Read Blind Spot for Free Online Page A

Clancy Carhardt, and his mother’s maiden name, Alexandra Lee Burton. He remembered his dad calling her Lexy when they were getting along, which wasn’t very often.
    He closed his eyes and tried to bring her face back, but it wouldn’t come. Just a blur of an image, hazy in his mind—brown hair, nice smile.
    He stuffed the pages back inside and turned to the next box. Pictures. Not in albums or arranged in any special way, just stacks of pictures in haphazard piles. People he didn’t know. Places he couldn’t remember. All lumped together like fishing worms in a tin can. He leafed through the ones at the top, many of them black-and-white, some stuck together. Toward the bottom they turned to color, and he finally found a few of his mother. His mom holding him wrapped in a hospital blanket. His dad asleep on a couch, with Tim asleep on his chest. His mother mugging for thecamera with a stomach the size of a basketball. Tim in a Halloween costume—a sheet with two holes cut out for eyes.
    Tim found a brown envelope and filled it with some pictures he wanted to take with him. He pulled the fourth box close and stared at it. He’d dreamed he might discover a videotape of his dad looking into a camera, telling Tim he loved him, assuring him that he’d make something of himself someday. But if his dad hadn’t even put together a will, how would he have made a video?
    He opened the box. Inside were a few books, some NASCAR magazines, and an autographed picture of the King, Richard Petty. That might bring some money on eBay. At the bottom were trophies and an old baseball glove. Tim opened it, put it to his face, and smelled the leather. Best smell in the world—right up there with the oil-and-gas smell of the garage.
    The trophies were mostly third-place finishes in local races from his dad’s hometown. They were ordinary. Even cheap. But of all the things he could keep, his dad had hung on to them. At some point in his life, had his dad dreamed of driving?
    The magazines in the box had one thing in common: each featured the death of a celebrated driver. Some had been killed on the track. Others in airplane or helicopter crashes. It seemed strange that his dadhad kept those issues, though he knew his dad had been at some of the races and venues where the drivers were killed.
    Inside the magazines, Tim found other memorabilia—autographed pictures and programs, plus a few photos of famous drivers standing with his dad.
    The only thing that surprised him was a spiral notebook at the bottom. He’d seen one like it in his dad’s glove box, but he always thought he was just writing down mileage, oil changes, and stuff like that. He didn’t expect to find a diary.
    His dad hadn’t been the most talkative man on the planet. On trips across the country, Tim had gone hundreds of miles without his dad so much as grunting at him. But here in the notebook, it looked like his dad had poured out his heart about a lot of things. The writing wasn’t neat by anyone’s standard (another thing Tim had inherited), but deciphering it made Tim feel a connection he hadn’t felt in months.
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lexy any prettier than inthe moments after Tim was born. I couldn’t believe what a miracle a baby’s birth is. I can only hope I’ll be a good father to this boy. I’m so scared I’m going to mess things up just like my old man did. Maybe I can break the cycle. At least, I sure hope to give it a good shot.
    Tim closed the notebook and cradled it to his chest. As he put his head back on the mattress, he shoved his bandaged hand into his pocket and felt the $100 bill and wondered what his dad would think.

Chapter 7
Pepperoni People
    JAMIE FELT THE JUICES of competition stirring at church that night. Funny how they could just come up. Not exactly like when she was racing but pretty close.
    She’d been blindfolded and spun around a few times, then had to balance a raw egg on a spoon, walk to the center of the room,