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“I know we just met, but we care about you, Jena. You must know that by now.” Matt smiled and hugged her tenderly.
She took a deep breath, and for the first time in a very long time told the truth—her truth. “My real name is Jena Anne Taylor.”
“Taylor?” Matt’s jaw dropped. “Are you Bobby Taylor’s kid?”
“Of course she is.” Sean grabbed her hands. “You and I both saw how she drove back in Odessa.”
“Yes, you’re right.” The painful memories burned fresh once again in her mind. “I’m Bobby Taylor’s daughter.”
Sean squeezed her hands. “Jena, I’m so sorry about your dad.”
“Thank you.” She looked at him and Matt and saw so much compassion. They were good men. Really good men. “My dad was the best.”
“Sean and I were watching the race when that horrific accident happened.”
“I’ll never forget that day,” she told them. Now that her dam of lies was broken, honesty flooded out of her. She needed to share everything with them. “I have a five-year-old daughter, Kimmie Marie, who means the world to me. I would do anything for her. I fell for the wrong man, if you could call him that. He’s actually a bastard. He was my dad’s pit boss. Everyone thought he was the greatest. He was terrific at his job, which helped my dad win many races.”
Tears welled up in her eyes as she took a breath.
“Take your time, honey.” Sean touched her cheek. “There’s no hurry.”
She had to continue telling them the whole truth about her life. “We were all so fooled by Carl Braxton. That’s the scum’s name. Dad had signed papers for him, putting Carl in charge of all of my family’s finances. The bastard spent all the money or put it somewhere and Mom was left with nothing. We are still not sure how Carl accomplished that, but now it’s all tied up in the courts. But the embezzling was only the tip of the iceberg. Everyone knew from the beginning that something was wrong with the car. Dad was the best race car driver in the history of that sport. So on that day, that horrible day—”
“Go on, sweetheart,
we’re here for you,” Matt said.
“The investigation began. So many things were wrong, many things about the car. They realized someone had fixed the seat belt where it would not unlock.”
Sean leaned forward. “That never came out in the media reports.”
“The investigators kept things hush-hush, hoping to find the proof they needed to bring charges against Carl. None came.”
“My God, I can’t imagine how you dealt with that,” Matt said.
“Dad couldn’t get out when it burst into flames. God, just thinking about it is so hard. The investigators also discovered the lug nuts were loose on all the wheels.”
Their faces darkened, clearly realizing the horror of her dad’s murder.
“A slow leak was found in the brake line. It was an accident just waiting to happen. I’m sure Carl thought he’d covered all his tracks, but he hadn’t. I had Kimmie two days after my father’s death. I didn’t trust Carl, so I kept her away from him. After I came home, I logged onto my father’s old laptop. Getting past the passwords was easy for me. I figured out that Carl was robbing my family blind. I confronted him and he shot at me.”
“Motherfucker,” Matt cursed.
“I got away and went straight to the police, hiding Kimmie and my mom in a hotel that night. With today’s technology, the detectives proved that the bastard had caused my father’s death beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Sean nodded. “It’s amazing how much easier it is to solve a crime these days.”
“The monster was arrested immediately. It was also learned during the inquiry that he was a bookie. Carl had fixed the odds so that dad losing the race would make him a millionaire.”
Sean and Matt held her close.
“There’s more,” Jena said. “I was trying to figure out how I could support Mom and Kimmie. We had absolutely nothing. Carl had taken everything from us.”
“How long before the court releases your family’s money back to you and your mother?” Sean asked.
“It could be years. There’s very little that has been found. Carl hid the money and we didn’t have the funds to give a retainer for the kind of person it would take to track it down. I started trying to find dad’s money myself. I found nothing but dead ends. I knew Carl had to be working with someone else, but I could never figure out whom.”
“I wish we’d known you then, Jena,” Matt said. “We could’ve helped you.”
