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“Kent, I need to ask you a couple of questions, okay?” I say, and he nods his head, stumbling over and flopping down into the middle of his sofa. He sinks down into the cushions in a way that makes it look like the couch is swallowing him whole.
The place is filthy, but I clear a spot on the coffee table across from him and perch myself on the edge.
A family picture sits framed on the side table beside him. I pick it up to get a better look.
The man in the picture is the one I remember. His wife stands beside him, holding both of their children close. They look happy.
“She took them,” Kent says, gesturing to the picture. I set it back where I found it and turn to him. “After I was banned, she divorced me and took them to live with her parents up-state.”
“Are you sure it was because you lost your job and not the drinking?” I ask, kicking a can away with the toe of my shoe.
“I lost everything… and I can’t even be mad, because I deserve it.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to agree with him, but I stay quiet.
“I wanted to apologize for that day so many times, but I just couldn’t get up the nerve to do it. Your family has every right to hate me. I hate myself. Thompson was my friend,” he says, beginning to weep.
“I need to know everything that happened that day. Things you may not have told the authorities,” I tell him.
He turns to assess me with apprehension. His wild eyes make me uneasy, and I ready myself in case he makes any sudden movements.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, an obvious lie.
“Listen, I’m only going to say this once. I know you got the drugs from either Mateo or someone in his crew. My beef is with him. He’s coming after my girl now, and I need any information I can get on him to put him away for good, so if you know something, or have any dirt on the guy, I’m gonna need you to tell me. You owe me that much.”
Sinking back into his seat, a light sheen of sweat breaks out across his forehead.
I wait for a beat, and just when I think he isn’t going to answer me, he does.
“I have an addiction problem. It started about a year before the accident,” he says.
“Yeah, cocaine. I knew that,” I say, needing something better than that.
“Yeah, but the eight-ball I bought off him that day had been heavily laced with fentanyl. I didn’t know,” he says.
“Shit,” I mutter, clenching my fists where they hang between my knees. I’ve heard stories about that shit. People have died from as little as one dose. If Kent is telling the truth, then I’m surprised he’s still alive.
Wouldn’t have been fair for him to die and get off the hook for what he did, I think.
“I did a bump right before the race started. It helped keep me engaged… alert. But that day, I could feel that something was different. I started getting dizzy and before I could say anything I was passing out,” he says, staring at a spot on the table, likely reliving that day all over again.
He didn’t have to tell me what happened next. I’d seen the footage more times than I could stomach. His car side swiping my brothers at over two-hundred miles per hour, sending Tommy into a tailspin that ended with his car belly up, sliding nearly one-hundred-fifty feet across the track until he slammed into the concrete barrier.
The paramedics said he likely died before impact. He never stood a chance.
“When I came to later that day, I was handcuffed to a hospital bed. My manager was there, and he told me what had happened,” he says, sniffling. He drags the back of his hand across his nose before wiping it on his pants. “I couldn’t believe it. Thompson and I had been friends since he started racing for your family. We’d gone out for drinks together with some of the other guys, and after that day… I didn’t know what to do, or how to apologize to your family. I hated myself and I knew that you did too. And I knew that I deserved it,” he said, voice cracking as tears run down his face.
As I sit and watch him, I can hear my brother’s voice telling me not to go too hard on him. He’s been hard on himself every day since that one.
“How did you find out about the Fentanyl?” I ask. It wasn’t in any of the articles released about him.
“Mateo. He showed up later that night, told me that if I valued my life, I’d stay quiet. I guess he has people at the hospital on his payroll, because the next day the tox reports never showed anything but cocaine in my system,” he explains, and honestly, it all makes sense.
“What else?” I ask, knowing there has to be more.
“He said that the cops were going to ask me where I got the drugs and then gave me the name of a guy and the location I was supposed to say I bought it from. So, I did. The guy got picked up the next day. Got arrested, too.”
The son of a bitch has just been moving people in this town around like it’s his own personal chessboard, and we’re nothing but fucking pawns. Only now he’s attempting to mess with my girl, and I’m not about to stand by and watch him wipe her off the board.
