Yes.
A car.
A car would get her the hell out of here. She nodded through her tears.
They rode quietly through the long, low tunnel beneath the track, under the short chute between turns three and four, and into the infield. Leo turned toward the rows of luxury motor coaches where many drivers lived during the final week of May and parked alongside a shiny silver RV. Mack rubbed her snotty face with the sleeves of her coveralls as Leo popped in and out of the bus, returning with a set of keys and a bottle of water. She swished water through her mouth as she followed him to the backside of the coach, where a dark blue 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge sat glistening in the late afternoon sun.
“Whoa,” Mack rasped, her tears momentarily paused.
Leo beamed as he ran a hand lovingly over the car’s hood. “On my thirteenth birthday, my uncle brought me a rusted pile of what used to be a car. We restored it piece by piece and I drove it for the first time on my sixteenth birthday. I know you’ll take good care of it.”
He tossed her the keys, and she gasped when her attempt to catch them sent a throbbing ache up her right arm. She ignored Leo’s curious look as she plucked them off the ground with her left hand.
Impulsively, she dove into his arms. “Thank you, Leo.”
He pulled her close and Mack let herself enjoy the feeling of his warm palms on her back. “Keep the car as long as you need. One condition,” he said, releasing her enough to look her in the eye. “Take good care of yourself, too.”
She hugged him again before sliding into the dark blue leather upholstery and turning the key.
Chapter 32
8 days until the Indianapolis 500
The Judge had a full tank of gas and a 400 Ram Air IV under the hood, and Mack had nowhere to be. She drove aimlessly, turning onto Sixteenth Street and then south onto Main, through the small incorporated town of Speedway, Indiana, weaving through one neighborhood after another. She had to shift with her left hand, but it didn’t stop her from driving south with no plan other than finding roads where she could let the car fly. Eventually suburban housing developments turned into two-lane roads bordered by fields and barns, and Mack shifted into fifth and put the pedal on the floor. The thunder of the GTO Judge’s three hundred and sixty horsepower filled her ears as the wind blew her hair back into her face.
The road settled her, pulling all the messy parts of her into tight focus.
She drove until she became another component of the vehicle, the line between machine and woman unclear. Using her left hand to steer and bracing her right palm against the gearshift, she braked late into curves, floored the throttle on the straight lines, felt her stomach flip as she got air on a small hill. The Judge barreled down the narrow roads with confidence, and the corners of Mack’s mouth tugged up when she pulled off a drift on a tight right-hand turn. Driving fast was distraction and dopamine, pushing away the events of the day until all shethought about was when to shift and when to steer. Like going to bed and knowing the sun would rise in the morning, pushing the clutch and pressing the pedal always brought Mack to herself.
She sped across central Indiana until the sun fully set and the horizon filled with pale peach light. Long, dark shadows from sycamore trees crisscrossed with the waning sunlight, creating disorienting shadows across the narrow road. She took a curve too fast, corrected, then overcorrected, the front end of the car careening from the opposite lane to the ditch at the side of the road. With a lot of luck and a little skill, she caught the pavement and straightened the Judge up in the right lane.
She slowed, not even going the speed limit. Her hand throbbed from gripping the wheel too tightly during the slide. Her heart pounded against her sore ribs and she greedily pulled cool night air into her lungs.
Then reality came crashing down, turning the Judge from her supernatural getaway vehicle to the pathetic avoidance of her failures. She promised to never leave her daughter, promised her safety and stability, and then took off with one whisper of the Indy 500. She’d taken the once-in-a-lifetime chance Janet had given her and acted like a moody teenager, raging at the crew and sleeping with her teammate. Then she’d crashed her IndyCar chance while Shaw watched, then argued loudly with Wes before slamming out of the RV without saying goodbye. She’d used Leo when it made her feel good, then almost put his beloved car in a ditch. She could have hurt someone else, or herself, driving like a reckless maniac.
She created chaos, then left without any explanation or warning.
Like Kelley.
Her hands shook on the wheel as Mack pointed the Judge back toward the Speedway, carefully winding back up the same dark roads she’d just flown down. She was messy, but she didn’t run from her problems.
Mack came to Indianapolis to retrieve some part of herself she’d thought she’d lost, and instead lost everything she’d built for herdaughter. She had to go back and make things right with Shaw, then figure out what was next.
She’d driven farther out of the city than she realized, and thirty minutes passed before she hit the lights of the suburbs, and another thirty before she turned right onto Sixteenth Street. The track loomed large in front of her, impossible to miss at this section where the back of the grandstands bordered the road. As she stared up at the giant letters above the roadway proclaimingRacing Capital of the World, a swatch of light caught her eye. The exterior tunnel entrance to the track was open, no gate blocking the entrance.
The Judge rumbled into the quiet infield, and Mack felt like a trespasser even though she’d driven this track only a few hours ago. On Gasoline Alley, lights leaked out of a few garage stalls as crews fine-tuned their cars, relying on caffeine and hope to get them into the race. Mack wondered what her team would be doing if she hadn’t slammed her car into turn two. Would they be out at a bar, celebrating her qualification? Or would they be here, looking for every millisecond of speed to get her in the field tomorrow? She’d felt the pace coming on at the end of her stint, sure that she was gaining enough ground to make the field, until thatpop. She looked away from the bands of light.
To her right, she could make out the fountain where she’d sat with Leo, putting both of their reputations at risk and landing them on the other side of Janet’s good opinion. What had she been thinking, touching Leo out in the open like that where god and everybody could see? She hadn’t been thinking of her reputation, or his, or what Shaw might see, or anything at all other than what she wanted in that moment.
Reckless.
The Indy 500 had been a symbol of hope and dreams for most of her life, but now it felt haunted by her mistakes.
Easing the Judge into the parking space behind Leo’s trailer, Mack hoped the loud rumble of the engine wouldn’t wake him. She left the keys under the mat, making a mental note to send him a Venmo for a car wash and hoping he didn’t ask questions about the muddy wheels.She’d planned to go straight to Shaw, but a quick glance at her watch showed it was long past her daughter’s bedtime, so Mack turned toward the track instead. Might as well take one last look at the Speedway and let Shaw sleep until morning.
Her soft-soled boots were quiet on the pavement as she passed the towering Pagoda and arching grandstands. She walked through a break in the fence, and then she was standing on the same pit lane she’d left only hours ago. The concrete wall felt cool and rough on her hands as she hefted herself over into the pit boxes, and the smell of burnt tires lingered faintly in the air. She walked parallel, tracking through double streaks of rubber, trailing one hand along the inside of the wall. After qualifications, each driver’s name would be painted on the wall of their pit box, and Mack blinked her eyes to clear the mirage of her name written in blocky black letters on the stark white surface.
Crickets squeaked over the distant drone of traffic and moonlight reflected off the aluminum grandstands behind her, casting a pale glow onto the asphalt of the track. In a week, over three hundred thousand fans would fill the track, but tonight it was eerily empty. Mack walked to the wall that divided pit lane from the track, lifting her legs over one set of barriers, then another, before her feet touched the front stretch of the track.
