Page 55 of The Perils of Paulie
“That’s the goal of life, isn’t it?” she said simply. “Roger said that he simply couldn’t get all the visas he needed, and permission for part of the trip through China was still under negotiation, so he decided to scrap that whole bit of the race and start us off in Almaty instead.”
“That’s the big town in Kazakhstan?”
“One of the two. Astana is the capital, but we’ll fly with the cars to Almaty and then head off on our own.” She grinned at me. “It’s going to be quite the adventure.”
“I can’t wait!” I said, doing a little fist pump. “Adventure is my middle name! Well, not really, but it should have been.”
It was approaching eight p.m. by the time we made it into San Francisco, to a hotel on the outskirts by the airport. Given the late hour, we were pleased to see that we were the first ones in, even though at that point it didn’t matter.
“Let’s keep this up, though,” Melody said as we got out of the car. I noticed there were only two members of the crew about, and no cameras. Usually one of the camera teams was on hand to record everyone coming in, frequently catching us peeling off our goggles to expose two clean patches in faces made dirty by road dust.
“Where is everyone?” Melody asked the person checking us in.
“Accident,” he said tersely, and waved us forward to the parking area where the cars would be kept until they were put on the chartered cargo plane.
“Oh no! Not another accident like the French team, I hope?”
“Is it serious?” Melody asked at the same time.
“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “Roger is at the hospital now with one of the brothers.”
“Brothers?” My blood ran cold as I dug through my bag for my cell phone. “Not Dixon and Rupert?”
“That’s it.” He waved us on again. “Get parked. We have to clean up the cars, have Graham go over them for any problems, and get them to the airport so they can be loaded into the containers.”
I hopped out of the car, dialing Dixon’s number as Melody, with a worried expression, drove over to the section of the parking lot reserved for us. The second team member immediately began unstrapping the tires and boxes and placing them in a pile.
“Paulie?”
“Oh, thank god,” I said, relief swamping me at the sound of Dixon’s voice. “You’re OK. Wait. Are you OK?”
“Yes.” His voice was clipped, a sure sign he was either angry or upset. “Rupert has a broken leg. Samuel has two broken ribs and a suspected collarbone fracture. Anton is being looked at now, but he might have a broken wrist.”
“Holy shit! What happened to you all?”
“Who’s hurt?” Melody asked, running up to me as best she could in the corset and long skirt. “It’s not my dad and Tessa?”
I covered the mouthpiece. “No, it’s Rupert, Samuel, and Anton. They’re all at the hospital. Dixon, what happened? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. I was out of the way getting a tire ready to change when the damned Essex car started rolling forward and plowed over Rupert and Anton.”
“The Essex guys drove over you?”
“No, they weren’t in the car at the time.”
“Then what—never mind. What hospital are you at?” I asked, and made a mental note when he told me. I glanced around frantically, needing to be with Dixon, but knowing I couldn’t take the Flyer out. I covered the phone again and yelled at the crew member to call me a cab before continuing with Dixon. “OK. I’m going to get a taxi and get out to you.”
“I’ll come with you,” Melody said, pulling out her phone to text her parents.
“Melody is coming, too.”
“There’s no reason for either of you to go to that trouble,” he said, exhaustion and despair rich in his voice.
“Of course we’ll come. I want to be there to help you with Rupert. I assume that he’ll have to go home, which is such a shame. Is it a bad break?”
“No, just a hairline fracture, but he can’t drive. Paulie...” His voice broke, and for a moment I thought he might be crying. “Paulie, if Anton is hurt and can’t drive, either, that leaves only me to drive our car. Roger won’t allow me to drive the whole way by myself, and there’s no one else to fill in. We’ll be out of the race.”
“No!” I shouted, then apologized. “Sorry. Didn’tmean to blast your earballs that way. Hold tight, Dixon. Don’t worry about what might happen until we know the worst about Anton. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
