Page 22 of Necessary Evil

Chapter 5

Lucy didn’t have anywhere else to be. She’d rather spend time with Evan than fantasize about a fake motorcycle gang on Netflix anyway. When Evan rolled up, she followed him down a few streets until he pulled into Villiers Garage.

“I didn’t know you owned a garage too,” she said, after getting out of the car.

“He doesn’t.” A tall woman came out of the office. She was dressed in coveralls and was scrubbing grease off her hand with a rag that was almost as filthy as her nails. “Jules Villiers.” She held out her hand to Lucy. Lucy shook it. She didn’t care about getting her hands smudged. Especially if the mechanic was nice enough to look at her car on a Saturday night.

“My sister,” Evan said, but the family resemblance was obvious. She had his honey-brown hair and green eyes. “Can you fix a busted taillight?”

Jules looked from her brother to Lucy and back again. “I’ll go see what I’ve got in stock. Are you leaving it here overnight?”

“Uh,” Lucy said, “I could.”

“Take a seat in the waiting room and I’ll see what I can do. Unless you and Evil are going somewhere?”

“Nope,” Lucy said with a sad smile.

Another enigmatic look between brother and sister, but Lucy didn’t even try to decipher it. She was just happy that the waiting room had a fresh pot of coffee. She poured a cup for herself and one for Evan, handing it to him when he followed her into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Are we ruining your sister’s Saturday night?”

He snorted. “She never has any plans.”

Lucy could relate. Maybe she’d ask Jules to hang out sometime. “She calls you Evil.”

“She’s my baby sister—of course she thinks I’m evil. Are you the older sister?”

Taking a sip of her coffee, she looked out into the garage. “Yeah, Bobby’s four years younger than me. He’s a challenge, but I wouldn’t call him evil.”

There was an awkward pause while she wished she could unload to him a little bit about how tough it had been to see Bobby start messing up in school. How the only thing that had seemed to help him was the friends he found. Those same friends had helped him get weed and encouraged him to go wild. But she didn’t want to bring up bad memories about Evan’s informant Steve, who’d been part of a gang and died in a drive-by shooting. So instead she sipped her coffee and walked around the small waiting room.

“Are the boys at the station giving you a hard time?” he asked.

She shrugged. “No more than usual. But I have to say, this is a little over the top, even for McKinley.”

“He’s a good cop.”

“No, he’s not.” Lucy smiled without humor. “He’s a bully with anger management issues and quite possibly a misogynist. Or he could just hate me.”

“Is that why you’re going out with Munson?”

Did she imagine it or did he sound a little jealous? “No.”

Evan stepped in closer and took the coffee out of her hands.

“I was drinking that.”

“Munson’s not the guy for you,” he said.

“You’ve taken up matchmaking in your retirement? I suppose it’s more exciting than golf.” She promised herself that this time she wasn’t going to kiss him…unless he smiled like that.

A police car driving into the garage caught her attention. She immediately closed the blinds that faced the area and peeked through the slats.

“Are you frightened?” Evan asked, from behind her.

“No, just nosy. Why do you think Burke is here?”

Evan wrapped his arms around her as he leaned in to look through the slats over her shoulder. It was hard to concentrate on being pissed about her car when his hard body was pressed against her.

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