The Fast Lane

Chapter 18

I had gotten used to living out of a suitcase at this point but it was still annoying as ever. I had to repack every three days because it seemed like the clothes I always needed were in the bottom of the suitcase.  I would dig through and mess up all of the neat, folded stacks of clothes and then have to shove it all back in so we could travel again. 

Half of my clothes were still ruined from the wine that Tessa had poured all over them.  Harry offered to buy me more clothes but I felt bad, seeing as he was paying for all of the gas and food and lodging if we weren’t staying at one of his apartments.  It just made me wonder how much money he really had. I knew he won a lot of races but I felt like we had spent a fortune in the last couple of weeks, and it didn’t phase Harry at all.

When we left Tampa, I didn’t know where we were heading, but Harry started driving North.  

"You’re really getting better about that whole car-sickness thing," Harry said a couple of hours into the drive, squeezing my knee.

"It’s because we’ve been driving so much… all this darn traveling." 

Harry shifted his hand on the wheel and took his hand off my knee. 

"Harry where does all of your money come from?"  I finally asked. 

He looked over at me, a little confused. “Well, you might not know this about me, but I race…”  He answered sarcastically.  I laughed a little and smacked his hand.  

"You’ve really won that much?  I feel like you never worry about money at all.  Never.  You can’t possibly have that much just from winning in these last… what, three years?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  He began to bite his lip. 

"You robbed a bank didn’t you?" 

"No!" 

I giggled when his face turned a little red.  He was still biting his lip.

"Harry, you can tell me.  I’m not gonna judge you…" 

He looked at me and chuckled a little bit. “I know, Love.  It’s not bad, I didn’t do anything wrong or bad to get it.”  He hesitated a little bit.  ”Jase… he raced for about 7 years.  He was so good about not spending his money though.  He lived so modestly even though he was one of the richest people in the world.”

I raised my eyebrows. 

"Okay well maybe not in the world but he had a load of money."

"So he died and gave it all to you?" 

Harry looked back at the road again.  His eyes turned a sad shade of gray as he stared at the white lines in the middle of the road.

"He didn’t die.  He was killed by the same people who are trying to kill me now.  Tom used to race but got scared when he saw they were trying to kill us.  I kept going, and they thought since I was so young that I wouldn’t win much but…"

"You’re just too good." I gave him a weak smile when he finally looked at me. 

He smiled back and continued.  ”To answer your original question, when Jase was killed, my mom, dad, brother, and I split his money four even ways.  Before my dad died, he gave his quarter to my mom, who opened her own modeling agency or something and then gave all of the rest of the money to me.”

"Was Tom mad?" 

Harry squeezed the wheel a little bit.  ”He doesn’t know.” 

"So… you’ve been acting like you didn’t have enough to pay him back to keep him from finding out."