The interval timer flashed 10.00 just ahead of the shutdown area. Fuck, fuck! As he drove sedately down the taxi strip at ten miles per hour, he caught a glimpse of Shane sitting by Cady. Keeping her company, keeping an eye on her. It didn’t matter. Shane had his back.
It was open night at the track, so he did a few more runs. His times varied from 10.01 to 10.00 before he gave up and exited the track, rolling back to the trailer. Shane was already there.
“Driver error,” Conn said.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Shane said, hands on hips, listening to the engine. “I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.”
“Thanks for looking after Cady.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Shane said, then winked at him. “She seems down to earth. Normal. Not like your typical famous person.”
“How many famous people do you know?”
“One, now,” Shane said. “Mom loves all those entertainment shows. Batshit crazy, the whole pack of them. But not Cady.”
Not Cady, who had dated Harry Linton and planned to drop a record that would make her a global superstar. “No,” he said absently. “Not Cady.”
Cady strolled up, wearing his jacket over hers. She looked absurd, her petite body disappearing into her puffy down coat and his denim jacket. She had her hands jammed into the pockets, and based on the bulge inside the coat, her insulated mug wedged inside.
“Nice runs,” she said. “You were close. A hundredth of a second.”
Not close enough. “Thanks,” he said, slicing Shane a look to keep him from telling her why they weren’t great runs at all. He had maybe a month left of weather closest to the dry, cold air in which his dad made his best run. If he couldn’t do it by Christmas, his chances were shot for another year.
“I’m going to stop at the porta-potty,” she said.
“You sure? We’re not far from town.”
“I could wait,” she mused, “but I have to pee, there are porta-potties by the hanger, and I’m not that fastidious about them.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He escorted her there, and stood discreetly to the side when she went inside. He was leaning against the hangar wall, examining the grease under his nails and wondering what the hell had happened in his life, when someone very big and very solid thudded back against the corrugated metal beside him.
Conn straightened, shoulders squaring, hand automatically going to his hip before his brain caught up with his body. He recognized this guy.
“Cesar, right? From Eye Candy? Why aren’t you at work?”
“It’s my birthday. Miss Eve gave me the night off.”
Conn’s eyes narrowed. Could be true. Could be total bullshit.
Cesar kept his gaze focused on the line of cars waiting to race. Outside Eye Candy he seemed harder, the years of street life coming to the surface. The gang tattoo on his neck was visible in the light before he hunched his shoulders. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”
Two seconds earlier Conn’s brain had been coasting along in neutral. Now it jerked from second gear into overdrive. “For what?”
Cesar just looked at him. He was all but hidden in the dark shadow angling across the hanger’s metal wall; a sharp line delineated the lights on the drag strip and the pitch-blackness leading into the grassy field behind the hanger the jump school used as a landing site.
“It ain’t the county. Ain’t the street. Look closer than that. Inside the Block,” Cesar said.
The Block was street slang for the Eastern Precinct, based on the building’s square shape and brick facade. The architecture was uninspired, as most city facilities were, and felt like a prison or the kind of place to make a last stand when the zombie apocalypse arrived. Cops were insiders. Everyone else wasn’t.
Cesar was saying the answer to who beat up Jordy Jackson and framed Conn for it was inside the Block. He’d been betrayed by one of his own.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fury seared Conn’s veins. Police departments were no different than any other segment of the population; they had good guys and bad guys, but Cesar was hinting at a level of corruption that included assaulting a prisoner and framing another cop for it. The possibility was zero. His muscles tightened as his temper flared. The only thing that stopped him from fisting his hands in Cesar’s hoodie and slamming him into the wall was the fact that their combined weight might send the hangar crashing to the ground.
Reflexively he shoved his fists into his jacket pocket, and got a grip. He had to ask the questions. Even false leads had to be run down, to prove a case beyond a shadow of a doubt. “Not the county.”
Cesar shook his head. In the distant part of his mind Conn had to laugh. Cesar’s big bald head was protected from the cold by the same type of black wool watch cap Conn wore.
“Where should I look?”
“Somebody has to replace Hector.” He stepped further into the hangar’s long, cold shadow.
Bullshit. “You’re saying someone inside the Block went after leadership of the Strykers?” he asked, incredulous. “Who?”