Damon sat with it for two days before he made his move.
He wasn’t going to call.
Calling would gave Kezia time to compose herself before he could read her.
He needed to see her face.
Watch her eyes. Hear the half-second before she answered, because that half-second was where the truth lived.
He texted her late Thursday.
Gonna swing by Saturday morning to see the kids.
She replied fast.
They would be happy. Try to come before noon they got practice at 1.
Saturday morning he pulled into her driveway slow, and right on cue — because timing was everything — the burgundy Accord was sitting in the driveway next door.
He got out of his truck, made a show of checking his front bumper, and had an irritation look on his face just as Kezia opened the front door.
“Your neighbor almost clipped my car pulling out,” he said, pointing toward the driveway next door. “Who is that?”
Kezia squinted her eyes past him.
“Which one? The old lady that sits under the carport?”
“Nah. Whoever driving that black Hyundai Sonata.”
She shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. “Oh. That might be the old lady’s granddaughter. She been over there on and off.”
“You know her?”
“Not really. I met the old lady’s daughter when they first moved in. Why?”
Damon let a beat pass. Just long enough.
“I’m serious don’t lie to me, Kezia.”
Her whole posture shifted.
“What the hell you mean don’t lie to you? I’m not lying, boy. What kind of question is that?”
He watched her. She wasn’t performing she was genuinely offended.
There was a difference and he knew her well enough to know which one he was looking at.
“Whoever drives that black Sonata has been following me,” he said, keeping his voice level. “For weeks now. Different cars, different locations. And it’s real suspicious that she happens to stay right next door to you.”
Kezia stared at him.
Then she looked at the house next door like she was seeing it differently for the first time.
“Following you,” she repeated.
“Yeah.”
“Like… a private investigator following you following you.”
“Kezia.”
“Damon, I don’t know those people over there.”
She said it firm, the way she said things when she needed him to actually hear her.
“I waved at the old lady maybe once or twice. That’s the extent of it. I don’t know any granddaughter, I don’t know what she drives, and I damn sure didn’t send nobody to follow you around the city.”
He studied her for a long moment.
“You believe me or not?” she asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
She cut her eyes at him.
“Well think faster. And for the record, if some young girl is out here following you around, that ain’t cute that’s a problem. You need to handle that.”
“I am handling it.”
“Handle it better.”
She pushed off the doorframe. “Your kids are inside. Come on.”
He followed her in. His son hit him at the waist the second he walked through the door.
His daughter looked up from her sketchbook, smiled that quiet smile she had, and went back to drawing.
Damon sat on the couch for a little while.
But his mind was next door.
If it wasn’t Kezia and his gut feeling was telling him it wasn’t.
Which meant she knew more about his life than he had thought.
She hadn’t just been following him. She had been studying his every move.
And she had gotten close enough to his kids that makes this situation worse than it already is.
That changed everything.
Damon looked down at his daughter’s sketchbook. She had drawn a house. Two trees. A sun in the corner the way kids do.
He kept a calm look on his face.
But something in him had gone very, very quiet the kind of quiet that comes right before a man starts to take action.
To be continued… Part 6 coming soon.