Chapter 18 Lucy #2
We burst through the automatic doors into the cold night air. The wind hit my face, sharp and biting, but I barely felt it. Joanna was already running for her car, keys in hand.
I fumbled Gabrielle into her car seat, fingers clumsy with panic, the straps fighting me until they finally clicked. Every second felt like a lifetime.
"Call the station," she said, throwing the car into reverse. "Now."
I dialed the number for the fire station with trembling hands. Hit call.
One ring. Two. With every ring, my heart skipped a beat.
"West Valley Springs Fire, this is dispatch."
"I need to reach Captain Bennett. Captain Cal Bennett. It's an emergency." My voice came out high and frantic, words tumbling over each other. "The fire at the Mountain Café—it's a trap. The building has been rigged to collapse."
"Ma'am, Captain Bennett's crew rolled out three minutes ago. They're en route now."
Three minutes. Already on their way. Already driving toward a building designed to kill them.
"You have to warn them. Radio them, call them, do something.
" I was gripping the phone so hard my knuckles ached.
"The building is rigged to come down. Tell Cal!
Please tell him Lucy Moreno is not inside.
I'm not at the café. Neither is Joanna Pritchard.
We're both safe. No one is in that building. "
"Ma'am, I need you to slow down—" The operator’s calmness was driving me crazy; I couldn’t let her finish.
"There's no time to slow down!" I was screaming. Joanna took a corner too fast and I slammed against the door, but I didn't stop. "He's going to go inside thinking I'm trapped. But I'm not there. I was supposed to be there but I'm not. Please, you have to tell him I'm safe."
Static on the line. Muffled voices in the background. "Ma'am, I've relayed your message, but I need you to—"
I hung up. I had to move fast. I dialed 911.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"There's an arson in progress at the Mountain Café on Main Street downtown. The building has been deliberately rigged to collapse. Someone is trying to kill the firefighters who respond."
"Can you repeat that, ma'am?"
I tried. The words came out jumbled, frantic—Evan's name, accelerants, structural weak points, how I was supposed to be inside but I wasn't, how Cal was going to die trying to save someone who wasn't there.
The dispatcher asked questions I couldn't answer.
I heard the doubt in her voice, the careful neutrality of someone handling a caller who sounded unhinged.
I hung up. I pushed the fear aside; I had to go straight to him. I dialed Cal.
One ring. Two. Three. My heart was completely unregulated
"This is Cal. Leave a message."
His voicemail. His voice was calm and steady like it was any other day.
"Cal, it's Lucy." My voice cracked on his name. "I'm not at the café. I'm not inside. Do you hear me? I'm safe. Joanna's safe. The café closed early today. There was a burst pipe, my shift got cancelled, we're not there. No one is in that building."
I sucked in a breath, tears streaming down my face.
"It's a trap. Evan set this up. He rigged the building to collapse. He wanted to kill me and Joanna and he wanted you to come running in to save us. But we're not there, Cal. I'm not there. You don't have to save me."
Another breath. Ragged, broken.
"I love you. Please don't go inside. Please. I'm safe. Just... please don't go in for me."
I hung up. Stared at the phone in my hand, at my own reflection in the dark screen.
He wasn't going to get that message in time. He was probably already there. Already inside.
"He won't have checked his phone," Joanna said quietly. She was driving too fast, blowing through yellow lights, taking corners at speeds that made the tires squeal. "Not on a call."
"I know."
"We're four minutes out."
I looked up through the windshield. The sky ahead of us glowed orange, a sick pulsing light that painted the clouds in shades of fire. Even from here, miles away, I could see the smoke column rising black against the darkness, blotting out the stars, swallowing the mountains.
Her café. Forty years of her life. Everything she and her late husband had built together, everything she'd held onto after he died. Burning.
"Joanna—"
"Don't." Her voice was tight. Controlled. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, tendons standing out like cables. "We can talk about the café later. Right now, we get to Cal."
The orange glow grew brighter. Emergency lights appeared through the haze—red and blue strobing against the smoke, painting the buildings around us in alternating color. Sirens wailed in the distance, layering over each other until they became one long continuous scream.
Joanna pulled over a block from the scene. The street ahead was chaos: fire trucks angled across the road, ambulances lined up on the curb, police cars with their lights spinning. A barricade was already going up, officers waving back the few people who'd come out to watch.
"Go." Joanna's voice was fierce. "I've got Gabrielle."
I was already unbuckling the carrier, fingers fumbling with the straps. Gabrielle fussed as I lifted her free, her small face scrunching at the cold air, but she settled when I pressed her into Joanna's arms.
I kissed Gabrielle's forehead. Breathed her in one last time.
Then I ran.
The smoke hit me first. It was thick and acrid, and clawing at my throat. Then the heat, even from a block away, pressing against my skin like it was something alive. The café was fully engulfed now, flames pouring from the windows, reaching toward the sky, consuming everything in their path.
The scene was controlled chaos. Firefighters working in teams, hoses trained on the building, ladders extended. I scanned for Cal but couldn't find him in the smoke and the strobing lights.
Riley was at the perimeter tape, directing a couple of onlookers back. She saw me and her face went white.
"Lucy." She crossed to me fast, grabbed my arm. "You're alive. Cal thought—he went in for you."
"Where is he?"
"Still inside. Radio's out. Structure's failing." Her jaw was tight, her eyes red. "They're pulling everyone back, but he's not—"
I didn't hear the rest.
I was already running.
"Lucy! Lucy, stop!"
Riley's voice behind me, but she was wearing sixty pounds of gear and I wasn't. I was faster. I had to be faster.
I wasn’t trained like a firefighter, but I knew this building. Every corner, every closet, every weak spot in the floor near the walk-in cooler.
Cal had run into this building thinking I was trapped inside.
This was stupid. I knew that. But I'd spent three years learning how to lose people. How to survive it. How to keep breathing when everything in me wanted to stop.
I wasn't going to learn that lesson again. Not tonight. Not with him.
I took one last breath of clean air, and stepped into the fire.