea,” Tracey said. “She didn’t come with me when I checked on Eddie in the hospital. She said Matthew had introduced her to everyone
except
Eddie and he was the only person she hadn’t met. And on the headset before…that’s what she said. She was glad she’d
met everyone—
”

The crowd slowed their progress. The noise was deafening as people scrambled to get out, making a blur of color, a kaleidoscope of panic.

“Where the hell are we going?” Mac called.

“Our entrance,” she shouted, jostling through the crowd.

“What entrance?”

“Matthew, Eddie and I found it years ago,” Tracey huffed. “It was hardly used and after a few years it was padlocked and blocked off from the track. Barely anyone knows it exists. We used it to sneak into the track.”

They got separated as the crowd thickened but Mac made it back to her side in the confusion. “How did you get in?”

Tracey always felt guilty about this part. It was her one moment of teen rebellion. “We busted the lock and replaced it with an identical one that we all kept a key to. We didn’t think it’d last very long. We thought someone would figure out the lock was different and replace it, but that never happened. We’re the only three with a key.”

“Is that how you got in the night I found you in the garage?” Mac asked.

She nodded. “I parked on the street outside the gate.”

They continued moving with and against the crowd. “What the hell do you plan on doing?” Mac asked.

Tracey held up her combination lock. “I’m going to make his exit impossible.”

The crowd thickened again and Tracey shouldered her way through. Eddie’s betrayal sent fresh waves of anger coursing in her veins. To think she trusted him, had planned to marry him…How could only four years seem like a lifetime? Easily, she supposed, when two people had changed so much. But maybe Eddie hadn’t changed. God, he’d probably never loved her at all.

“Tracey! Tracey!” Mac yelled, but his voice came from far away. He’d gotten stuck in the throng.

“Over there,” she shouted. She pointed to an alley farther ahead and continued on. Sure he’d catch her, Tracey didn’t wait for him. She couldn’t risk the chance of Eddie getting away.

Her footsteps echoed in the long tunnel until she reached the mouth where the door-sized gate opened to the outside of the stadium. A different tunnel on her right provided the only other access. The gate was the only exit. Outside, people scurried away in flashes of color and sound.

Out of breath and sweating hard, she removed the padlock and replaced it with her combination lock. The look on Eddie’s face would be priceless…the little prick.

Tracey hid behind a pillar and waited. Her heart thundered as she caught her breath. Sure enough, not a minute later, Eddie sprinted to the gate. He stopped, clearly stunned at the new lock. Obviously expecting something very different.

Anger at everything Eddie had done speared bone-deep. So did resentment and frustration. Fear didn’t play into the mix. This was Eddie, not some stranger. This was a man she’d known since she was seven. Maybe she’d be safer staying hidden, but how could she
not
confront the man who’d changed her life so drastically? Fury simmered underneath. Despite her brain telling her to stay put, she stepped out from behind her hiding place.

“Looking for this?” She held up the padlock and surprised herself with a calm voice.

Eddie spun around, gun drawn and pointed right at her. Shock and hatred gleamed fiercely in his eyes. “You just won’t go away, Trace. You won’t fucking go away.” A sinister grin split his lips. “You’ll go away now, though.”

Tracey’s heart galloped wildly as she realized her mistake. This wasn’t the man she grew up with. This guy was nuts.