Page 54 of Necessary Evil

“Don’t worry about me.”

She did worry, though, and while she was fretting about what was going on downstairs, she realized that she couldn’t do the biker brunch with him tomorrow. She had court. Lucy didn’t want to leave through the bar and attract any unwanted attention. So she went out the back, the way she’d come in. She’d text Evan once she got home so she didn’t interrupt his meeting.

It wasn’t until she was halfway home that she realized she had three motorcycles following her. Normally she wouldn’t use her phone while driving, but something about being trailed by these three raised warning signs.

Evan’s phone went to voicemail. Shit.

“Hey, I forgot I had court in the morning, so I can’t do brunch,” she said. “And there are three bikers following me home. Are they the Sentinels?”

She didn’t dare go home just in case they weren’t. Passing by her house, she kept driving, trying to figure out what to do next. She took the next turn and headed back toward the highway. One of the bikers buzzed by her on the right, and for a moment she was relieved, thinking it was Sentinel fooling around. But when the biker looked in at her, he was wearing a helmet with a mask of a demon on it. She caught a glimpse of the back of his jacket as he tossed a flaming bottle at her windshield.

Pyros.

Flames shot across her windshield as the bottle broke. Her windshield cracked but held. The fire obliterated her vision and she jammed on the brakes. The other bikes roared by the car. Flinging the door open, Lucy almost hung herself on her seatbelt. The flames were too hot and she shut the door again. After detangling herself from her seatbelt, she climbed into the backseat. Opening the back door, Lucy threw herself out of the car. The cold night air smacked her on her face as she stumbled and fell, choked with fear. Was the car going to explode? Running down the road away from her car, she tried to flag down a few cars. One passed by her but braked when he saw her burning car. Backing up, he flung open his passenger-side door.

“Is that yours?”

Lucy nodded, unable to speak.

“Get in. I’ll call the police. They’ll be here in a moment. We’ll wait for them.”

“My purse. My phone,” she gasped. Her briefcase. Her overnight bag. She had left everything in her car.

“They can all be replaced. You can’t.”

She wouldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t.

“What happened?”

“P-pyros. Threw a Molotov cocktail at my car.”

“Pyros?”

He dialed 911, gave the operator their location, and told them a car was on fire. “Do you want to talk to them?”

Lucy shook her head.

Soon she could hear sirens faintly in the distance. And in a few minutes, a tanker fire truck pulled up to the scene and put out the fire. The police were right on their heels.

“Thank you,” she said to her Samaritan. “I’ll be all right now. My name is Lucy Simmons. I’m in the public defender’s office. If you ever need a lawyer…” She trailed off.

He shook her hand. “I’m Joe Hayden. No worries. If you want me to hang around, I will.”

“Thanks, but I work with these guys.” Lucy got out of the car and started walking toward the scene. A uniformed officer was putting out cones and directing traffic around her car. Joe waved to her when he passed them.

“Go back to your car, ma’am,” the police officer said.

“That is my car.” Lucy pointed. “Is Bernie here?” She didn’t think the chief would be responding to a fire this late at night, but she was too rattled to remember anyone else in the department.

“Mike,” the cop yelled over her shoulder.

One of the firefighters came over.

“She says that’s her car.”

Lucy introduced herself and described what happened. They insisted on having an EMT check her out, but all she had was scraped palms and knees from when she’d tumbled out of the car. It was only now beginning to sting.

“The fire didn’t get inside the car. It did a number on your paint job. But the engine didn’t take any damage. Still, I don’t recommend driving it,” Mike concluded.