Page 12 of Furious

I stand a chance at overtaking her as we round the corner at the other end of the bean, since I’ve been sticking like a burr to the inner barricade, but just as I think I’ve caught her, JoJo muscles past me and I’m forced to let up on the gas. And that’s it. I don’t catch her again for the rest of the race; in fact, she laps me halfway through. By the time my replacement announces the final lap, I’m still hopelessly behind. She laps me once again right before we pull reluctantly into the lane beside the loading platform, both of us windswept and laughing. I lost, but it turns out, I’ve missed this in the months since I last took the Husqvarna out of the shed. I missed the rush and the way I think about nothing but the path in front of me for five whole minutes when the sound of my heart is impossibly loud but everything else gets perfectly quiet.

“I almost had you,” I quote F&F to JoJo as she appears on the platform above me.

“You almost had me?” She follows the script, even as she holds out a hand to help me out of the kart. “You never had me! You never had your car!”

I let her haul me up by the arm with her extra strong grip, but before I’ve even found my footing again, the consequences of my loss settle in. The race was whatever. She did warn me, so it’s not like she’s some kind of kart shark. I should’ve seen this coming. But I let myself get excited at the idea of having an ally, even a cocky-on-the-verge-of-obnoxious one. It was nice, talking about Max with someone who hadn’t decided a long time ago who my sister was, and that I—and Dell’s Hollow—are somehow better off without her around. Which is just not true, for the record. And now I’m back to square one, unless I can sweet-talk Jolene and her ethics into helping me. Even though I’m just some girl who she let buzz around in the background of her shop for a few months, without ever exchanging more than three sentences …

JoJo must notice my good mood fading because she shakes me by the wrist, which she’s still holding onto. “So. Grandma leaves for Florence with Florence soon—”

“Huh? With whom for where?”

JoJo laughs. “Grandma Jolene and her soulmate, Florence, are going to Florence, Italy. Anyway, she leaves a bit later this month, and I’m not like, in charge or anything, but I’ll be alone in the shop pretty regularly. Seems like that’s the perfect time to start.”

“To start?”

“Our investigation.”

I know I can’t just keep repeating JoJo’s words back to her, and yet: “Our investigation?”

“Why not?” She lets go of me at last to slick the flyaway hairs from her ponytail back out of her face. “I acknowledge that I kicked your ass, but it’s not like I’m so busy, I can’t help you. Doesn’t seem like there’s much hope for a social life in Dell’s Hollow, and now that I don’t have to make time for volunteering …” She trails off with a smug little grin.

Even though I should be thanking JoJo, like on-my-knees thanking her, I suddenly want to wipe that smile off her face. I don’t like to be pitied (I should know, because everyone looks at me with pity whenever the subject of Max comes up), and I don’t like how she’s talking about my town. “You know if you showed up to volunteering club, you might have a social life? I get that we’re small, and we’re like 85 percent farmland, and we’re probably not as cool as whatever cool-people place you came from. But this is my home, and now it’s your home, too, so maybe you’re not actually any better than me.”

I meant to say “us”—you’re not better than “us”—but the punch seems to land all the same. JoJo takes a step back, and then another, right across the memorial plaque. Which reminds me of why she moved to Dell’s Hollow in the first place.

Well, shit.

“Um, I’m gonna head out,” JoJo announces. “It’s like a twenty-minute bike ride back to Grandma’s, and I don’t want to get run off the road by a horse cart in the dark.” She smiles, but weakly.

“I didn’t mean—do you want a ride, at least? I’m driving my friend home, but we’ve got a bike rack and everything.”

“It’s okay. I missed my workout today, so. I’ll see you around, Detective?”

“See you after your grandma leaves for Italy, right?” I feel like crap taking her up on her offer now, as much as I need her.

“You never know. Maybe sooner.” She taps my sneaker with the toe of hers and strolls off, hands in her shortalls pockets, leaving me behind on the loading platform to wallow in my shame and annoyance and gratitude. A whole mess of emotions.

Nothing is going to be simple when it comes to JoJo—I can already tell.

CHAPTER FIVE

JoJo

The day after I absolutely trounce El Blum at kart racing—it felt amazing to race again and my anxiety disappeared the moment I hit the gas—I wake early and linger on my air mattress, staring at the ceiling and deciding what to do with my day. Sunlight filters through the lace curtains in the craft room where Grandma Jolene has set up a space for me, and I’ve been awake for almost an hour already. Just lying here.

Rolling over, I grab my F1 Academy application from my messenger bag and read it for the thousandth time.

Name, Age, Experience, Short Paragraph About Why You Want to Be Part of the F1 Academy, Awards Won, Career Goals …

Everything is completed, except for the blank line on page four, which needs my dad’s signature since I’m underage. I scowl at the empty space. If Mom were here, she would’ve signed it the minute I printed the form.

Of course, if Mom were still here, then we’d still be working on our plan for my career and I could’ve afforded to wait a bit longer. Now that she’s gone, though, I have to make my own way in the racing world.

Sighing, I let the application pages drop onto my face in a heap.

I could just forge Dad’s signature, but then if I get in and it’s discovered I did that, I’ll probably be banned from F1 for life, so that’s not an option.

I haven’t even told Dad about the form yet or my dream of leaving Dell’s Hollow later this summer to join the F1 Academy, which is a training program for young elite female drivers. How can I ask him to sign this when he won’t even let me get my license?