He glared at me, not pleased with the snark. “All right. Settle down.”

“What happened? Did anybody see anything?”

“What happened was somebody tossed a cocktail through your side window there. No witnesses.”

I blinked. “What’d you just say?”

“Molotov. Cocktail. We found shards of the exploded bottle inside and the whole thing reeks of gasoline. Basic, but, hey, sometimes basic gets it, right? So, what are we looking at? Angry boyfriend, crazy ex-husband, what?”

I ignored the question. “Was anyone hurt?” I scanned the front windows of my building, glad Mrs. Vincent was missing all of this. She didn’t hear well. She likely hadn’t heard the sirens.

The cop pointed toward the crowd. “Some of your neighbors tell us hacking people off is what you do for a living. You’re a private cop, right?”

I stared at the crowd, danger in my gaze. Turncoats. Backstabbers. “Which ones?”

The cop flipped pages in his notebook. “Lady, I can’t count that high.”

“Whatever. Did anybody see anything useful, or are they all just out here swapping stories about my personal business?”

“All they saw was your car going up like a Fourth of July rocket,” the cop said. He tore a sheet from his notebook. “Here’s the report number for the insurance. You’re going to need a tow. Have a nice day.”

* * *

“Hey.” Ben squeezed into the booth across from me. It was early, just after six AM. Deek’s was deserted. I was hungry, and it was the only place I could get to without a car. I’d need to rent one, until my insurance company did what it did, but it was all too much to think about in the moment. Right now, all I wanted was pancakes. I’d left Mrs. Vincent safely at home, sweeping charred debris off the front stoop, though I politely told her I’d handle it myself. She’d looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. Some battles weren’t worth fighting.

Ben eyed the table. “What’s that?”

I took a sip of tea, savored it for a second. “You know what it is.”

“That’s the pipe from your trunk.”

I sighed. “It’s the only thing that didn’t burn.”

“So you’re going to just carry it around with you like that?”

I sat my cup down, held his gaze. “Until I get another trunk to put it in.”

Ben watched me, his mouth agape. He shook his head. “Okay, give it to me straight. Whose shoes did you step on?”