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TIM SAT ON HIS BED
and stared at the ceiling. Dale leaned against the wall, his arms crossed.

“So this is basically you being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Dale said.

“Big-time,” Tim said.

Dale scratched the back of his neck. “I want to believe you. And I think you told the truth to that officer, and that must have been hard. But I also think you’re holding back something important. Is there anything you want to tell me about what happened?”

“Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, that you just got so mad at the whole Devalon thing and you went into a rage and . . .”

“How would I have gotten into that
locked building?” Tim said. “Wouldn’t they have found a broken window or something?”

“There was a broken window,” Dale said. “On the other side of the garage. That set off an alarm, and a company called the building manager, who lives across the street. He saw the fire and called the fire department.”

It’s the hat,
Tim thought.
If I can figure out who got my hat . . .

“What are you thinking, Tim? I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”

Tim had been in this situation a few times before when he’d had problems with the authorities. Once a police officer came to Tyson’s place after Tim had smashed the mailbox of some people who were giving him trouble. Tim finally admitted he did it and agreed to buy and install a new mailbox after school the next day. He had done it, though he hadn’t liked standing in front of the other trailer, listening to the people inside say mean things about him. And then there was his run-in with Jeff and the slashing of tires in the church parking lot that turned out to be the pastor’s car.

Now Tim had to make a choice. Either let Dale inside or try to handle the whole thing himself. Tim could tell there was a part of Dale that didn’t believe him, but it seemed like there was a part of him that did.

“You’ve got enough on your mind with the Chase,” Tim said. “I don’t want to drag you into this.”

“You’re not dragging me into anything. I’m already in. And I want to be in. There’s nothing more important than helping you get on the right track. Talk to me.”

Tim wished Mrs. Maxwell were here. He could make a face and she would just melt. She always felt so sorry for him, but Dale was a lot stronger and wouldn’t be moved by a whimper or hangdog look. The guy had a lot of compassion, but he had backbone too.

“Who called you on your cell?” Dale said.

“I don’t know who it was, but I thought it was . . . somebody else.”

“Male? Female?”

“Female. Kind of older sounding. Or somebody trying to sound older.”

“What did she say?”

“That I was supposed to come over to that address and meet her.”

Dale thought a minute and squatted next to the wall. “This isn’t about your mother, is it?”

Tim was surprised he’d put it together so fast. He nodded.

Dale’s face scrunched up so much that Tim thought he wouldn’t have been more surprised if Tim
had said it was the Queen of England asking him for a date. At a truck and tractor pull.

Tim sighed and spilled the story about Calvin Shoverton and what he had learned about his mom. “I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately, so when that lady called on the phone, I kind of bit like a hungry fish.”

Dale stood and leaned against the wall. His muscles tensed and he shook his head. “I can’t believe anybody would do that to you.”

“What do you mean?” Tim said.

“Set you up like that. Draw you over there that way.”

“You believe me?”

“When did you lose your hat?”

“The race at Hickory. I set it down on a table so I could adjust my headset, and after the race it was gone.”

“Who was on that grandstand?”

Tim told him some of the people. “But those are only the ones I can remember. A lot of people were up there.”

Dale thought a moment.

Tim sat up. “No fair not telling me what’s going on in your head.”

Dale smiled, and Tim thought it was funny how
much a smile could say. This one said,
Okay, you rascal, you got me on that one
.

“All right,” Dale said. “I want you to tell me exactly what happened from the minute you got the call. And give me your cell phone.”

JAMIE FLEW
with her dad to Kansas and took a couple of days off from school. She could tell the situation with Tim was weighing on him and she didn’t want to pry, but when she asked a question, he told her a lot about what was going on with the police and their investigation.

“The surveillance video inside the building cuts out,” her dad said. “The police said it had been tampered with. But the video of Tim as he comes up to the building . . .” He choked up.

“What?”

He turned his head, then looked at her with misty eyes. “The video was blurry, but you could see the hope on that kid’s face. He actually thought he was going to see his mom. He goes to the side of the building for a few seconds and runs by—then there’s the
explosion. He never sets foot in the building. The whole thing was a setup. It had to be.”

“But the police don’t believe that?”

“They’re not saying much about it. It’s clear they’re looking for the person who set the fire.”

“Who called Tim?”

“They couldn’t trace the cell call, and for the life of me I can’t think why anyone would want to hurt a kid that way. Tim mentioned some guy in Florida he had trouble with, but that doesn’t seem very likely.”

“Maybe it’s somebody who hates both you and Devalon,” Jamie said. “I can think of a lot of people who don’t like Butch, but the list is a little shorter when it comes to you. They could say you put Tim up to it and take both you and Devalon out with one fire.”

“They didn’t do a very good job of it. I’m going to have a talk with Devalon when we get to the race. He wouldn’t return my phone call.”

“What are you going to say?”

“The truth. That Tim wasn’t involved. The police have spoken to him, but I want him to hear it from me. Plus, Talladega’s coming up next week and I want Tim there. It’s not fair to keep him away because he made a mistake back at Indy.”

“Does Tim even want to go to Talladega?”

“Yeah, he said he’d like to honor his dad. Said it would feel good to be back.”

“That takes some guts. If anything ever happened to you, I don’t know if . . .”

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”

Jamie turned, deep in thought, and grabbed a magazine from the pouch in front of her. She flipped through the pages, unable to concentrate on any articles, and came upon an advertisement for a natural supplement that was “guaranteed” to help you focus and stay on task. Just one pill would help a person get more done in a day than most people do in a week.

She put the magazine down. “Maybe that’s what this whole thing is about. Somebody wants to distract you from the Chase.”

“And they’re using Tim? And Devalon? I can’t see it. Everybody’s watching the teams out there like a hawk. This seems like somebody just wants to be mean.”

“What about Devalon himself?” Jamie said.

Her dad shook his head. “Why would he want to destroy his own garage? Doesn’t make sense.”

When they arrived at the Kansas Speedway, Jamie and her dad went straight to the haulers and located the Devalon crew. They pointed out Devalon’s RV in the infield.

“Maybe I should do this alone,” her dad said.

“I think I’ll tag along just for fun,” Jamie said. “I love
seeing the veins in your neck stick out. And your face get red. And your eyes bugging out so far—”

“That’s enough,” he said.

Her dad knocked on the RV door, and Mrs. Devalon walked to the front. When she saw the two of them through the window, her mouth dropped open, and she turned and hurried back inside the RV.

“I don’t think that was exactly a warm welcome,” Jamie said.

She laughed, but she got quiet when a guy who looked twice the size of her dad came to the door. Arms like tree trunks. A barrel chest. A neck that looked more like a slice out of a telephone pole.

“Can I help you?” the man said in an unusually high-pitched voice.

Her dad reached out a hand, but the guy just looked at it like it was a dead opossum and kept his hands tucked into his armpits.

“I’m Dale Maxwell. Just wanted to have a word with Butch.”

The guy stared through his Bollé sunglasses.

“It’s a personal matter,” her dad said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him I’d like to speak with him.”

“I can do that, but I’d like you to step away from the door, please.”

Jamie looked at her dad and stepped back. When the guy left, she said, “I didn’t know Butch needed
a bodyguard. And his voice didn’t match his body at all.”

“Maybe his first name’s Mickey.” Her dad paced, kicking at clods of dirt and shoving his hands in his pockets.

When “Mickey” returned (Jamie smiled at the thought of calling him that), he was alone. “Mr. Devalon is not available right now. I’m sorry.”

“Could you have him stop by my hauler later? Or just have him call me on my cell?” Her dad handed the man a card, and this time he took it but quickly stuffed it in his pocket—sort of like the dead opossum you put in your pocket without looking at it.

“I’ll tell him, Mr. Maxwell, but you need to know that because of the cloud of suspicion around the boy staying with you and for legal reasons, Mr. Devalon won’t be communicating with you.”

Her dad looked like he wanted to say something else, like he wanted to chew the guy out, but he held back. He simply tipped his hat to Mickey and walked away.

A few hours later, when Devalon was returning from a practice run, Jamie saw her dad step out from one of the garage stalls right in front of him. Devalon tried to avoid him, but her dad blocked him. Devalon pointed a finger in her dad’s face, and now it was his
turn for his neck veins to stand out and his face to get red. Jamie hurried over in time to hear part of the conversation.

“. . . and I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to make sure he gets what’s coming to him!” Devalon yelled.

“Butch, be reasonable,” her dad said. “Tim had nothing to do with what happened. He was lured there by someone who called him—”

“That’s
his
story, and I’m surprised a guy like you would buy it.”

“Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, and get out of my way.”

A crowd had begun to gather around the two, and a camera crew shooting something at another garage stall came over and caught the argument. Jamie could see exactly what would happen on the broadcast and what people would be talking about on the radio tonight. They’d throw fuel on the fire of the Butch and Dale “feud.”

“Look,” her dad said in a low tone. “I want you to know I’m sorry about the fire. I’m glad none of your cars were damaged. I know you’ll see in the end that Tim had nothing to do with it. And with the anniversary of his dad’s death, I hope you’ll agree that he should be at Talladega next week.”

Devalon stared daggers at her dad. “He’ll be in the pits over my dead body.” He stalked away and the camera followed. He angrily picked up his phone and clicked the intercom. Before he got out of camera range, Mickey showed up, craning his neck to see behind Devalon and looking like a human apology.

Jamie’s dad walked past her and grunted, “That went well.”

TIM STAYED IN HIS ROOM
or went to the Maxwell garage most of the weekend. Mrs. Maxwell had let him take a day off from school the week of the fire, and he spent it looking at maps of places where he could run away. Maybe his mom had a good idea after all. She had run from Florida, and it hadn’t caught up with her. Maybe he would do the same.

Still, the advantages the Maxwells offered him—not just the nice room, three squares a day, and a family atmosphere he’d never had but also the chance to work with an actual race team and the prospects for his future—were all hard to leave. It just seemed that no matter where he lived, no matter how hard he tried, the world was against him. And the people who were his friends paid for it.

On Saturday Tim heard the mailman pass and drive off. Mrs. Maxwell and Kellen had gone to some car wash the Sunday school was having at the church. The money was supposed to go to save orphans on Mars or something like that, and Tim said he’d pass when they invited him to tag along.

There was a box from the local bank—some checks Mrs. Maxwell had ordered—the latest issue of
NASCAR Scene
magazine, the water bill, and a few fan letters. At the bottom of the stack in a plain white envelope was a letter addressed to
Tim Carhardt,
written in pencil.

Finally somebody knows how to spell my last name,
Tim thought.

He opened it on his way to the house and unfolded the piece of notebook paper. The letter was written in pencil too, on the front and the back, and the handwriting was scrawled, like somebody who had bad arthritis had written it. Either that or a really intelligent monkey at the zoo.

Timmy,

I suppose you knew this letter would come at some point. And if you’re wondering, I saw a write-up about you and the Maxwells in one of those NASCAR fan magazines. That’s how I got
the idea to write. I can tell you how I got the address at a later time.

I haven’t been a very good mother. I haven’t been a mother at all. I wish I could make up for all those years behind us, but I don’t think I can. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for walking out on you when you were little. Sure wish I could take that decision back and have a do-over. I wish I could make my whole life a do-over.

I read about what happened last year at Talladega. I went looking for you in Florida, but you weren’t where I thought. Then I saw the article about the Maxwell family. They look like really nice people. To take you in, they’d have to be, right? Yuk, yuk.

I hope one day you’ll be able to find it in your heart to forgive me, but I know that’s too much to ask for in the first letter. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but the one thing I know is you’re not one of them. Even though I was really far away, there wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about you and wonder what you were doing or if you ever thought of me.

I have this dream every now and then that
you’re playing by a swing set and then you get on and ask me to push you, but for some reason I can’t. My feet and my arms are stuck where I am, and I want to move toward you, but something is holding me back. Well, I don’t want to live in that dream anymore, and I hope that one day I can reach out to you and give you a push or a hug.

I hope you’re doing okay. I’ll be in touch with you again. If you don’t want to see me, I’ll understand.

Love,

Mom

Tim lingered on the top step and read the letter again. Then he sat down on the porch swing and reread it. No matter how scrawled the writing was, it was still from his mother. No matter how much she had done to hurt him, this was still the one he had looked for in crowds and at races all these years.

He flipped the envelope over and saw the postmark on the front that said,
Aiken, SC
.

Not a bad name for the way she feels,
he thought.
Or me. Why wouldn’t she have left a phone number? Unless she was afraid somebody would find this and track her down. . . .

A car passed and he glanced at it. The phone call on his cell, the woman who said she was his mom—that couldn’t have been his real mother, could it? She wasn’t trying to make it up to him by destroying the Devalon garage, was she?

He shook the thought away and took the rest of the mail inside. He went to Mrs. Maxwell’s desk and found her calendar open and a star beside the next Sunday. It said,
Tim at Talladega
.

He wondered what he would do if given the choice between running away with his real mother or staying with the Maxwells. They weren’t perfect, but they cared. They took him away from Tyson and Vera. But no matter how many good things they did, they weren’t his own flesh and blood.

He put the mail on the desk and went to his room.