Chapter Seven – Lucy

 

I shook my head at myself as I pulled up at the Stop & Shop’s dead windows. At the darkened glass, and the darkened block it sat on. It wasn’t too terribly late, but late enough that on a weeknight, most had begun to wind down for the evening.

Briefcase in hand, I climbed out of the car, closed the door behind me, and went up to the front door. I stopped in front of the glass door, opening up my bag to find the keys the manager had given me for access. I practically stuck my head inside and started to dig. I knew I’d picked them up off my desk and stuck them in my bag. I knew I had.

I felt bad having to keep this place shut down for the last couple weeks, but it couldn’t be avoided. Until we found the source of both the ignition and the accelerant, the structure wasn’t safe. I couldn’t risk having another innocent civilian injured in some way just because a business needed to stay open. Like I’d told the grocery manager the night before, there was insurance for this kind of thing, and they needed to rely on that for these kinds of unforeseen circumstances.

Finally, with my arm buried up to its elbow in paperwork, my hand closed around the heavy ring of keys, and I pulled them out like a prized catfish, dangling them in the air.

I dropped them again, though, as soon as I heard the gunshot.

Like the biggest, loudest firework I’d ever heard, a series of shots poured out of the little convenience store.

“Oh!” I squealed, my voice pitched as high as Mount Everest in surprise. “Holy—!”

As if I’d somehow chosen the right words, holes the size of my fingertips seemed to magically form in the glass to my right. Spiderwebs of cracks spun out through the glass, even as I took two unsure steps back on the sidewalk.

More gunfire.

And then a handsome giant of a man was filling the doorway in front of me, throwing open the glass door as he came rushing out at me. And I mean filled. He was huge! Giant biceps, tree trunks for legs, a solid-looking torso. And those eyes of his. It was almost enough for me to overlook that woolly beard of his.

But were those potato chips and popcorn in his hair?

I reeled back from him in shock, my foot slipping off the sidewalk step behind me and nearly sending me sprawling on my backside. What in the hell was going on?

“Go, go, go!” he shouted in a rough baritone as he came at me like a runaway dump truck, pistol in hand. He leaned forward like a football player ready to sack the QB.

My eyes traveled down to the gun in his hand. “What the f—?”

I didn’t have a chance to finish, though. My words, and the air from my lungs, were slammed from my chest as he lifted me bodily from the parking lot and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

Guess I was the quarterback in this scenario!

I kicked my legs, flailing my hand as I pounded on his sticky back with my tightly clutched briefcase and a tiny, clearly inconsequential fist. “Put me down!”

“We have to go!” he yelled, still racing across the lot, his legs pumping like crazy as he launched us over the pavement. Clearly, my weight was doing nothing to slow him down.

A blond man in dark clothes and a dark coat burst out of the gas station, his own pistol raised. “Damn you, Grant!”

My eyes locked on the gun for a moment before I shut them tightly, like that would actually do anything to save my bacon. “Oh my God oh my God oh my God!”

The potato chip and popcorn man kept going, right out of the parking lot, jarring my whole body with every thunderous step.

The gunman’s pistol popped loudly, but not as loudly as I would’ve originally thought, as we crossed the street and veered right, dodging behind a beat-up Jeep.

More bullets, the sound of shattering glass, as the man holding me—Grant, the gunman had called him—dropped me to my feet and pulled me down to the sidewalk with him.

“We need to call the cops!” I managed to yell between gasps for breath as I sat back against the rear tire, my briefcase propped in my lap so it lay against my chest. “We need to get someone down here!”

“Think they can help us right now?” he growled as he set up at the front of the Jeep, using the hood as cover. “We need to get out of here, instead.” He popped up from behind the front of the car, and began to return fire, the gun clack-clack-clacking as he shot three times.

Good point. I uncovered my ears, which I’d slammed my palms over out of instinct. “Who are you?” I shouted as he crouched back down, the other gunman now returning fire.

“Carter Grant, Private Investigator.” He stopped, looked at me for a second. Then, in an almost conversational tone, “Hey, you’re Lucy Skinner, right? The fire investigator?”

Okay, this was getting weird.

I looked at him with wide eyes. “How do you know who I am?”

“You were in the file I was given.” He paused, seeming to search for the right words for a moment. “Think a life insurance company’s just going to pay out money on spontaneous human combustion?”

“Fair,” I said, even though I hadn’t been told by anyone that a private investigator was going to be working the case. But, right then, I didn’t think it really mattered all that much. After all, someone was shooting at us! “Who the hell is this guy? The arsonist or something?”

“I have no idea; he was just here when I showed up.”

“What were you doing in there, anyways?”

“Investigating. Privately.”

“I would end up with a joker.”

More gunshots from the other guy, and I curled up a little more tightly in response.

“You can drive, right?” Carter asked. “This is my Jeep.”

“You want me to drive? Where?”

“Look,” he said, his breathing heavy. “I don’t have much ammo left, and this guy might have friends. We don’t know. We just need to get out of here.”

“Well, why don’t you fucking drive, then?”

“You gonna cover me while I’m busy trying to crawl from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat? Because I’m not exactly built for that maneuver.”

“Fair,” I said, glancing over his huge, manly form. There was no way he’d make it from one seat to the other, not in any reasonable amount of time. “But, what about the cops?”

“Call them later,” he snapped, “when we’re not busy getting shot at.”

He had a point. “Okay, okay,” I said as two more shots, followed by the distant sound of sirens, broke the air. I knew in my gut that the cops were headed right for us, but even that didn’t change the fact that they were probably too far away to do anything for us. “Give me the damn keys.”

Still crouched down, he straightened out his right leg so he could get into his pocket and pull out his ring of keys. He tossed them to me. “The black one.”

I snatched them out of the air. “How do we want to do this?”

“Passenger seat, crawl over.”

“And you’ll cover me?”

“I just saved your life, so I might as well keep doing it, right?”

“Right.”

“Go!” He popped up from behind the hood of the car, started shooting as I scrambled to my feet. For a big guy, he moved with a fluidity I’d never seen. Like a jungle cat, or some other predator in the wilds.

Staying low, I unlocked the passenger side door and threw it open, climbing inside as I tossed my briefcase in the footwell. Head still well below the window, I crawled across the center console and got into the driver’s seat, curled up behind the steering wheel.

More bullets from the British guy, with one punching a hole in the window just over my head.

I screamed a little as I stabbed at the ignition with the key, trying to slide it in. It kept going all over, the tip striking the metal disc of the ignition and skidding right off.

Of all the times I’d feared for my life, this was the worst. Because I knew I had no control over it. All I could do was keep my head down, and try to not get shot. At least in a fire, I had my training, I had my protective gear. But this right now? This all just seemed like random chance. Like a die could be rolled, and I’d just take a slug in the head.

“Hurry!” Carter yelled from outside, his words mixing with the sound of more pistol fire as he unloaded.

“I’m trying!” I nearly screamed back. Finally, though, the key slid home, and I twisted the ignition forward. The engine vroomed to life, and the seat and the whole vehicle vibrated in seemingly pent-up excitement.

More gunfire from the other guy. “Carter!”

“Oh my God oh my God,” I repeated like a mantra, trying to keep myself focused. I slammed my foot on the brake and threw the car in drive. “Let’s go!”

Two more gunshots from Carter, and then he was sending the Jeep rocking from side to side as he hopped inside with me. “Drive!”

Without even straightening out, or looking out the windshield, I slammed my foot on the gas and took off down the street, the Jeep fishtailing a little as we took off down the road as fast as the car could go. I leaned my head up a little bit, just wanting the comfort of knowing where I was pointing this deadly weapon.

Carter Grant, though, shoved me back down with one hand as more gunfire sounded behind us, and another bullet whizzed by the Jeep’s cab. The sound of another nearby car, tires squealing as they turned hard. I assumed they were just trying to get out of the way.

I poked my head back up a little bit when he removed his hand. Just in time, too!

“Careful, Lucy!” Carter shouted, but I assumed he was referring to the car parked right in front of us.

I jerked the wheel to the left, trying to avoid the vehicle on the side of the road.

The Jeep lurched hard, though, as I slammed into something with its unyielding metal side. Glass shattered as the side screeched down the side of another car. “Dammit!” Carter yelled.

I glanced down to the left as I fought to regain control of the steering wheel.

“Hey, I know that car!” I said as I looked down at the silver Honda I’d seen parked outside the offices earlier that evening, its passenger side now crushed in, its windows on that side shattered from where I’d pushed it into oncoming traffic.

Thank God there weren’t any other cars on the road!

The silver car spun in a three-sixty as I slammed on the brakes.

“Just go!” Carter yelled.

I frantically twisted in my seat, looked back at the little silver Honda, and watched as its headlights flickered, and they restarted the engine. From the frantic activity in the passenger seat, they looked uninjured. That was good. I didn’t know if I could live with myself after hurting someone on accident like that.

“What are you waiting for?” Carter shouted.

“We need to give them your insurance, though!”

“Go, Lucy!” Carter yelled, just as the man in the passenger seat stopped cringing and, instead of asking for our insurance, leaned out of the window with what looked like a machine gun in his hands. “Get out of here!”

Well, that was unexpected. I slammed on the gas without even looking forward, sending the Jeep fishtailing till its tires gained traction on the pavement, and we rocketed off down the dark road. I turned my attention fully on the road, gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands.

More gunfire behind us, this time in the rapid-fire staccato bursts of an action film, followed immediately by the plink of bullets hitting the Jeep’s retreating backside.

I screamed but kept my head down as much as I could while, this time, still keeping my eyes on the road. “Oh my God! They were following me from work!”

“Just keep going,” he shouted as he reached down and began to roll down his window.

“What the hell are you doing, Carter?” I asked, my voice as frantic as the beating of my heart. I tried to keep one eye on him and the other on the road, but it was nearly impossible. I reached over, trying to grab one leg of his pants as he went to go out the window, my other hand still tightly gripping the steering wheel. “Don’t!”

But it was too late—he was already hanging out the passenger side, aiming his pistol like a pro.

Three quick shots from his gun, the muzzle flash lighting up the cab of the Jeep.

I winced at the roar of the shots, trying to cover my ear with the hand I’d just used to unsuccessfully keep him from crawling outside.

In the rearview mirror, the silver Honda’s front passenger side tire exploded, the rubber treads ripping themselves to shreds. The car swerved dangerously and veered into the right-hand curb. It thunked horribly as it leaped the curb, the wheel bending inwards on itself.

“Holy shit!” I nearly yelled.

Carter climbed back into the cab of the Jeep, acting almost like nothing had happened.

“You just shot out their tire!”

He didn’t say anything, just nodded. He was breathing a little more heavily than you’d expect from someone in as good of shape as him, but he was otherwise normal. Seemed barely fazed by the whole thing.

“Okay,” he said, almost completely nonchalant, “they won’t be following us for a while. Not with that car, at least.”

I, on the other hand, didn’t see anything nonchalant about this at all. What the hell was happening to my life? How was this even happening to me? I should have just gone home, should have just slipped into a nice, warm bath, and relaxed for the evening.

But, instead, here I was. Not just one person, but two people shooting at me. People trying to run me off the road, people trying to kill me.

“Holy crap!”

“You said you’ve seen that Honda before?”

“Jesus, what the hell is going on?”

“Lucy,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Focus here. You said earlier that you’ve seen that car before, right? The silver Honda?”

I blinked long and hard, shook my head. The sirens were getting closer now, filling the night air. We needed to go back, make a statement, talk to the cops. Something.

“Lucy?”

“What?” I nearly shouted.

“You’ve seen the car, right?” Carter asked, carefully enunciating his words. “Where did you see it?”

“Parked outside my office when I left work a little while ago. It was in the lot, same row as mine.”

He nodded a little, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. Even through his beard, I could tell his jaw was clenched tight. “Okay,” he said. “We need to go somewhere and lie low, put all this together.”

“Maybe, instead of thinking about places to hide out,” I snapped, “you should tell me just what the hell’s going on, and who the hell was just shooting at me with a machine gun!”

“Wish I could,” he said quietly. “Honestly, you know as much as I do. I showed up there at the gas station, and the guy was in the backroom already, started shooting at me while I was investigating the scene. I’m as in the dark as you are.” He paused. “Oh, and it was a submachine gun. Not a full-on machine gun. Turn up here; we need to vary our route.”

“Whatever,” I growled as I flipped the blinker on and turned left, the tires screeching as I rounded the corner without slowing down. “Now, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on, and why I shouldn’t be calling the cops right fucking now!”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he replied, barely losing his cool. “Like I said, I’m in the dark here, just like you. Look, I promise we’ll call the cops as soon as we’re somewhere safe. I’m sure Shamrock’s finest want to talk to me after all that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You and me both.”

“But, first, let’s put these guys a little farther in our rearview. Okay?”

I knew I shouldn’t have even been considering going along with this. That I should have just gone to the cops, tried to save what was left of my career after the last two weeks of investigations. But, one look at Carter, and my gut told me there was something he wasn’t being completely upfront about. That he was more keyed in to this than I was, despite his having only just arrived in town.

“How’d he know who you were, then, if you’re so in the dark?”

He shrugged. “Trust me, I really have no idea. Meantime, we really need to get off the street. If they come for us a second time, like before, we might have innocent civilians around.”

I groaned, running a hand back through my hair. When he put it that way, I realized he had a point. I really had no desire to pull anyone else into this. “My apartment’s just up the way.”

He shook his head. “No good. They know where you work, which means they know who you are. Which means they might come looking for us where you live. Got anywhere else?”

I bit my lower lip as I tried to think of another option. If this had been last week, I would have said Cassidy’s house. He’d know what to do, where to put us. He was always good like that, even when there was shady stuff involved. Actually, now that I thought of the number of backroom poker games he’d been in over the years, I realized he was always good especially when shady stuff was involved.

And then it hit me. Clarissa, down at the Super 8. She and I had grown up on the same block. Sure, we didn’t hang out all the time like we used to, but that was mainly because of work and family getting in the way. She might be willing to put us up for a little while. At least till Carter could get a shower in.

“You know what? I’ve got a friend who works the night desk at a hotel. That work?”

“Only if she can keep us off the books. No telling what these people can do.”

I glanced over at him. One look at the guy, at those high cheekbones, dark eyes, and furrowed brow, and I just knew he was brooding. How I knew, though, I had no idea. I’d just met the man, after all.

“You’re joking, right? Who are these people? CIA? NSA?”

“Wish I was, Lucy,” he said slowly, my name sounding strangely sweet as it came off his suddenly morose tongue. “And, no, definitely not from our government. But, in my past, I kind of made a career of pissing off powerful people.”

“Kind of? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You ex-military or something? A spy?”

He nodded at first, before shaking his head. Then he just shrugged. “Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” I nearly shouted. “I just made it out of a scene from Die Hard, and all you’ve got is “complicated”?”

He sighed. “Look, okay, none of this makes sense, even to me. And, believe me, you don’t want to know what’s going on. Not all of it, at least.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied. “And now they’re after me, too?”

“Looks like it.”

“And it’s somehow tied to my fires?”

“Maybe. I mean, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Why else would they be targeting both you and me at the same time?”

“You taking the Jack Nicholson approach, here? How I can’t handle the truth?”

He grinned a little, looking out the passenger side window for a moment before turning back to me. “Something like that, yeah.”

I turned and looked at him, my lips pressed hard together, my brow furrowed in the most unladylike visage ever. “Then I guess I better just be able to handle it.”

With one look at my expression, the smile faded from his face. It was replaced, instead, by one of calm understanding. Acknowledgment, even, that I wasn’t going to back down on this, no matter what he did or said. That I was going to follow this through to the end.

He nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a feeling you can.”