Page 76 of Love Takes Home

“You really want to call the cops?” Ranger asks, his face showing me his doubt.

“I do. But I would like to have one of these,” I point to the baggie on the table, “to test in our lab.”

“I would also like one,” Davis adds.

“What are you going to do with it?” Trish asks him.

“I’m going to call my friend at the DEA and see what she can tell me.”

“Mary. That would be a good call, I think.” Mary helped us previously and pretty much hates her job so she doesn’t take any shit.

“I think we need to bring Mary in on everything going on. All you’re really doing is following people right now. You aren’t the law, and you don’t really have what we need to take him down,” Ranger adds, subconsciously moving away from me as he speaks.

“I can take him down,” I snarl at him.

“I know you can, but then it wouldn’t be ‘mostly legal’and Sammy would have a problem with it. Sometimes you have to know when to ask for help, man. That’s all. And I think you need to talk to her about the lady.”

“What lady?” Tiny asks.

I share a look with Ranger, who silently tells me that it’s time to let everyone in on my stalker behavior.

“We,” I motion between Ranger and myself, “have been following Keith for quite a few months.”

“What? Why?” Ginny asks, looking horrified.

“Because my gut told me to?” I shrug. “At first, when he started going out of town so much, I thought he was cheating on you. And if I could prove to you what a fuckstick he was, maybe you’d leave him.”

“But he wasn’t cheating?”

“Not that we could find. But there was a woman he would meet with regularly—completely platonically. He’d meet her at a restaurant down in Rock Hill. They’d be there an hour, maybe two, and he’d come back home. He’s met her in Diamond Cove a few times, as well.”

“What are they doing, then?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know.”

“Do you have a picture of the woman?”

Ranger pulls out his phone and opens his pictures, handing her the phone. “Her name is Kara Smith, but we’re pretty sure that’s a fake one,” he tells her.

Ginny stares at it, zooming in and out, scrunching up her nose and squinting her eyes. “What?” I ask her when I can’t take it any longer.

“She looks like someone Keith introduced me to once upon a time, but then also, not? I don’t know, there’s something not natural about her looks. But that woman’s name wasn’t Kara.”

“Did he explain how he knew the woman?” I take her hand, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, she grew up in the foster home with him.”

“Keith was in foster care?” Davis asks. “Why didn’t I know that?”

“Not like he advertised it. He was in a make-shift group home, but the woman running it adopted him at some point. He still keeps in touch with a couple of his foster siblings. She was one of them.”

“Where did you meet her?” I direct her attention back to me.

“I think it was over in Rockton, at the pizza place. We were there for a date, and she came in. He introduced me and she picked up an order and left.”

“Do you remember the name she gave you?”

“Irina or Karina? Something like that. I thought it was a really pretty name. And she was stunning, her makeup was envy worthy. But her hair was a different color, too. I don’t know if it’s the same woman, but their facial structures almost match perfectly.”

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