“Just let me know if you change your mind and want to talk privately with someone. I can make it happen.”
“For now, I just want to talk to Wade. I’ll wait here for him. I don’t dare try to find him in this place. I’m directionally challenged and might get lost.”
Clay laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. Bobby married well, but his wife, Meredith, was also a bit paranoid. When I moved in after the accident to care for the kids, I found all these secret passages she had built. Creepy, for sure.”
Lacey checked the adjoining room and saw no one approached. She was really only looking for Mr. Secrets before she asked for more pieces about his past. She would need all the details she could round up. “Roni’s scars. She mentioned something about an accident causing them. Is that how their parents died, too?”
“Yes, it was a horrifying accident. Just a horrible accident. Bobby and Meredith perished, as well as their eighteen-month-old son Luke.”
Lacey frowned at the thought of the baby dying, too.
“Veronica was scarred in the fire and would have died as well if Wade hadn’t pulled her out and away from the car before it fully exploded. They’d gone over the ledge on the road out front.”
“Ledge?” Now Lacey sounded the way Wade had when she’d told him she’d nearly gone over it. All snooping came to a halt. What was left of her blood ran cold. Wade and his family had gone over the same ledge she had just brushed death with. “When?” was all she could ask.
“It’s been twenty-eight years now. Hard to believe, but Wade was eight and Veronica was three. He got her to safety, but being this far out from town and so far from the house, there was nothing else he could do for the rest of his family.”
“Of course not. I doubt an adult could, never mind a child.” Lacey thought this was possibly why Wade had told her to go home when she said she’d nearly gone over the ledge. It had probably brought back horrible memories of his accident. Had that been why he’d told her he killed Jeff? To get rid of her before she saw him fall apart? His bouncing legs could have been an indication that the crash affected his PTSD just as much as his years in combat did. “And you stepped in to raise them.”
“Moved right in. There was no reason to take them from the only home they knew. I also helped with the business Bobby and Meredith started. It seemed only right to keep that going for the kids.”
“The racetrack?”
“Spencer Speedway. How’d you know?”
“Roni mentioned it. My family owns a reconstruction race-car shop, so that’s probably why Jeff and Wade hit it off as friends. They had racing in common.”
“I don’t think so. Wade wants nothing to do with racing. He asked me to stay on as CEO for him so he could leave town and be an army man at eighteen. There had to be something else that brought them together, because it couldn’t be racing.”
“Huh, I just figured.” She shrugged, then inhaled sharply from the pain.
Clay gave a slow whistle. “Painkillers kicking in yet?”
“Slowly.”
“Here, you should have that in a sling.” Clay withdrew his red handkerchief from his suit-coat breast pocket and knotted it into a quick sling. Gently he placed her injured arm in it. “That should hold it still and cause less pain. You up for a walk?”
Lacey stood from the bedside and tested her head. No light-headedness, a good sign she’d live to ride another day. “Where are we off to?”
“Just to the garage. You being a track rat and all, I thought you might like to see the collection we have in the showcase.”
“Showcase? That sounds intriguing. What might I see in your showcase? Any roadsters?”
Clay broke into his big comforting grin again. “Right this way. Your chariot awaits.” He took his suit coat off and draped it over Lacey’s shoulders. He led her through the kitchen, but in the other direction from where she’d entered. Out the door and across a snow-covered patio, a glass-enclosed building stood. One flick and the structure illuminated. The gray-painted concrete floor shined so clean and bright one could eat off it. A priceless collection of cars from vintage to modern were parked at various angles. Clay or Roni obviously had added a few, like the stunning cherry-red Ferrari F40 front and center.
“If only Jeff could see this...” She stuttered on the ripping pain through her chest that usurped the one in her arm tenfold. She wondered when she would stop forgetting her brother was dead.
“Are you well, Lacey?” Clay asked as he searched her face.
“I’ve been better, but it’s got nothing to do with my arm.” She blew out a breath. “So where’s that roadster?”
“Right over here.” He led her around back to where a small black British roadster sparkled clean and restored.
“Do you ever take her out? On the track, I mean.”
“The speedway offers certain days of the year when people can unleash their babies. Come spring, you must give her a spin.”
“Me? Is she yours?”
“Technically, she belonged to Meredith. Like I said, Bobby married well. Meredith’s father gave them the land for the track as a wedding gift as well as this side of the mountain for a home. But now the kids own it all. Including the cars you see here. Veronica drives them, but Wade doesn’t touch them.”
“So he doesn’t like racing or cars?”
“Hey, Questions! What are you doing out here?” Wade stood in the entrance, a sandy camouflage army coat half on, half off. His chest rose and fell as though he’d run out to her. “Are you crazy? You were just shot at. You up for another round?”
Clay stepped up with his hands raised. “Don’t yell at her. It was my idea. We got to talking about cars, and I thought...well, I guess I didn’t think at all.”
“The conversation’s over,” Wade said to his uncle, but his eyes locked on Lacey.
“I’ll just go in and see if Veronica and Cora need some help with dinner.” Clay escaped the room without a reply from anyone.
“Hey, Secrets, you didn’t have to be so rude,” Lacey spouted. “Your uncle was just trying to take my mind off my pain. What are you so hushed up about anyway?”
“The walls have ears, and you never know who’s listening. You want to know what happened to Jeff? That’s what happened to him.”
Her first clue had come when she least expected it. Lacey snapped to attention, nearly sputtering when she asked, “What was he saying? Who was listening?”
Wade’s eyes jumped from window to window as though he was trying to see out into the darkness beyond the glass. If Lacey hadn’t been shot at and nearly pushed over a cliff tonight, she would say this man was paranoid and uttering conspiracy-theory nonsense. But under the circumstances, she looked out the windows, too.
“I’m
