Games Divas Play (A Diva Mystery Novel) (28 page)

CHAPTER 23

Nia

T
he shot clock counted down the seconds as the All-Star team from the East set up a nice three-point opportunity. Marcus dribbled down low and pushed past Easton Miles, the six-foot-ten guard for the West, pump-faked, and then floated the ball into t
he basket.

“That’s my baby,” Vanessa said, jumping up from her courtside seat to clap for her husband as he ran down the court and wink
ed at her.

“Would you sit your happy ass down and act like you been somewhere before,” I said, clowning her as I jerked on the coattail of the peplum-style mustard yellow Prada blazer she wore with black stretch denim jeans tucked into Jimmy Choo boots. I pulled her down onto the cushioned chair n
ext to me.

“Whatever, hater,” she said, taking a sip of her lemonade. “You know you’re excited to be sitting here with me cheering for
the East.”

“I hate to break it to you, boo, but I’m cheering for the West tonight
,” I said as I pumped my fist in the air, yelling for Easton to pick up the pace as he faced off against Mar
cus again.

“Not in my seats you ain’t,” Vanessa said, looking at me in mock horror with her hair cocked to the side. “You better get right or get to
steppin
’
.”

“Dang, is that how you’d treat your girl after all these years?” I asked, feigning shock. “I mean, I tracked down your stalker and humiliated that tramp, and that’s all the thanks I get?” I dipped a large chip into my nacho sauce, trying not to spill another gob of melted cheese on my Balmain ruffled motorcyc
le jacket.

“Aww, you know you my girl,” Vanessa said reaching over to hug me from the side and jostling my nachos in th
e process.

“Watch it, girl. Don’t be messing up my outfit getting cheese everywhere
,” I said.

“No for real, girl,” Vanessa said as she kept her eyes on the court as the clock crept toward the halftime show featuring Usher and Justin Bieber. “You really looked out for me and my family, and I’ll never forget that. I’m sorry DeAnna got so upset
with you.”

“I know, V. I’ll just have to face the music when I get back to New York on Monday. I’m sure DeAnna won’t be able to wait until the end of the week to give me my walkin
g papers.”

“I don’t know, girl. Something tells me things are going to work out,” she said as she squeezed my arm and reached for ano
ther chip.

“Well, you must be the only one
,” I said.

“I can’t believe you said the stalker was some crazy computer nerd who thought Marcus killed that cheerleader,” Vanessa said, changing th
e subject.

I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t quite convinced that Marcus hadn’t had something to do with her, but I’d need some more information for that. And I really didn’t want to get into that part of the story, given how happy she and Marcus were right now. I hadn’t seen them this happy in years. She was glowing, and he was looking at her and smiling in a way I hadn’t seen in a
long time.

I was so excited when she called me early this morning to tell me all about last night’s events. I was just as shocked as she was to learn of Kareem’s embezzlement but glad to know that he was out of their lives. When I told her about how I handled the cover release with Laila, she had screamed into the phone and said she would have given anything to be a fly on the wall to see that heffa’s face cracked on the floor. She said she knew something big must have happened, because as soon as they left their meeting with Knight Sports Management, both her phone and Marcus’s started blowing up with congratulatory text messages, calls, and e-mails. I told her I was glad she had told her husband before the news broke all over Twitter and
Facebook.

When I asked her why the news wasn’t out that Marcus had signed with a new manager, she said that they’d all agreed to get through All-Star and wait until they got back to New York next week and could meet with the team owners. Everyone had been sworn to secrecy. Even Kareem had been forced to sign a confidentiality agreement. That seemed smart. No need to let Kareem’s news overshadow the good news about a
new baby.

“So that guy was so fixated on Marcus, what did he mean by ‘I know what you did’?” Vanessa asked as she leaned over to dip into
my nachos.

“He thought that Marcus had killed Kalinda because she had threatened to tell you about the relationship.” I paused, waiting to see what she
would say.

“Well, Marcus and I had the true come-to-Jesus conversation late last night, and he confessed all his dirt. And you know don’t no brother ever confess all the dirt unless he’s caught red-handed, and he swore he never slept with that dancer. You may call me stupid and naïve, but at that point there was no need for Marcus to lie to me, so I bel
ieve him.”

Strangely I was beginning to believe
him also.

“OK, but there’s one thing I can’t fi
gure out.”

“What’s that?” she said, waving to friends on the other side of
the court.

“The roommate said that twice he caught the guy she was seeing picking her up, and he noted the license plate. After the police found her body in the desert, he searched the DMV database and found that the car was registered t
o Marcus.”

“What kind of cars were they?” Vanessa said, stiffening in
her seat.

“One was a Porsche sedan and the other a Mercedes,” I answered
reluctantly for fear I was going to give her an answer she didn’t wan
t to hear.

“That’s interesting because we don’t own any Porsche sedans, but someone I know does,” Vanessa said, crossing her arms across her chest and looking at me intently. Suddenly I realized who she was talk
ing about.

“Kareem? He has a Porsche? But why would his car be registered in Marcu
s’s name?”

“Remember I told how the forensic accountants uncovered that he was running all his expenses, mortgages, credit cards, everything, through Marcus’s name and our holding
company?”

“Yes, I
remember.”

“Well, we also found out that all the titles and registrations for the cars were in Marcus’s name as well. That’s why the plate check came up with
his name.”

So Kareem had been the one dating Kalinda and didn’t want anyone to know. But had he been the one to kill the young girl and dump her carved-up body in the desert, or had he hired Carlo
to do it?

“The roommate said that the police told him that Marcus had an alibi that weekend the girl was murdered because he was playing in a game in Dallas. Do you happen to know if Kareem was at that game as well?” If he was at the game, that would certainly rule him out, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have contracted Carlo to kil
l Kalinda.

“One thing I can say about Kareem is that fool never missed a game. Away or home, his ass was always there watching his
boy play.”

“But then why was she killed? Kareem isn’t married, so the cheerleader wasn’t a threa
t to him.”

“I don’t know, girl, but looking at the report the accountants and lawyers pieced together, girlfriend must have been having a good time on my husband’s dime. There were bills for jewelry, furs, shoes, spa visits, and trips to the Caribbean an
d Mexico.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, grabbing her arm. “Did you say there were receipts for trips t
o Mexico?”

“Yeah, um, there were a couple of trips to Mexico if I remember c
orrectly.”

“Do you remember what part o
f Mexico?”

“Why, you and Terrence planning a getaway?” s
he teased.

“No, we’re not. But do you remember w
hat part?”

“I can’t remember the cities, but they had weird names I had never heard of. Didn’t sound like any of the major tourist spots, but maybe he’d found some new superexclusive
getaway.”

Just as the buzzer sounded for halftime, I quickly gathered my handbag and pushed the rest of the nacho container and my beverage back under
my chair.

“I have to go, Vanessa. I’ll catch you later at your Midni
ght Gala.”

“But I thought we were going to watch Usher?” she said, looking perplexed as I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Terrence. “Where are y
ou going?”

“I have to go check on something. I’ll catch you later.” As I walked along the court toward the exit, I held the phone up
to my ear.

“Come on, Terrence. Pick up the phone . . . ,” I muttered to myself as I wove in and out of the thickening crowd. He said Vivica had gotten tickets to the game, so I knew he had to be here
somewhere.

When his voice mail picked up after several rings, I had no choice but to leave a message. This coul
dn’t wait.

“Terrence, Vanessa just told me that Kareem owned the cars that Sean saw. He was the one dating Kalinda. I’m headed back over to Sean’s to confirm something on Kalinda’s Facebook account. I may have found our link to Diablo. Call
me back.”

I headed out of the crowded arena to gr
ab a taxi.

When the driver pulled up in front of Sean’s apartment complex twenty minutes later, I told him there was an extra twenty-five dollars in it if he waited for me. I didn’t think it would take long to check Kalinda’s Facebook account, and if my hunch was right, I would be one step closer to figuring out why Diablo was involved with the murder of a dancer and why they tried to kil
l Vanessa.

I walked through the courtyard, which had been full of sunshine and laughter yesterday afternoon when Terrence and I were last here, but now, at nine thirty at night, it was dark and quiet. The only sounds were the muted voices of residents talking from their open windows and my heels on the cobblestone pavement. I made my way back to Sean’s building and climbed the two flights of stairs. I walked down the length of the breezeway to Sean’s apartment and knocked on the door. I thought I heard footsteps behind the door, but then several seconds passed and no one answered. I knocked again and received no response. Not even the little dog wa
s barking.

“Sean,” I called out through the slightly cracked window that looked into the kitchen. “It’s Nia Bullock. I need to ask you another question.” I tried to peek through the blinds but couldn’t see anything. Yesterday they had been wide open, but tonight they were closed tight. I knocked on the d
oor again.

Sean had said he’d be around all weekend working on his senior project, so why wasn’t he answering the door? He could have stepped out to get a pizza or something, although judging from the number of food delivery menus I saw stacked on the kitchen counter, there was no reason for him to ever leave the
apartment.

Maybe he had his headphones on and couldn’t hear me knocking. I reached for the doorknob and turned it. I’d never been one to break and enter, but I really needed to see Kalinda’s Facebook account. I pushed open the door and stepped into the small entryway. The only light in the apartment came from the glow of the PlayStation console on the TV stand and Sean’s open laptop on the table. He had to be here. I closed the door behind me just in case the dog ran out of one of the bedrooms. I didn’t want her to
get loose.

“Sean,” I called again, not wanting to scare him in his own apartment. No answer. I took a deep breath and began to walk farther into the apartment. As I made my way past the TV stand toward the bedrooms at the back of the apartment, I noticed that Kalinda’s laptop was no longer on the shelf of the cof
fee table.

I could see a light from under the door of one of the
bedrooms.

“Sean,” I said again, louder this time. I knocked on the bedroom door but got no response. Like a scene from a horror movie, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I turned the knob to walk into th
e bedroom.

“Oh my God,” I screamed. My hand flew up to my mouth as I felt my stomach lurch. There was Sean lying on the bed, his arms down by his side, one of his pale hairy legs hanging off the edge of the unmade bed. His face was bruised and bloody, and the side of his head looked like it had been bashed in with a blunt instrument. His tongue hung out of his mouth to the side, his eyes bulging open in she
er terror.

As I took in the gruesome scene, I saw a ball of fur caked in blood by Sean’s foot. Chee Chee was dead, too. I turned suddenly to run out of the apartment, breathing hard as I banged my leg into the coffee table. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone. A large shadow jumped out of the corner by the couch and suddenly a man wearing a black nylon face mask was on top of me. I hit the ground and felt his gloved hands slip around my throat as I tried to buck and twist from under his heavy weight. As we struggled, I heard the sound of running footsteps in the distance and someone callin
g my name.