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Luna
Friday morning Carlos became violently ill. The track doctor determined that it was food poisoning and sent him to the infirmary before insisting he go to his hotel for some much-needed rest.
There was suddenly a void in the Perez garage, and Rafe tried desperately to fill it. His first order of business had been to call me away from journalists and into the small Perez office behind the garage.
“You are going to the press conference this afternoon in place of Carlos,” he said as he rifled through papers.
“Me, why me?” I asked. I’d never done anything like that before, and I was still feeling shaken from everything that had happened over the past few days.
“I’m busy, and they want a team owner. Shall I have Uncle fly in from Santa Barbara because you’d rather be with your boyfriend?”
“You don’t have to be an ass.”
“Four thirty, don’t be late.”
I mimicked my brother all the way to the Russo pits, needing to burn off my irritation. I saw Erich in the car as he spoke with his racing engineer. I walked over and said hello. I sensed that his engineer wanted me nowhere near the car. They didn’t usually want me around, but this was an especially cool reception.
“Looking for your toaster strudel of a boyfriend?” Erich said, flashing a smile.
“Excuse me?”
He chuckled, which I didn’t find endearing.
“Luna, he needs a long, hard workout. Before you know it, he’ll be heavier than the car.”
“Don’t call him names,” I said, shaking my finger at Erich. “And shaming him isn’t funny. It’s also counterproductive.”
“I’ll try not to, but he’s a good target,” he said, clearly not understanding that I was serious and didn’t think any of this was funny. “Anyway, he’s in the motorhome.”
I found him reading the newspaper. It was an Italian edition. He’d been working hard on his written and verbal Italian, getting faster and more fluent all the time.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, rising from his chair and kissing me. “What brings you by?”
God, this felt good after the tension the day before. “I’m going to have a little talk with Blake Carlton.”
He recoiled for a flash at Blake’s name but quickly recovered. “I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.”
“I’ll give you the play-by-play later. I have to do the Friday press conference today.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, Carlos has pretty bad food poisoning.”
Devin frowned. “Too bad. But I’ll see you there, at least. I have to be at that press conference too.”
I smiled mischievously. “Then it should be interesting.”
It was time to hunt down Blake, but I made one stop first. I’d never had a reason to stop by the Merrick garage before, and because of its association with my father, I generally avoided it. But with all my texts to Tanya having gone unanswered, I wanted and needed to talk to her. I asked a mechanic, who was hanging around outside their garage, if she was around. He pointed to their nearby motorhome, and just as I got there, she was coming out.
She jumped at seeing me, and did I see some guilt on her face? She managed a smile as she stepped onto the ground.
“Hello, Luna.”
“Hi, Tanya. I don’t know if you got any of my texts.”
She shuffled her feet. I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t leaving without an answer.
“I did. I’ve been busy with the move. I did mean to text you back.”
