Hooker unbuckled his seat belt. “Stay here. I’m going to take a look.”

He quietly jogged to the house and disappeared in deep shadow. He reappeared on the far side, and I could see he was peeking in windows, inching his way around. He got to the front door, opened it, and stepped inside. Minutes later he emerged, closed the door, ran to the truck and got in.

“Butchy’s dead,” Hooker said, putting the truck in gear, pulling onto the road. “Shot in the head. Like Huevo.”

“Omigod, I’m so sorry. He was your friend.”

“We weren’t exactly friends. It was hard for anyone to be friends with Butchy. It was more like having a three-hundred-pound paranoid rottweiler on the property. Still, I feel bad that he’s dead. Especially since I’m probably to blame.”

“Was he shrink-wrapped?”

“No. He was sprawled on the living room floor. He had an arsenal in that house, so he must have been taken by surprise. Or maybe this was done by someone he knew.”

“Someone like Bernie Miller?”

“I don’t think he knew Bernie. The Huevo people tend to keep to themselves. And Bernie is new to the area. Bernie came on the scene as Spanky’s spotter at the start of the season, just like you. He used to race modifieds, had a bad crash last year and screwed up his knee. Couldn’t drive anymore. Got a job spotting for Huevo and the sixty-nine car.”

We were barreling down a dark country road. “Where are we going?” I asked Hooker.

“I don’t know. I wanted to put some space between us and the crime scene. I deliberately tripped the silent alarm when I left. If there’s anyone at the main house, the police will walk in on them when they come to investigate.”

“And they’ll find Butchy?”

“Yeah, the police will find Butchy and take care of him. He’s a local boy. Everyone knows Butchy.”

“You don’t think we should go back and wait for the police?”

“Darlin’, right now I’m more afraid of the man with the gun than of the police. One thing’s going to lead to another with the police, and they’re going to want us to stay in the area. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’m afraid we’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Hooker drove to a budget chain motel in Concord. I registered us under a phony name, paid in cash, and hoped no one saw Hooker and Beans sneak in. It was a generic motel room with dark industrial-grade carpet and a dark floral bedspread designed to hide cheap wine stains. No Childress Vineyard wine consumed here. This was a wine-by-the-gallon-box-type room. It felt like I’d stayed in a gazillion of these rooms since I’d started the race season. We found a plastic ice bucket, which we filled with water and set on the floor for Beans.

Hooker and I crawled into bed and then thrashed around, unable to sleep all night. We gave up at daybreak and tuned the television to the local news.

The camera crew was set up in front of Hooker’s gatehouse. The gatehouse was ringed in yellow crime scene tape. The tape cut across Hooker’s driveway entrance, limiting traffic. The on-scene reporter was talking about Butchy. Shot in the head. Found in his living room. No one at home in the main house. Police are looking for Sam Hooker. Wanted for questioning.

Hooker had his head in his hands. “I feel really bad about Butchy.”

I leaned against him. “You were nice to Butchy. You gave him a place to live when he had no money. You gave him a job when no one else would hire him. You invited him into your poker games.”

“I got him killed.”

“You didn’t get him killed.”

“I set the wheels in motion.”

I wanted to comfort Hooker, but I didn’t have a good answer for him. At the moment, I was low on intelligent thought. I was tired. I was confused. I was scared.

I pulled a knit hat out of one of the clothes bags and tugged it onto my head. “I’m going to take Beans for a walk and then I’ll get us some breakfast.” I zipped a winter jacket over my long-sleeved T-shirt and pocketed the room card and the keys to the SUV. I clipped the leash on Beans and led him out of the room, down the hall, and out into the crisp morning air.

The sky was flawlessly pale blue. The sun not yet visible. It was cold enough for my breath to make frost clouds, and I could feel the cold air clearing my head, jump-starting my brain. Beans and I were the only ones in the parking lot. We crossed the lot to a hardscrabble grassy field and walked around until Beans was empty. I loaded him into the SUV and set off in search of coffee.

NINE

Hooker was showered and shaved when I got back to the hotel room. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I borrowed your razor. I made up for its pinkness by swearing a lot while I shaved.”

“The razor is fine. When you start borrowing my underwear, we need to talk.”

I unpacked two cups of coffee and two plastic cups of orange juice from one bag, and I had a second bag filled with breakfast sandwiches. I handed a sandwich to Hooker, kept one for myself, and gave the rest of the bag to Beans. “Everything you could possibly want for breakfast with the exception of pancakes,” I said to Hooker. “An egg, a sausage patty, cheese, and a biscuit.”

“Yum,” Hooker said. And he meant it. Gourmet food was lost on Hooker.

I finished my sandwich, juice, and coffee and took a shower. Hooker was back to watching television when I came out of the bathroom.

“This isn’t good,” he said. “They’re saying the murder weapon that was used on Butchy was also used on Oscar Huevo. I’m now wanted for questioning by the local police and the Miami police. And I hate to tell you this, but they’re looking for you, too.”

“Me?”

And as if on cue, my cell phone rang. It was my mother. “I just got home from the cruise, and I heard your name on television,” she said. “They said you were wanted for murdering two men.”

“No. I’m only wanted for questioning. And it’s all a mistake. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

“Don’t let them take you to jail. I saw a show on it once. They watch you on television when you go to the bathroom.”

More information than I needed right now.

“My mother,” I said to Hooker when I disconnected. “She suggested I don’t go to jail. She thought I wouldn’t like it.”

“If you don’t want to go to jail, we need to check out of this motel,” Hooker said. “It’s too easy to spot my SUV sitting out there in the lot. There’s an empty factory that’s up for sale on the road to Kannapolis. It’s been vacant for over a year. I took a tour of it a couple months ago, thinking I might want to buy it for a shop. Maybe build my own cars someday. It wasn’t right for a shop, but it might be okay to use as a hiding place while we think this through. There’s no alarm on it, so it’ll be easy entry. And it’s on a secluded stretch of road.”

I added breaking and entering to my mental crime tally.

The building had originally been a tool-and-die factory. When the factory went belly-up, the place had been gutted and used to store motor oil and assorted car-care products. Those products had since moved on, and we now sat in a dark, damp, cavernous cinder-block bunker of a building. It hadn’t been locked, and one of the garage-bay doors had been left open, so we were only guilty of entering. Hooker drove the SUV into the interior and parked close to the wall where we were in shadow and not visible from the outside.

“For a short time it felt like things might get normal,” I said to Hooker. “But now they’re worse than ever.”

“One step forward, two steps backward. Let’s test-drive a couple things. We know Ray was using illegal technology to cheat. We’re not sure why because Ray never seemed to be interested in racing. We also know Ray employs two goons who kill people. And we’re not absolutely sure, but it feels like Ray knew his brother was in the locker. In fact, chances are probably good that Ray killed Oscar.”