“You exist. That's enough. If it wasn't for you, she'd be mine.”
“Oh no,” Dell said. “Carolina would never be yours, and if you ever touch her again, I'll kill you.”
“Dell,” Caro hissed behind him.
“Shh, Caro,” he said. “I won't let him hurt you again.”
“I'm not talking about your bitch, Junior. I'm talking about your mother. I asked her to marry me, but she didn't want me. Caudell knocked her up and she married the bastard. I told her not to. Told her he couldn't keep his goddamned pecker in his pants, but did she listen to me? Hell no. She went ahead and married him, and the next thing you know, Pauline Warner shows up at the track with Caudell's bastard. Says she wants her man back. That's all it took. The next thing I know, Pauline and her whelp are hanging around, and Maggie was gone.”
Dell absorbed the tirade. As horrible as it was, it had the ring of truth.
“So, you set out to destroy Hawkins Racing because of me?” Dell asked.
“Damn right I did. I hired Caudell's bastard and by damned if he didn't kill his old man for me. You should have seen his face when I told him Caudell was his sperm donor.” Renfro's laugh made Dell's skin crawl. Caro clamped the back of his shirt in her fists and he wished to hell he hadn't let her come tonight as Renfro continued.
“Then the bastard went after you. I couldn't have scripted it better if I'd tried. I was trying to get that idiot, Trent, into Anderson's garage when Virgil wised up and fired your sorry ass. But you made it easy on me. You went over to the bitch's garage. I knew I had you then.”
He was insane. Dell couldn't care less about the fact Butch Renfro wanted him dead, but he did care about Carolina. “Watch who you're calling names, Renfro. I'm not going to warn you again. Carolina hasn't done anything to earn your scorn.”
“Dell,” Caro warned.
“Let's go, Caro. I've heard enough.” Dell ushered Caro out the door to Renfro's enraged shouts of, “It's all your fault”.
Chapter Eighteen
“Just hear her out, okay?” Dell faced the solemn group gathered around the conference table at NASCAR's headquarters in Daytona Beach. The last forty-eight hours were sheer hell for Hawkins Racing, and NASCAR in general. Having one team sabotage another didn't do anything for the credibility of the sport, coupled with Renfro admitting to sexually assaulting Caro, and NASCAR was fighting a massive PR battle.
However, Dell hadn't felt this good – ever.
Renfro was certifiably crazy, and under arrest for a variety of charges, including assault on a NASCAR official after Dell left with Caro. As crazy as Renfro was, he'd answered a lot of questions for Dell and Dickey, and all Dell felt was relief. Later that night, with Caro wrapped in his arms, he'd found what he was looking for.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I am. I always thought there couldn't be anything worse than having Caudell Wayne for a father, but I was wrong,” he told her.
“How so?”
“Just think, if things had been different, Butch Renfro could have been my father.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Caro said.
“No, thank God for you.”
So now he had a new cause, Caro Hawkins.
The officials gathered around the conference table represented the highest levels of ownership and management within the organization. Dell faced them as if they didn't have the power to end his career with the stroke of a pen.
“We aren't asking you to reverse your decision. We'll live with it. You did what you had to. But you need to see the data Ms. Hawkins compiled before and after the altered gas was put in the car. She's one hell of an automotive engineer, and she's built the best damned engine I've ever run. You owe it to yourself, and the sport to hear her out.”
Caro sat quietly while Dell went around the table handing out the packets they'd hastily put together only this morning. Dell called in favors, mostly owed to his father, to get this meeting. She'd argued that he didn't need to do it, but Dell countered her objection, saying for once, he didn't mind trading on his old man's name. He figured Caudell owed him a favor or two.
“You can glance through the first few pages. You'll see the engine performance is steady, not much changes from one lap to another. I can tell you, she was running like a crazy – smooth as glass. So, go ahead, scan the graphs on those pages. Stop when you get to page eight.” He looked down at Caro and smiled. “I think it would be better if Ms. Hawkins explains the graph on that page to you.”
Caro stood, taking Dell's place. “As you can see, precisely four minutes before Dell's last pit stop, engine performance went up by seven percentage points. If you'll flip over to the next page, you'll see a detailed readout from the weather station at the track. At that exact time, a cold front came through. The track temperature dropped ten degrees in a matter of seconds. Now, if you'll turn back to the other page… do you see where the car pitted? “