Free Racing the Devil by Jaden Terrell Page A

smile was sad. “But what good is it, if there’s no one there to share it with?”
    IN THE END, HE DROVE ME to an Avis Rent-a-Car, where I picked up a midnight blue Taurus two-door sedan. I thanked him for the ride, and he promised to look into the insurance angle. Then I went to the office to check my messages and make a game plan.
    My office, Maverick Investigations, was on the third floor of a renovated boarding house a few blocks from Vanderbilt Hospital and University. Two doors led from the outer office, where my desk sat, to the rest of the apartment—shower, kitchenette, and a former bedroom that now housed surveillance equipment, a hodgepodge of indispensible gadgetry, and a walk-in closet for extra clothes and my theatrical kit.
    My answering service had been inundated with calls, some from people offering support or condolences, some offering to “do me like you done that woman,” one from a fellow P.I. named Lou Wilder asking me to give him a call back, some from clients wanting to know how or if this was going to affect my work on their cases, two withdrawing their business, and a whole slew of reporters clamoring for interviews.
    Ashleigh had the gall to leave a message of her own: “Hi, Jared. If you still want my help, I’m available. I hope there are no hard feelings, but, you know, it was my duty as a—”
    With no small degree of satisfaction, I deleted her.
    I returned Lou’s call and left a message on his machine. Then I pulled out my calendar to see what was on the schedule. I would have liked to devote the day to solving my own case, but unfortunately, the bills still had to be paid.
    That morning, I tracked down a deadbeat dad and took a roll of photos of a client’s husband and his mistress. Nothing graphic; all I had to prove was opportunity and probability, which meant basically a motel room and a goodbye kiss.
    After I’d filled out the reports, I dropped by Randall’s house to borrow a gun. He handed me a Colt .45 with rosewood grips and a blued finish. It was a little heavier than the Glock, and I spent a few minutes getting used to the balance.
    “Don’t get caught with it,” he said. “I love that gun.”
    “Geez, your concern is touching. Don’t worry. I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can.”
    He looked hurt. “Keep it as long as you need it.”
    “Hey, I didn’t mean—”
    “Forget it. I’ll get us a couple of beers.” He stumped away toward the fridge as if his knee weren’t screaming in protest, but I knew better. I was sixteen when a construction accident shattered his patella, and I’d had twenty years to learn the patterns of my brother’s pain.
    I also knew better than to bring it up again.
    After the beer, I said goodbye to my brother and looked up the Hartwells’ address in the phone book. They lived in Bluefield, a semi-upscale neighborhood off Donelson Pike. Property values there had plummeted when the new airport was built, and after an avalanche of protests about the noise, the Airport Authority paid most of the homeowners for sound-resistant windows and extra layers of insulation. Since it was still early in the afternoon, I decided to drive by and scope out the neighborhood.
    I had to learn more about the victim. Even in seemingly random crimes, like Bundy’s or Gacy’s, the victim is chosen for a reason. Maybe she’s a certain physical type. Maybe she risks her own safety to be a Good Samaritan. Maybe it’s just proximity. But something about her attracts the killer, and if you know what it is, you know a lot about the person who did the killing.
    Out of all the women the killer might have picked, he had chosen Amy. Why?
    In the movies, this is where the hero would take out his trusty crowbar, or his trusty skeleton key, and he’d wait until the Hartwell house was empty, and he’d force his way inside.
    In real life, this is called Breaking and Entering, and it’s an offense for which one may spend a goodly portion of his life fighting