Page 76 of Necessary Evil

“I was in and out,” Sentinel replied.

“You boys been to California recently?”

Sentinel and Evan tensed ever so slightly, but Lucy noticed. “No,” Evan said.

“Wait.” Lucy’s head was still wobbly, but she could put two and two together. “Does this investigation have anything to do with my brother’s case?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Come with me and I’ll take you home. You don’t have to stay here.”

“I need to get back to my office,” she said, smoothing her hand over her skirt.

“It’s after six.”

Lucy stumbled and looked up at him in shock. She’d slept a lot longer than she’d thought. It was disorienting. Should she go to the hospital and get checked out? Evan steadied her with a gentle hand on her arm.

“Tell me which one of them did this to you,” Travis said, the gun still at his side.

“I’ve been working really hard and it just caught up with me,” Lucy said simply. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Where did you get those bruises, then? Did you walk into a door?”

At the last minute she stopped her hand from going to her throat to feel if there were bruises. If there had been, Sentinel and Evan would already be in cuffs. “Why do you think the SOBs are involved with OxyContin?” Lucy asked, folding her arms over her chest.

“I’m just investigating a lead,” he said. “I can’t elaborate further.”

It was a stand-off. Sentinel wasn’t budging, Travis would use the pistol if he detected a threat, and Evan was practically oozing violence.

“These men are my clients. If you want to question them, you will have to do it with me present.”

“I’m not bringing anyone in for questioning.” He looked right at Evan. “Yet.”

“Well, in that case, I’m going to go home and get some more rest. I’m not going to be able to do that here with a bunch of police officers tossing the place. Thanks for riding to my rescue again,” Lucy said, deliberately shaking off Evan’s arm and stepping in front of Travis, blocking any shot he might want to take. “I didn’t need a white knight this time, though.” She turned to Evan. “Lunch tomorrow? I pick the restaurant this time.”

“I’ll stop by later and check on you,” Evan said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Lucy walked out of Evan’s bedroom with her head high, taking controlled steps to combat the dizziness. She wasn’t sure if she could drive yet because her head was still fuzzy, but she damned well couldn’t ride on the back of a bike without falling off, and she was afraid of Evan’s reaction if she went home with Travis.

She decided to sit in her car until she was sure she wouldn’t ruin Jules’s nice new paint job. Earlier that day Bobby had been hanging around the office trying to calm Jenny down, so Lucy had asked him to drive her to the garage to pick up her car. Of course, on the way there he’d told her how traumatized Jenny had been over Sentinel’s threatening tone and his demand that she dump Bobby. After a quick phone call to Jenny and to a friendly judge, Lucy had gotten the restraining order. Bobby had said he’d return the rental while she served Sentinel the papers.

She had been wrong to come to the bar. But the fight that had broken out didn’t seem to be about the restraining order. Now that she looked back on it, Sentinel seemed more aggravated at being interrupted. Lucy winced. She’d hit him with a chair. What the hell was happening to her?

She sagged against the wall on the stairs down to the bar to rest for a minute. Her throat still burned. A couple of uniforms passed her going up. It bugged her that Sentinel and Evan didn’t deny the allegations of being vigilantes. It could have been because it was too ridiculous to comment on. It could also be that they wanted to neither confirm nor deny a rumor that would make the club seem badass. It could also be true. Travis had told her he never chased dead ends. Evan could have been the one that got away when he took early retirement.

She paused in the bar area and looked around for Ryder but didn’t see her. A part of her wondered if Ryder was stalking her from the shadows, waiting to finish choking the life out of her. She didn’t want to be afraid of the SOBs. But she couldn’t deny the violence that ran through all of them. Lucy had to take several deep breaths before she felt normal enough to continue out to her car.

Her phone rang just as she was easing into the seat.

“Hi, Jenny,” she said. “I was just going to call you.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Just clumsy.” She remembered the lie Warden had told Jenny.

“I’m sorry if I blew everything out of context. I was just worried about you. I’m not myself.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you mind if I take tomorrow off?” she asked. “I think I’m coming down with something. It could be just nerves. But I have the time accrued.”

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