When she emerged from the parking area, her jaw dropped at the sight of me standing on her doorstep. I smiled when I saw the look of shock on her face.
A large sticking plaster covered a purple bruise on her right temple.
‘Hi, Jenni. Remember me?’
‘Get out of my way.’
I held up my hands to say I wasn’t here to hurt her. ‘I just want to talk.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘No doubt, the same way you found me.’
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Well, you are a public figure.’
‘I think that’s a little bit of an exaggeration.’
She shrugged.
‘Nice car,’ I said.
‘Well, I needed a replacement after what you did to my previous one.’
‘Come off it. We both know I didn’t crash into you.’
Another shrug.
‘What happened? Did you run off the road after you chased me? Or did you write it off on purpose?’
‘Are you a little dense? You crashed into me and left me at the side of the road.’
She was keeping to a script. She couldn’t afford to make a slip.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.
‘You’re a menace to society.’
I thought my turning up on her doorstep would scare her into some admission, but it wasn’t working. I had nothing to shake her belief, but maybe I could force her into incriminating herself.
‘You know I’m not. You made the whole thing up. Why did you tell Chloe Mercer about this? It had nothing to do with her.’
‘I like motor racing and I’m a big fan of hers. I’ve been following her since she started. I thought the information would be helpful to her.’
And it was. It had put a serious dent in my reputation. But what were the chances that a race fan just happened to get into a near traffic accident with a racing driver she doesn’t like just so she can orchestrate a story to ruin him? The logical answer was it was almost impossible. I knew all about cruel luck from my parents’ untimely deaths. But my run-in with Jenni was different. Bad luck was never that organized. People were, though. Someone had wanted this crash to happen.
‘Big fan, huh?’
‘The biggest.’
‘What’s your favourite race of Chloe’s?’
Her arrogant confidence evaporated in a split second. She stared at me like I’d handed her a nuclear bomb to diffuse. That wasn’t the reaction I expected from Chloe Mercer’s number one fan.
‘Well.?.?. I.?.?. I.?.?. I don’t.?.?. there’s so many to choose from. They’re all my favourites, especially the races she won.’
Jenni Oglesby was full of crap. She was no fan of Chloe Mercer’s or anyone else’s or she would have known that despite coming close a few times, Chloe had never won a race.
Jenni recovered her composure. ‘You’re going to pay for what you did and it’s going to cost you more than the damage to my car. You’ll be finished by the time I’m through with you.’
I could see where Jenni was coming from. If she got away with this, it would cost me and not just financially. No team in the world would want me. She’d kill my racing career stone dead. I couldn’t let her do this to me, not when I was on my way to making a name for myself in this sport.
‘You’ll probably go to prison for this,’ she said. ‘You won’t like it there. No foreign travel. No TV interviews. No star of the future there.’
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Just stop.’
She’d closed the gap between us. There was real pleasure in her expression. She was enjoying her victory too much. I resisted the urge to shove her away. I couldn’t give her any more ammunition to use against me.
‘It hurts, don’t it?’
‘Look, it’s time to end the game. You win. There’s no one here listening. It’s just you and me, so there’s no need to keep pretending. We both know what happened that day and we both know you made it up. I can’t prove it, but it doesn’t matter. I just want this to end.’
‘Is that right?’
Jenni’s look of triumph looked unbreakable, but I knew it wasn’t. It was time to disappoint her.
‘Yeah, as I see it, you’ve beaten me. But I’m not so sure about the cops.’
A twitch pulled at the corner of her mouth.
‘They’ve been by to investigate. They haven’t found any evidence to back up what you’ve said. I still don’t know where I supposedly ran you off the road, but I wonder if the skid marks back up your account? The analysis of skid marks is an accurate science. Did you know that? Worst of all, you don’t have a witness.’
‘So you say.’ A tremor had entered her speech.
‘I do say because if the case was iron clad, the police would have charged me by now.’
I was finally getting through to Jenni. The leer was gone and her confidence was waning.
‘When the truth comes out, and it will, the cops are going to come for you and not me.’
Jenni was silent now.
I had her. As much as I enjoyed seeing the tables turned, it made her dangerous. She could lash out just as Steve feared and drop me in a bigger and darker hole. She wouldn’t though, if I gave her a way out.
‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ I said. ‘Y’know? We can work this out.’
‘How?’
‘What do you want? It’s pretty obvious that you’ve gone to a lot of trouble, so you must want something. Are you really only interested in smearing me?’
The word ‘yes’ slipped between her lips, but fell short before completion.
‘What do you want, Jenni? What do I have to do to make this mess go away?’
A light returned to her face. I’d given her hope, which I prayed would lead to greed. She didn’t disappoint.
‘I want money.’
‘How much?’
Lap Twenty-Seven
‘How much is she asking?’ Dylan asked.
Steve, Dylan and I were in the situation room. We met most nights after Dylan had gotten back from Ragged to discuss what we had learned. Tonight, I had what I’d learned from Jenni Oglesby to share and Dylan had called me all excited to say he had some hot intel. Tonight was also going to be a little different because I’d invited Carrie Russell. I had a couple of questions for her.
‘Fifteen grand,’ I said.
‘Shit,’ Dylan said. ‘How much do you have left from the sale of the Van Diemen?’
‘About eight grand.’
‘I can use Gates’ upfront money to cover the rest,’ Steve said.
‘So you’re going to pay her?’ Dylan asked.
‘Yes and no. I just need the money for show. I have to catch her in the act of taking it.’
‘She’s going to be sorry she crossed us,’ Dylan said.
‘And her partner,’ I said.
‘Partner?’ Dylan said.
‘She says she’s Chloe’s number one fan, but she doesn’t know anything about her. That means someone is feeding her the lines. That also means this reckless-driving scam was set up by someone else.’
‘Chloe?’ Dylan asked.
‘It feels like it. If she disgraces me, she’s in line to take my Pit Lane title by default.’
‘It’s a hollow victory to win it by default,’ Steve said.
I shrugged.
‘So what’s the plan?’ Dylan asked.
‘Make the payoff, document it, then hand it over to Sergeant Lucas and let him do the damage.’
‘I hope it’s that simple,’ Steve said.
So did I.
Dylan stood up. ‘OK, who wants to hear what I’ve found?’
‘The floor is yours,’ I said.
Dylan grabbed a marker and stepped up to the murder board. ‘OK, a couple of interesting titbits. Kurt Haulk went through a difficult teen phrase. He grew up in a not-so-great area of Rotterdam. Don’t ask me to pronounce it. He ran with a rough crowd. He’s got form. Nothing heavy. He was caught up in a couple of assault charges that never went anywhere because of lack of evidence. Interestingly enough, one was an assault involving a knife. Make of that what you will.’