Games Divas Play (A Diva Mystery Novel) (4 page)

“So why are you calling me from a new phone number?
” I asked.

“Kareem got me yet another cell phone,” Vanessa said, sighing into
the phone.

“Kareem is still on the payroll? I thought you were going to get Marcus to fire him and get a new agent? I know that’s your man cousin and all, but he has no business managing Marcus’s career. He’s
so shady.”

“Girl, don’t I wish. You know I want that bastard out of our lives, but he’s fam, and if I learned nothing from Marcus during our marriage, don’t nothing come between him and his boy.” Basketball players were notorious for carrying childhood friends and family members on the payroll, but Marcus had upgraded his cousin to agent/manager, giving him a damn near twenty-four-hour presence in Vanessa and Marcus’s marriage. A former basketball star himself, he had grown up with Marcus. The two of them actually looked more like brothers than cousins with the same six-foot-five frame, ebony skin tone, and lean, muscled athle
tic build.

“OK, forget Kareem. This is like your third new phone number in the last six months. What’s Kareem u
p to now?”

“Kareem says it’s a new security thing with us moving to New York. I’ll explain when you get here. Look, I’ve got to bounce and take Damon to his doctor’s appointment. I’ll call you as soon as I speak with DeAnna. Hopefully you guys can get on the phone togeth
er today.”

“I really appreciate this, V. Honestly, you have
no idea.”

“No doubt, girl. We always have each other’s backs. You just hurry up and get your butt to
New York.”

She laughed, and then her voice turned serious. “After all, I need my best friend in the same city if I’m going to survive the concret
e jungle.”

CHAPTER
2

Vanessa

M
arcus!”

“Marcus!”

“M
rs. King!”

“Marcus and Mrs. King! Over here
, please!”

The flashing cameras and the bright lights from all the TV crews were blinding. I tried to put my head down and into Marcus’s back while he clutched my hand as we made our way through the scream
ing crowd.

I couldn’t remember the last time he hel
d my hand.

I could smell the hypnotic scent of his Prada cologne through the dark gray wool of his double-breasted Zegna suit, which was complemented by a crisp white-and-black pinstripe shirt with French cuffs, gleaming onyx cuff links, and an ebony silk tie. My man looked like $150 million and worth every penny the New York Gladiators were p
aying him.

And I was holding my own today if I did say
so myself.

At twenty-eight, and after giving birth to our son, Damon, I could still turn a brother’s head with my lush curves, tiny waist, and full breasts that stood at attention. My milk-chocolate skin gleamed with Donna Karan body-sparkle lotion. A bright red silk Roland Mouret off-the-shoulder knit dress hugged my Coke-bottle curves that would make Pam Grier look anorexic in comparison. I paired the dress with black patent leather Jimmy Choo platform stilettos. Walter, my hairstylist, had slicked back my thick jet-black shoulder-length hair into a chic high ponytail with a pompadour that elongated my features. My favorite makeup artist, Kiki, who had come to our apartment at what seemed like the crack of dawn, had done her magic, too. I inherited my mother’s flawless deep mocha skin, so Kiki opted for Bobbi Brown’s ultrasheer foundation and highlighted my high, sharp cheekbones with a shimmery bronzer. My eyes, large dark brown pools flecked with hints of gold in the light, were accented with smoky shades of honey gold and warm brown. Kiki added a few silky lashes in the corners for pop and arched my thick black eyebrows to perfection. For my lips, she finished with a matte crimson shade from Dior that was a bit brighter than I’d normally choose, but today was a very special
occasion.

We were aiming for the stage in the front of the Madison Square Garden pressroom where Gladiator owner Davis Jennings, Coach Brad Townsend, and Kareem stood applauding at the front of the room. As we tried to weave our way through the throng of screaming reporters, I smoothed down the front of my dress and silently prayed that my hair would stay in place with the rising heat in the tiny room. I have hair like Oprah; it’s superthick and seems to grow overnight. Everyone thinks it’s a weave, and sometimes it has a mind of its own, so hopefully Walter had used enough pomade to keep my edges in place. The last thing I needed was photos of raggedy flyaways in the front of my hairline to pop up on those nasty gos
sip blogs.

The Madison Square Garden pressroom was packed, as well it
should be.

After all, the King had finally come to
New York.

Marcus’s trade to the struggling New York franchise had been speculated about for months. He was billed as the silver bullet that would bring a championship to the Big Apple, and the entire city—from the mayor, to the tourism board, and fans posting videos on YouTube—had been pushing for him to come. And I was, too. It was time for a fresh start, not only for Marcus’s career but also for our marriage. It was time to leave the scandal
behind us.

Marcus and I had been so happy in the beginning of our marriage. We met our junior year at Inglewood High School. He was the star basketball player and had all the girls chasing after him, but I played it cool. After all, I was fine as hell and had all the boys sniffing around me, so there was no need to chase. Once I decided to give him the time of day, there were immediate sparks. He was fine and he knew it. I was cute and I knew it. But the first night we met, we talked forever, and it was as if everyone at the school faded away. He was tall with smooth dark skin, cheekbones that could cut glass, full juicy lips, sexy hooded ebony eyes framed by impossibly long lashes, and a smooth, confident walk that looked like a panther’s. He approached me in the school hallway and without comment walked me away from the guy who had been trying to spit some tired game. I was hooked and h
e knew it.

I had always been focused on my classes and getting out of Inglewood as quickly as possible, but I hadn’t counted on falling in love with Marcus. We tried to see each other as often as we could, but with his rigorous practice schedule and my mom keeping me on lock with my studies, it was tough. His cousin and best friend, Kareem, was also on the team. Handsome basketball stars who looked as if they could have been brothers, the two of them ran our school. I could tell Kareem didn’t like that Marcus and I had started dating. I was standing in the way of him and his boy and the harem of girls that seemed to trail them in the hallways Monday through Friday. Kareem ate up the attention, but Marcus soon had eyes only for me. Kareem couldn’t understand why he settled for one girl. I’m sure he had hoped after graduation things would cool off when we all headed off to college, but th
ey didn’t.

After we graduated, Marcus and Kareem went to UCLA, and I flew east to Harvard with dreams of becoming a child psychologist. A long-distance relationship was tough, but Marcus and I made it work. One night when Marcus and I returned to his dorm after I had managed to scrounge up enough money to fly home to LA to celebrate his birthday, Kareem had left a little present of his own: a buxom blond stripper wearing nothing but Marcus’s game jersey in his bed. Marcus tried to get me to laugh off what he said was Kareem’s little prank as he pushed the pouting girl out of his room, but from that moment on, Kareem was officially on my shit list. So when Marcus came out of UCLA as a first-round draft pick for the Phoenix Lasers and named Kareem as his new agent, I wasn’t happy that he was going to continue to be a part of our lives. A car accident had ended Kareem’s college ball career a few months earlier, and Marcus was determined that he and his cousin would live their NBA dream together, so I kept my m
outh shut.

Marcus felt like he owed Kareem since he wasn’t able to get to the pros li
ke he did.

I always suspected that Kareem was shady, but every time I tried to talk to Marcus about my concerns, he shut me down. He just couldn’t or wouldn’t see that Kareem didn’t have our best interests at heart, and I knew someone else could have done a better job managing him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been stealing money from us, but there was no way to tell, because Kareem had a tight grip on our finances. Even during our quarterly financial review with Kareem, I was never quite sure how much Marcus had made and how much was going out. Marcus only halfway paid attention, so he was not even concerned that something could
be wrong.

We were excited that he had finally achieved his dream of playing in the NBA. We knew we wanted to get married eventually, but right before the draft our senior year, I found out I was pregnant and Marcus was adamant that we get married right away. We didn’t want our child to grow up without a father in his life, so we went down to the justice of the peace that summer and got married right after he signed his contract with the Lasers. We moved to Phoenix, and our little prince, Damon Marcus King, was born six months later. Our little family was complete. And I prayed we would always be t
hat happy.

As soon as we moved to Phoenix, the other NBA wives tried to school me in the treacherous realities of being married to a professional athlete. And while I listened patiently, I believed that Marcus loved me too much to succumb to the groupies who would be lying in wait in every city to which they traveled. I learned the way the game was played. These tricks, white, black, Latina, Asian, Martian, whatever, were relentless in their pursuit of our men. And thanks to sites like Balleralert, those hookers could track their movements, share their hookup tips, and post their freaky sexcapades with players. Not to mention the whores that would flash their bare vayjayjays from the stands as players ran up and down the basketball court, and the bitches that would bribe a hotel housekeeper to let them into a player’s room and would lie naked across his bed, willing to do whatever he wanted after a game on the road. I heard so many unbelievable groupie-gone-wild stories from the other NBA wives that my guard was up even though I thought that wouldn’t ever be something we would have to deal with. I trusted Marcus, and I knew he
loved me.

For the first four years of our marriage, we were blissfully happy. I stayed home and raised Damon, putting aside my career dreams and telling myself my priority should be my family. I traveled with Marcus as much as I could, but three years ago I started to notice a change in Marcus as his star really began to rise and the pressure on his career increased along with the temptations. It seemed like everyone wanted a piece of my husband. Whether it was the media dissecting and critiquing every step he made on the court on
SportsCenter
, the coaching staff pushing him and his teammates to bring home a championship, or other players in the league trying to make a name for themselves by talking trash to or about him on court and in their own interviews, the pressure was intense. The worst for me was the chatter on the blogs. Instead of covering Hollywood’s leading men, they soon wanted to cover nothing but basketball players, their million-dollar contracts, lavish lifestyles, and sexcapades. The attention was relentless as the sites posted every picture they could get and featured straight-up lies speculating about players’ relationships, marriages, and sexuality. It was a dirty business. I tried to stop reading them, but of course whenever friends and family members saw something about Marcus, they always forwarded the li
nks to me.

As the years went on, I tried to hold things down at home. But during the season, it seemed like he was barely home, and when he was, he was distant and short with me. I wanted to have another baby, but Marcus kept saying it wasn’t the right time. It seemed like what media thought of him meant more to him than what I or his son did. Sometimes when Marcus was on the road, I tried to call him in the middle of the night to make sure everything was OK. When I couldn’t reach him, I’d reach out to Kareem, who was always traveling with his one and only client, and then I’d get a call back from Marcus with some excuse about missing my call while in the shower. I didn’t want to believe what my instincts were trying to tell me, but when photos of Marcus and beautiful women at nightclubs began popping up on the gossip blogs, I knew I could no longer ignore what I felt. When I questioned what was going on, he denied he was having affairs. But when my husband stopped trying to have sex with me, especially after he’d been on the road, I knew he had to be getting it from
somewhere.

I thought about hiring a private detective, but I was afraid the tabloids would find out, so I knew I had to figure it out on my own. My first stop was Marcus’s cell phone, which wasn’t easy to get because he kept it attached to his body like an extra kidney. He jumped whenever it buzzed with an incoming text message or ran across the room to retrieve it whenever it rang. He even took it into the bathroom with him when he showered, claiming he was expecting an important call from the coach or Kareem. So one night while he was sleeping, I went looking for
his phone.

He had long since stopped charging it on the nightstand next to our bed, so the first place I looked was on top of the island dresser in his huge walk-in closet, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t think he would take a chance of it being too far away, so I took my own phone out of the pocket of my robe and dialed his number. When the call connected, I heard a faint buzzing sounding in the closet. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from before his voice mail picked up, so I hung up and called again as I walked around the closet, pushing back the hundreds of shirts, jackets, and suits hanging along the walls. The buzzing was getting louder, so I knew I was close. As I made my way to the very back of his walk-in closet, the noise seemed to come from the ground. Pushing my way through a wall of heavy suits and pushing aside rows of pristine size-sixteen sneakers, I found the phone stuffed into the toe of one of his Nikes. The cord to the charger snaked out of the side of the phone and plugged into an outlet on the bottom of the wall. He must have just had that installed, as I didn’t remember there being outlets in the back of t
he closet.

Shaking and fearful of what I might find, I began my search. His phone was locked, so I tried a bunch of codes: his birthday, Damon’s birthday, my birthday, and our wedding anniversary. On the last try before the phone locked, I input his team number twice: 2323—after all, life had been all about him for quite some time. The phone
unlocked.

I scrolled through his text messages and saw that most of his correspondence with his teammates, Kareem, and family members was fine. A number I didn’t recognize appeared in his phone log and text screen, but the messages were deleted. With no way to retrieve the deleted messages, I decided I had no choice but to call the number. I pushed the button to dial the unfamiliar number and held my breath as I put the phone to my ear. It rang twice, and then a woman’s husky voice answered. The voice was low and sexy, and I doubted it was because she had been sleeping; this was probably how she sounded every time my husband c
alled her.

“Hey, baby. Did you wake up in the middle of the night thinking
about me?”

I could barely catch my breath as I clutched the phone
to my ear.

“Baby, are you there?” she asked. “Marcus, you woke me up, so I hope you’re going to at least give me some hot phone sex to hold me over unt
il Miami.”