Single Ladies by Blake Karrington Page B

passenger side of the truck and got in. She didn’t look at Lamar, nor did she say bye.
    Lamar and Fox made eye contact before he was about to pull off. No words were exchanged, but Fox did manage to crack a slick grin at him.
    Lamar only replied with a simple nod of his head to let Fox know that he won this round. Among men, it was the gentlemanly thing to do. Lamar could only respect the OG’s game. One or two things could happen at this point, and that was for Lamar to either bow out gracefully and let Fox take his bitch, or step his game up a notch.
    * * *
    The last thing a female would want was for her man to get to snooping around, if she in fact was a cheater. It’s easy for women to cheat and not get caught. That’s a well-known fact.
    But if a man has any indication that the love of his life is sleeping around on him and there’s a good chance that it’s true, he can become a problem. Just like women, men have their ways of finding out whether their woman is being faithful. Men can become bloodhounds and won’t stop until they find what they are looking for, and the most crucial mistake Lisa made was leaving a scent for Ralphy to follow.
    Dre was a name Lisa used to throw around in the beginning of their relationship, so Ralphy knew exactly who he was. But he was a little confused, because the last word on him was that he had gotten a life sentence for murder. Thinking that Lisa might still be in contact with him, Ralphy checked into it.
    First he had to get Dre’s real name, which was easy seeing as how his cousin still lived on the block. Annet was more than willing to give up Dre’s full name and his state ID number, thinking that Ralphy knew him and was going to put some money on his books. It was crazy, because Dre’s release came so suddenly that hardly anybody knew that he had been home for almost three months. Ralphy was about to find out, though.
    Ralphy had taken refuge in a local bar, away from home. He didn’t feel like dealing with Lisa right now, nor did he want her to know that he was digging into her past.
    You can pretty much get any information off the Internet, especially pertaining to convicted felons. When he typed in Dre’s real name, Andre Tucker, his case popped up on the screen. He read that the case had been overturned, but it was pending further prosecution. It didn’t state whether he was released, but Ralphy had his fair share in the criminal system to know that once you win your appeal, you either get released or get a lesser amount of time.
    Reading further, he saw that the law firm that represented him on his appeal was Duncannon and Associates. The name sounded familiar and it took awhile, but he finally remembered that it was the law firm that Kim worked for. He remembered because Lisa always bragged about it, saying that if she ever had a problem with the law, Kim would get her out of trouble. It was starting to look like one big conspiracy, and everybody was in on it but him.
    He looked around the bar and then down at his watch. It was a little after four o’clock, which meant that he still had a little more time to investigate further. Without wasting any more time, he packed up and left the bar with one thing on his mind. He was going to get to the bottom of things if it was the last thing he did.
    * * *
    Ralphy made it down to Duncannon and Associates law firm right before everyone was about to leave. As soon as he walked through the door the receptionist was packing up her things. “May I help you?” she asked when Ralphy walked up to the desk.
    â€œYes. Is Kim in? I need to talk to her about an appeal,” Ralphy responded as he looked around.
    The receptionist picked up her phone, and moments later Kim came walking down the hallway. She was kind of surprised to see Ralphy standing there when she came out into the lobby area. “Hey, Ralph. Is everything all right? Where’s Lisa?” she asked, seeing