Page 11 of Furious

She’s swapped out her mechanic’s jumpsuit for a pair of denim shortalls over a cropped black tank, her work boots for sneakers, and her long brown hair is pulled back with a claw clip, the pink tips spraying out the top. Shading her green eyes from the sun as she looks out over the track and crinkling her pierced nose (holy guacamole), she says, “God, I remember this place. Is it smaller than it was back then?”

“You might just be taller.”

“Not much.”

It’s true, she’s a few inches shorter than me, but skinny-strong. If she competes the way Max did, even if it’s on four wheels, then she probably trains the way Max did. Though my sister is soft-strong, like me. “As long as you can reach the pedals, you can ride. So are you, uh, waiting to ride? I was about to go on break.”

“Ride alone? No,” JoJo scoffs, shoving her hands into her shortalls pockets. “We have a bet, remember?”

“Ah. What exactly are we betting on?”

“Hmmm.” JoJo’s nose crinkles as she considers this. “How about if you win, I’ll help you with your investigation, Detective. I didn’t get the chance to ask Grandma Jolene about Max’s jacket. I looked around and I haven’t found it yet—sorry about that. But I can help with other stuff. Like, you’re looking for your sister’s address, right? Well, Grandma would never just give it to you, even if she had it. Privacy laws or whatever. She’s ethical like that. But I’m in the shop almost every day, and she’s headed out of town for a while. More than enough time for me to snoop.”

“Snoop how?”

“You know. Through the files in the locked cabinet.”

“That’s not what I meant when I asked for help. I don’t want you to get in trouble. Not to mention, I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“You don’t?” JoJo smirks. Smirks!

“Can’t you just ask Jolene? Hold on.” I pause negotiations to hang my break sign on the chain at the entrance to the loading platform, where a line of customers is building anew. They grumble, but wander off for the moment. By the time I turn back to JoJo, she’s looking down, mesmerized by the dull gleam of her mother’s plaque.

She glances up at the squeak of my sneakers on the concrete, and damn it, I forget to fix my expression for just long enough that her cocky smile falls away. “So, I guess you know,” she says accusingly.

“I—”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.” JoJo crosses her arms, staring out at the empty track instead of meeting my eyes. “Let’s talk about what I get when I win.”

I choke out an anxious laugh. “If you win.”

“If I win, then you cover for me with this volunteering crap,” she says, suddenly more businesslike. “You’re the club leader, right? My dad’s trying to get me to join up. He’s literally holding my license hostage. I looked at the paperwork he gave me, and it lists you as the student contact.”

“Well, I’m the co-leader,” I correct her, reeling a little. Is this the whole reason she showed up here? And if it is, why should that bother me? It’s not like she’s personally invested in me or my family.

“Great! So if I win, you put my name down on your attendance sheet or whatever. Then I get to take a nap in a park twice a week while I’m supposed to be doing my civic duty, and I still get my license at the end of the summer.”

“You want me to help you scam … me?”

“Basically. Is it a bet?”

I weigh my options. Obviously I want to know whether Jolene has Max’s address, but breaking into her files, or falsifying club attendance? Honestly, this is the kind of thing my sister would agree to, which means it should be an instant pass for me. Max might live her life a quarter mile at a time, but I make all the right choices, and everybody in town knows it, so no one has to worry about me.

“Scared you’ll lose, or scared you’ll win?” JoJo challenges.

Her words kick up the old flare of competition I used to feel at Devil’s Paradise before my nerves inevitably set in: staring out across the natural slopes of the winding red-clay and sand track, determined to hold the inside line on the turns, to stay in attack position, to keep it pinned. To win, and maybe more importantly, to have Max watch me win. “Fine. Let’s do this. But like I said, I’m not off until seven.”

“You can’t sneak in a race on the clock?”

“Absolutely not,” I say, aghast.

“Okay, then.” The smirk returns. “I can wait.”

Five minutes after my shift ends, and after I’ve let Zaynah know her ride home will be just a little bit late—though I decline to explain exactly why—I’m harnessed into a blue kart of my very own in front of JoJo in line. She said I deserved the advantage because she’s just that confident. But I’m not worried. Okay, yes, dirt bikes and go-karts are different beasts, but she’s never seen me ride; maybe she’d be worried if she had. I glance back over my shoulder at JoJo, who tosses me a nod that’s exceedingly cool and completely annoying. I refocus on the road ahead, determined to win. And when my shift replacement flips the light to green, I only hesitate for a sliver of a second—like always—before I stomp on the gas pedal. I swerve around a kid in a red kart and a burly guy wearing a Tar Heels snapback to take the lead. For half a lap, up the long arc of the bean-shaped track, I keep it.

Then, all of a sudden, it’s gone.

It turns out JoJo wasn’t bluffing. I get the holeshot, taking the first corner, but by the time I’ve straightened out, she’s pulled up alongside me. She flashes her teeth at me, green eyes shining, and then I’m inhaling her dust as she pulls away. This girl is fast.