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“Sure.” Dalton nodded to the table and then followed Jack across the room to the coffee area. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to say again tough luck today, mate. Any ideas on how it happened?”
“None. The cops are saying it was a heart attack, but who knows.” He wasn’t getting into it with Jack, but he decided since the rumor mill would take on a life of its own, maybe it could work to his advantage if people started wondering if something else could have happened. Maybe someone saw something that would help but hadn’t thought it was important at the time.
Dalton took a breath. It was a huge risk. If it backfired and people started blaming his team, then he really was screwed.
“Dalton,” Albert Becker said as he lumbered up to the two men. “Sorry about what happened. Just brutal. Any news on the cause or when we can start racing again?” the team owner asked.
His belly had grown over the winter, as had his beard. It was going whiter, and it was now below his chin. If he wore a red suit, he could be mistaken for Santa.
“No word yet on either. You’ll have to talk to Juan Carlos about restarting. The polizei are still putting everything together at this point.”
Becker shrugged. “Ach, accidents happen. It’s sad but not out of the ordinary. We all spin and crash. He just had bad luck.”
Dalton just gave a small nod. “Maybe.” That was enough to get Becker to give him a second look, but Dalton wouldn’t say anything else.
“I heard this will be your last season. Is this true?” Becker asked.
“What?” Jack stared at Dalton. “That’s not right, is it, mate?”
“No, not our last season. Not sure where Becker came up with that, but we’re all good.”
“That’s excellent news, although if it changes, please let me know first. I would like to talk to your engineer Mario Bauer. He’s really good, and some of your mechanics, too.”
Becker would be the first of the team owners trying to poach the members of the team that Dalton had painstakingly assembled. Scavengers trying to pick the meat off his bones already. He gritted his teeth. “Well, I hate to disappoint, but we’ll definitely be here next year.”
“It’s not a disappointment,” Becker tried to reassure him.
“It’s great news,” Jack agreed. “I’d heard that rumor, too. Claasen is running up and down the paddock, telling the world.”
Dalton crossed his arms over his chest. Claasen was the biggest pain in the ass. He wanted Hughes Racing to fail because he was the number two team as long as Hughes was around. “Claasen wants to be number one. He won last year by a fluke.”
Jack nodded. “The last race was a nightmare. Losing the transponder information from the cars so they had no idea who crossed the line first was outrageous. We thought they should’ve run the race again. The points were so close. It was down to your team, ours, and Claasen. We know there’s no way he had enough points to win. He was third. They just made shit up and handed out first, second, and third position for the race and the series. So unfair.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t Juan Carlos’s finest hour,” Dalton agreed.
“It should’ve been yours. We were second. Everyone thought so, but Marisol, Juan Carlos’s daughter, was sleeping with Claasen, so his team won. Just bloody stupid and unfair. I told Juan Carlos exactly what I thought of it, too.”
Dalton nodded. There was no point in mentioning that Juan Carlos had come to him afterward and apologized, but the race was over and done and the prizes had been awarded. There wasn’t a damn thing Dalton or anyone else could do about it. He’d vowed to make it up this year. The purse for winning the season was sizeable and that money would go a long way to saving Hughes Racing, but the bigger help was the reputation bump his team got from winning. If his father hadn’t spent faster than he could make it, they’d be in great shape.
“Well, you can tell the world we’ll be here next year, and the year after. We’re not going anywhere. I’ve gotta run, guys. See you on the track.”
He left the tent before he could say or do something he’d regret. His father, even after his death, was the bane of Dalton’s existence. He’d hoped that it would get better after the man passed, but Dalton was still cleaning up the mess. Some days, it just felt like Lady Luck held a grudge.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Dalton Hughes knows something.”
“What do you mean, he knows something?” the person on the other end of the phone line demanded. “Dennis Moore had a heart attack. Didn’t you hear?”
“Yeah, but Dalton knows there’s something weird about it.” He licked his lips. “You made him have a heart attack, didn’t you? Otherwise, none of this makes any sense.” He knew it was true. He had no idea how it had been done, but no doubt about it… Dennis Moore had been murdered by this man.
“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t concern me? You made it my concern when you involved me,” he complained. “I did what you asked. How the hell was I supposed to know that he’d die? And you killed him! I’ve got nothing to do with that part of it.” He glanced around. No one was nearby, but his heart rate was through the roof. If anyone found out, he would go to prison. “No one dies in this type of racing. No one. Killing Moore this way was stupid.”
“He had a heart attack. No one can prove otherwise. No one wants to.”
