About J.K.

CHAPTER ONE

On a treacherous off-road course in Vermont, trees flash by as the bright sun

jabs at the American driver’s eyes. He’s racing through the forest faster than he ever. He works the steering wheel, shifter, and brakes like a pro as his co-pilot gives him radio alerts of the twists and turns they are speeding toward. In an instant, the ride, and almost a life are over. The trees stop the Subaru rally car hard. A large limb, sharpened in the

crash, pierces the windshield and comes to rest between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s helmets. The seventeen-year-old looks to his right, but the limb blocks his view. The only sound is that of steaming coolant hissing from the fractured radiator. Then, he sees the co-pilot’s gloved left hand drop against the console. He calls out.

“Christy! You okay?” He flips open his helmet visor and calls out again.

“Christy!” He panics, quickly unbuckling his five-point safety harness and exiting the car. 

Running around the back of the vehicle, he yanks open the co-pilot’s door, the smell of something burning permeating the space. He looks at his friend, his high school sweetheart, and shakes his head in disbelief. She looks up at him as she tries to clear her head. “You might want to try something else,” she says with a laugh.

Years later, and on the other side of the world, the handsome and charismatic thirty-four-year-old Formula One driving champion, Bryce Winters, startles in his sleep and wakes up in a darkened hotel bedroom. He rubs his face, shakes his head, and then checks his wristwatch. It reads six-thirty. Grabbing a bottle of water from the night table, he moves to the side of the bed and stares at himself in the wall mirror. As his eyes adjust, he can see himself more clearly.

“Where the hell am I?” he asks himself. “Oh yeah, Sochi.” 

Hours earlier, many floors below, a murder had left others scratching their heads.

“Perhaps one of his victims has exacted revenge?” the raspy-voiced homicide detective said as he exhaled cigarette smoke into the face of one of the hotel’s security detail. Having just recently been acquitted on a technicality on charges of producing child pornography, drug trafficking, and weapons offenses, the Russian multi-millionaire had been celebrating his release in high style until the animal’s end came with a much different kind of bang. 

“It would seem there was an explosive device of some sort in the man’s ball cap,” the medical examiner commented as his team placed the body on a stretcher. The autopsy would be a formality to confirm the cause of death. “Anyone know what he was doing wearing a ball cap at a formal gathering like this?”

“It’s the race crowd. Team hats were everywhere,” someone offered. “So the victim’s hat detonated, while he sat in the bathroom, blowing his lid off?” the detective had asked through a smoker’s cough, making sure he understood exactly what had happened.

“Boom,” the Medical Examiner said, gesturing with both hands to demonstrate an explosion.

Sochi may have hosted the Winter Olympics back in 2014, but the cold-weather athletes and the massive trademark flame were now long gone. The sound of record-setting runs on the ski slopes overlooking the city on the Black Sea had been replaced by something just as sleek but noticeably faster and with a much more intriguing sound. The global traveling circus that is Formula One racing had returned to Sochi. The cocktail party held for the drivers and wealthy VIPs was in full swing on the hotel’s veranda, overlooking a massive swimming pool, surrounded by palm trees, and overlooking the sea. 

While the technological advancements over the years had made this type of racing safer, death was always a possibility on the track. Almost no one had expected it here, in the midst of a party.

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