On the Edge Read Online Free PDF Page B

faced the windshield again, slamming her back against the battered leather seat so hard the springs squeaked.

    “You’re not being fair,” she said.

    “Not another word,” he warned.

    “But—”

    “Not. One. More. Word,” he warned. “We’ve got a long trip ahead of us and I want peace and quiet the whole way.”

    THEY MADE IT back to Kentucky in one piece, but Lindsey’s boring life in Louisville seemed to be even grimmer after the excitement of her trip to North Carolina. Not even telling her best friend Brandy all about her trip to Newman Motorsports—and watching her eyes bug out when she told her she’d gotten to meet Becca Newman—had helped ease her disappointment.

    When she heard her dad answer the phone nearly two weeks later she’d been thinking about calling Becca Newman herself. She had her phone number. And Becca had said she could call anytime. Maybe if her dad talked to her—

    “Ms. Newman, really, thanks again for everything…”

    Ms. Newman?

    “…but I really can’t.”

    “Can’t?” Lindsey cried. “Can’t what? Is it really her?” she asked, hand outstretched toward the phone. “Can I talk to her?”

    He frowned, shook his head, waved her away and said, “I appreciate the offer, however.”

    Lindsey gasped. Becca Newman was trying to get him to North Carolina again. She was sure of it.

    “I can stay with Brandy,” she hissed, bouncing up and down again. Her friend’s mom would only be too happy to do her dad a favor.

    He shushed her with his hand again, shaking his head.

    “I can’t, Ms. Newman. I really can’t,” he said. “But, again, I really thank you for the offer.”

    Yes, he could. All he had to do was say yes. “Let me talk to her,” Lindsey said.

    He shook his head again, but not at her, at something Becca must have said. “I’m sure Lindsey understands that sometimes adults have to put other priorities first.”

    “No, I don’t,” Lindsey said, bouncing so hard on the linoleum floor that her father moved with her.

    “Lindsey,” he hissed after covering the phone, giving her a stern look.

    “But I don’t understand, Dad,” she said. “I don’t understand why you’re saying no to an opportunity that might end up changing our lives.” She grabbed his free hand, squeezing tight. “That might have a huge impact on our future. On my future. How can you turn your back on that? How can you just walk away from something that might end up allowing me to go to college?”

    His eyebrow changed from slashes to straight lines. He looked like he might say something, but then he said, “What?”

    Becca must have repeated what she said.

    “That’s absurd.” And then, “ A thousand dollars? Just to go down there?”

    What was this? Lindsey thought. Was Becca Newman offering to pay her dad? Oooh, smart move on Ms. Newman’s part. Lindsey knew she liked that woman.

    “Look, I appreciate the offer—”

    Lindsey dove for the pile of bills her dad stashed near the phone. It didn’t take her but two seconds to find the one she was looking for, waving the Final Notice bill from ConEdison in front of her dad’s face.

    “A thousand dollars,” she hissed.

    Her dad closed his eyes. “The most I can do is promise to think about it.”

    Holy crawdad! Promising to think about it was almost like saying yes, at least in her dad’s world. They couldn’t afford to say no, and her dad knew it.

    Maybe her life wasn’t over after all.

CHAPTER THREE

    TWO WEEKS LATER Adam found himself parked outside the Concord, North Carolina, racetrack, the Speedway’s grandstands stretching above him, intimidating even when viewed from the outside, their jagged edges framed by a partly cloudy sky.
    Adam rested his hands against his truck’s steering wheel and stared up at those grandstands as if they might collapse should he be so bold as to approach.

    He didn’t move.

    From the other side of the twelve-story structure came the sound of a race