Blind Spot by Chris Fabry Read Free Book Online Page B

do you know who you’ll go with?”
    “Tyson would probably want to adopt me if he saw four tickets to Daytona.” Tim laughed. “I don’t think I’ll let him know.”
    “Is there anyone from your school who’d like to go?”
    “You kidding? Only about a hundred people. I’ll be the most popular kid there.”

Chapter 9
Moving Up
    JAMIE’S STOMACH CHURNED as she pulled into the parking lot of the Pit Stop, a tiny restaurant and lunch counter near the center of Velocity. Her 1965 Mustang chugged and sputtered after she turned off the engine. She’d have to put some additive in the gas tank to see if she could clean it out.
    Jamie had bought the car from Mrs. Willits, one of her mother’s friends, whose husband had died. She’d babysat for the family since she was 12. She spotted the car on cinder blocks in the Willits garage when she was 13. The youngest Willits boy had disappeared—something that happened at least once during each of her sitting jobs there. She’d run into the garage, looking for his hiding place, when she noticed a car covered with a gray tarp. She pulled it back, and it was love at first sight. She’dseen the model in magazines and at vintage car shows around town, but she’d never been this close to one. She opened the door, took one look at the black interior, and knew it would be her first car.
    Jamie had made a deal with Mrs. Willits, trading a full year of babysitting along with $500 she had saved. She took possession of the car at 14 and began restoring the engine. Her dad helped in the evenings when he could and let her use his tools. She had to replace some upholstery and install a whole new brake system, but the main work was under the hood. With some help from a mechanic on the Maxwell team and a few volunteers from church, Jamie finished the car. When she got her driver’s license, she’d driven away from the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles in Maxie, the name she had chosen for it.
    Now, sitting in the parking lot, she couldn’t believe how much money it took to keep a car going. Her dad paid the insurance, and she changed the oil herself, but she took care of all repairs, gasoline, tires, and registration. That, along with racing expenses, was why she accepted as many babysitting and house-sitting jobs as she could, along with her part-time job at the car-parts place.
    But it wasn’t the chugging of the car or the bills she was trying to pay that had her stomach churning. It was the sight of Chad Devalon’s red Corvettein the parking lot, only a few months old and sparkling like a diamond. His dad had bought it for him. She’d heard it was because of his grades, but she had a friend who went to the same private school he attended and claimed Chad wasn’t the brightest bulb in the lighthouse.
    Jamie had left a message on his cell phone and asked for a meeting. She’d rehearsed what she was going to say a dozen times, but seeing that car brought up the anger she felt.
    Her other problem, of course, was that Chad was undeniably cute. He was a jerk. He was despicable. He wasn’t a Christian. He was everything she didn’t want to be as a racer, but if you put all that aside, he was hotter than the intake manifold on the 499th mile at the Indy 500.
    Jamie looked in her rearview mirror and took a deep breath. She had to keep her head. She was on a mission.
    She spotted Chad sitting in the back as soon as she walked inside. He wore a black jacket with Devalon Racing in yellow letters, his back to the door. His jet-black hair was squared in the back, and he sat ramrod straight, though he occasionally bobbed his head and tapped his foot to a country song on the speakers.
    “Hey, Jamie,” the waitress said. It was Trace’smother. “We’re not very busy—you want a table or the counter?”
    “I’m meeting someone, Mrs. Flattery,” Jamie said.
    The woman raised her eyebrows and looked at Chad. “You be careful now, you hear?”
    Jamie nodded and walked to the