Page 107 of Love Takes Home

She turns her head and gives me a look that would terrify others. That’s when she realizes that I’m sitting in a pile of wood, holding an unconscious Ginny, next to a dead Keith.

“Oh, fuck.”

I grin at her and she recoils. Ha! I haven’t lost it. “We’re waiting on an ambulance. Why don’t you gather up the other women as they come in and keep them from this?” I ask her.

She looks at Davis. “What is it with us and dead bodies?” she mutters. “Take care of her, she’s my sister!” she yells over her shoulder, her voice trailing off as she moves down the hall.

“Thanks.” Davis sighs.

“I think I’ll go with her for a while. Make sure they keep calm?” Aiden asks. “And I have her baby. She’ll probably start to wonder about that as soon as her shock goes away.”

I chuckle. Only Aiden could joke around at a time like this. I’m glad he’s the one who’s here.

“EMTs are coming in.” Sam sticks his head in the door. “Let’s get you two out of here so we can seal it off.”

“Thanks, Sammy.” I tip my chin.

“You know, only my friends call me Sammy. Did you promote yourself?” He smiles back.

“Fuck yeah, I did.”

He chuckles and walks away. Things are crowded now, but it’s going to get even more crowded. We need to get Ginny out of here.

We’ve moved our operation to the hospital. The girls are all in momma-protector mode and making sure Ginny is okay. She woke up once, screaming, and I about lost my mind. The nurse gave her something that knocked her out again, and then I was unceremoniously kicked out of the room for ‘being too growly’ or some shit like that.

Daniel has called an informal meeting and we’re all gathered in the room adjacent to Ginny’s. I refused to move farther than ten feet from her. This was the compromise. It’s crowded. They’ll survive.

“So we have a dead body and still no idea what’s going on,” Daniel starts, making eye contact with each of us. “Does that help or hurt?”

“Don’t care,” I grumble. “Fucker’s dead.”

“Are you still planning on taking the fall for all this?” Nate asks with an odd look of concern on his face.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Sammy speaks up. Yes, the cop is in the room with us. So is Mary, the DEA agent, and Claire, who’s been straddling both rooms. She’s worried about me but understands she needs to be there when Ginny wakes up.

“How do we find out what we don’t know?” Aiden asks.

“We need to search his place, find anything that relates to what is going on here and the woman,” I tell them.

“You mean the cops will search his place and I might be able to tell you what we find.”

Grady looks between the two of us, Sammy silently telling me I have to do this by the book, me telling him to fuck the book.“What about an official DEA agent? Is she allowed to search with the cops?”

“If she can provide reason, I’ll walk her in myself. Hell, I’ll give her first crack at it if it gives us answers. You know we don’t deal with this shit in Boulder Canyon.”

Mary grins. It’s not as scary as mine can be. “I do know what to look for where there’re drugs involved. The title kind of implies it.”

“We’ve also got four boys from the baseball team we need to ask a few questions,” I add.

“You know damn well I can’t let you in there for that.” Sammy snorts.

“As long as you ask the questions we need, that’s not a problem. Can we make that happen?”

“You get me a list of questions, and I’ll ask them.”

“Thanks, Sammy.”

He looks at me, growing somber. “I know that what you do is ride the line sometimes.” He turns to look at Mr. Mills. “I know that what you do is what you do.” He looks back at me. “I need you to take a step back on this, okay? I need for this to be clean and by the book. I’m not going to let my friend go down for taking out that—”

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