Games Divas Play (A Diva Mystery Novel) (34 page)

CHAPTER 32

Nia

A
fter reviewing the mock-up of the Keri Hilson cover for the latest issue of the magazine, I turned back to my computer and pulled up Kalinda’s Facebook page again. It had been hard to stay focused on work today. I looked intently at the photo of the once-vibrant cheerleader, wishing her image would start talking to me so that I could figure out why Diablo Negro had Carlo
kill her.

“You still staring at the dead girl?” MJ said, strolling into my office and placing some layouts in my overflowing in-box. I filled him in on what Terrence had shared about Kareem’s possible connection to Dia
blo Negro.

“Diablo Negro? If he’s mixed up with those guys, he’s in some seri
ous shit.”

“What do you mean? And how do you e
ven know?”

“Girl, please. Those guys are bad news. I watch Lester Holt on
Dateline
. I know.”

“Oh, really,” I said, only half listening to my crazy assistant as I picked up the layout of next week’s cover story on Rihanna and began to mark the pages up with my pen. “And what exactly did Lester Holt say about Diab
lo Negro?”

“I know you’re not really listening, but I’m going to tell you anyway. So about a month ago, me and Ricardo were watching a story on
Dateline
about
this guy—”

“So this is what you and your boyfriend do on Friday nights?” I said, cutting him off and laughing. “You guys sit up in bed watching
Dateline
?”

“Look, I know now that you and Terrence are all lovey-dovey again and he’s giving it to you on the regular, but I know you aren’t trying to mock me. Whatever. Just listen to my story, dang. So, anyway, they had this story on about the Diablo cartel, but what was fascinating was the family of this guy they profiled had gone into hiding because their son had gotten mixed up with Diablo over some sports betting the kid had set up at some college down south. Anyway, the boy owed them like a ton of money, and the family had scraped it together somehow to pay Diablo, but then the cartel said they had to keep paying regardless. The family didn’t have any more money, so the kid took off running, and the Diablos came to the family and said they had to keep paying. When they refused, a couple of days later they found the boy’s sister in the trunk of a car all carved up. The reporter said that was one of the things that made this gang so vicious was that once you were tied to them, that was it. You, your family, whoever—you were bound
for life.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, looking up from my layout. “So if that’s true, then maybe with all the talk about Marcus’s possible one-hundred-fifty-million-dollar contract with the Gladiators, Kareem tried to pull away, and Diablo sent him a message by killing
Kalinda.”

“That sounds like their style,
” MJ said.

“That still doesn’t explain why they would go after Vanessa. And now what happens to someone like Kareem who no longer has access to the money he was paying Diablo?” As soon as I asked the question, a cold chill ran down my spine. I didn’t want to hear MJ
’s answer.

“Well, my guess would be that Diablo is going to find a way to get their money regardless. Those Diablo guys never back off. Kareem will have to find a way to get their money, or Mar
cus will.”

I grabbed my phone off the desk, dialed Vanessa’s cell number, and put the call on speaker while I threw my things into my handbag. After the call went straight to voice mail, I tried the ho
use phone.

“Hello, King residence,” a woman’s voice
answered.

“Hello, Nicole?” I asked. “This is Nia. Is Vanessa there?”
Please God let her
be there.

“No, I’m sorry. She just ru
shed out.”

“Is Marc
us there?”

“No, I think Mr. King is at
practice.”

“Did Vanessa say where she w
as going?”

“No, not really but . . .” The nanny’s voice trailed off. I could tell she wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure if s
he should.

“What is it, Nicole? What were you abou
t to say?”

“Well, it’s just that she looked really upset when she left. Like she had been crying. She asked me to stay with Damon until she
returned.”

“Are you sure she didn’t say anything about where she was going? Please, Nicole, try to remember. It’s i
mportant.”

“I thought I heard her mumble something about catching somebody at the Four Seasons as she headed out
the door.”

I thanked Nicole and told her to tell Vanessa to call me right away if she came back to the
apartment.

“What do you need me to do?” MJ asked as he got my coat from the closet and handed
it to me.

“Call Terrence and tell him to meet me at the Four Seasons right now,” I said as I threw my khaki trench coat on over my dress and grabbed my handbag. “I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but you don’t have to be Lester Holt to figure out it’s
not good.”

CHAPTER 33

Vanessa

P
romises
were made.

Tears began to stream down my cheeks behind my sunglasses. Slipping the steel-plated gun out of my pocket, I stepped out of the shadows and raised the gun level with his broad muscled back like they taught me at the gun range in Phoenix. I could barely see his dark head as he moved up and down while thrusting into her, so I knew it would be easier to hit him in the back. I was glad I couldn’t see his face, because that might have s
topped me.

I pulled the trig
ger twice.

After all, promises
were made.

One bullet hit him in his shoulder and the other in his lower back. Laila screamed as his body slumped down on top of her. As she screamed and tried to push Marcus off her, I moved to get a better sh
ot at her.

“No, please! No, please don’t shoot!”
Laila begged, her voice quivering as she saw me step out from th
e shadows.

“No, Vanessa! Please, no!”
She struggled to pull the bedsheet stained with his dark red blood up around her naked body. I wanted to tell her it was much too late fo
r modesty.

I raised the gun again and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Laila right above her left eyebrow, and her head slammed back against the large leather quilted headboard with the force of the bullet. A single trail of blood began to stream down
her face.

It
was done.

As the enormity of what I had done started to creep into my consciousness, my body shook and I dropped the gun on the floor. A low guttural animal scream sounded as I fell onto the floor. It was me. I had killed my husband and his
mistress.

Suddenly the bedroom doors burst open. When I whirled around to see if it was the police, I saw Tyson and Bruce walking toward me. One scooped up the gun off the floor and then began to make his way over t
o the bed.

“No! Don’t touch him,” I screamed as he went over to the side of the bed and felt Marcus’s neck for a pulse. I tried to run over to the bed, but Tyson held me firmly around the waist and lifted me off the ground. As he carried me out of the room, I screamed for Marcus. When we reached the elevator, Tyson put me down on the ground, and, keeping his viselike arm around my waist, he shoved a hard piece of metal in my side and looked at me. His hard black eyes glinted with menace, and his lips were twisted i
n a snarl.

“Shut your fucking mouth. We’re walking out of this hotel. If you make one fucking sound, I’ll put a bullet in your head just like you did to Laila in there, and then I’ll go to your home and do the same to Damon. Do you understand?” Hearing my son’s name, a fresh stream of tears fell down my face, and my legs suddenly felt weak. I shook my head vigorously, my eyes wide with fear. Where was he going t
o take me?

The elevator arrived, and we rode down to the lobby in silence. As the doors opened, he shoved the gun hard into my side again and secured his arm around
my waist.

“Now, walk through this lobby and out the front door like everythin
g is just fine,” Tyson snarled as we began to walk across the marble floor. No one seemed to notice us, and as we passed the front desk again, Christian’s head was down, so even he didn’t see me leave the
building.

We stepped outside, and he walked me over to the waiting black limousine where Alex was holding the door open. When Tyson shoved me into the backseat, I fell onto the floor of the car as he climbed in next to me. Alex quickly closed the door and then walked around to the driver’s side and got in. The car began to pull away from the hotel. I regained my balance and climbed back onto the seat when I heard another voice i
n the car.

“Vanessa?”

I pushed my hair out of my eyes and took off my sunglasses so that I could adjust my vision inside the car’s dark
interior.

Across from me at the end of the car’s cabin was Marcus. His hands were bound in front of him in black plastic handcuffs. Another heavyset man sat next to him with a gun pressed into
his side.

Suddenly both men took out black hoods and, putting them over our heads, ordered us not to talk as the car continued on to its de
stination.

CHAPTER 34

Nia

A
s the cab came to a screeching halt across the street from the Four Seasons, I saw a line of police cars, two ambulances, and a couple of local news trucks parked in front. I shoved some money over the seat at the driver and got out of the cab. Dodging cars, I quickly crossed the four lanes of traffic on Fifty-Seventh Street and saw Terrence pacing in front of the hotel as cops ran in and out of the
building.

“Terrence!” I yelled through tears as I made my way ov
er to him.

“Nia, it’s not pretty,” he said to me as I rushed onto the crowded sidewalk in front of the hotel, thinking my best friend
was dead.

Just as I turned to ask Terrence this question, a line of officers began shouting to clear the sidewalk of onlookers who had gathered on both sides of the entrance. Terrence flashed his DA badge and took me inside the lobby, which had been cleared of all the guests. The elevator doors opened, and two paramedics came out with a body covered with a wh
ite sheet.

“Oh my God. Vanessa!” My hand flew up to cover my mouth. I tried to run over to the body, but Terrence hel
d me back.

“It’s not what you think, Nia!” he said as I struggled against him. “It’s not
Vanessa.”

As his words penetrated my thoughts, Terrence flashed his badge at the paramedics and walked over to look at the body. He lifted up the sheet. I braced myself before looking down. It was Laila with a single bullet hole in her forehead. Her face, once beautiful, was twisted into a macabre mask. Her eyes were wide open, displaying the paralyzed fear she must have felt in her last moments. Blood ran down her face and into her long stre
aked hair.

My mind raced. Had Vanessa killed Laila? How had she even known she was going to be at the hotel? Was she with Marcus? I didn’t want to believe that he would cheat on Vanessa after all they had been through, but what else could have
happened?

“Who killed Laila?” I asked as Terrence lowered the sheet back over her face and the paramedics made their way out of the hotel to the waiting medical examine
r’s truck.

“That’s what I want to ask this guy,” Terrence said, gesturing toward the elevator doors, which had just opened. The police escorted out a man on a stretcher. He was naked from the waist up with a swath of white gauze and tape across his shoulder and his rib cage. A paramedic trailed alongside, carrying an IV attached to a needle in the man’s arm. His other arm was handcuffed to the
stretcher.

As the stretcher made its way across the lobby, the man raised his head and our
eyes met.

It w
as Kareem.

Dazed by his wounds, Kareem didn’t speak as the police rolled him out the front door of the hotel to the waiting ambulance. As he hit the curb, news reporters, cameramen, and photographers surged forward, shouting questions and snapping
pictures.

A police detective in a tired brown suit and faded yellow shirt walked back into the building and headed toward
Terrence.

“Nice night for a murder, huh, Terrence?” the detective asked as he shook Terrence’s hand. “What brings the DA’s office out
tonight?”

“A high-profile murder in one of the city’s best hotels always gets on our radar. You know the mayor’s going to be all over this one. What do you have so far, D
etective?”

“Well, we need to do some forensics, but on the surface it looks like a lover’s spat. Found the vic naked in the bed, single gunshot wound to the head. The perpetrator, also naked, was sprawled out on the floor with two wounds, one in the shoulder and one in the lower back. Found one gun at t
he scene.”

The detective held up a dark blue NYPD evidence bag and pulled out a plastic bag with a nine-millimeter g
un inside.

“Looks like they may have struggled over the gun and both got shot, but we’ll see what ballistics
confirms.”

“No witnesses?” Terre
nce asked.

“We still need to take a bunch of statements from the hotel staff and some of the guests, but so far no one recalls anything
unusual.”

“Thanks, Detective. Keep me posted.” Terrence steered me out of the lobby back out onto the street, and over to his wa
iting car.

“Do you think that detective was right?” I asked as he held the passenger side door open and I slipped into the f
ront seat.

“I don’t know. We’ll see what the tests say, but that still doesn’t explain where Vanessa is and why she came to th
is hotel.”

“What if Diablo Negro was waiting for her here?” I closed my eyes, fearful that my friend had been abducted by the vicious cartel. Vanessa didn’t deserve this. She was just getting her life and her marriage back on track. Terrence reached across the seat of the car to gra
b my hand.

“She’s going to be OK, Nia. We’re going to find her. Let’s head back to the apartment and wait until she co
mes home.”

Just then my cell phone rang. I dug frantically in my bag, hoping it was Vanessa, but when I looked at the screen, I saw it was the offic
e calling.

“Hello?” I answered abruptly, thinking it was probably just MJ checking in to see if we’d foun
d Vanessa.

“Hey, Nia,” said MJ. “Did you find
Vanessa?”

“No, not yet. Did she try to call th
e office?”

“No, but I have an idea about how you may be able to find her. Let me call you back.” When the line went dead, I told Terrence what MJ
had said.

Terrence pulled the car over when MJ called back fifteen minutes later. I put the call on speaker so that he could hear the con
versation.

“OK, I called over to Miki Woods’s office and spoke with one of the producers on Marcus and Vanessa’s new show that I’m friendly with. And he told me that as part of our production plans, they sometimes have the crews trail the subjects to capture them without knowing they’re being filmed so they act really natural. Sometimes they end up using the footage in the show or use it for focus-group testing. So the crew has been watching Vanessa and Marcus for a few days now, just catching them out running errands, nothing major or too inva
sive but—”

“MJ, did they have a crew on them tonight?” I asked, cuttin
g him off.

“Yes, girl. The producer said that her team had just sent an update saying that they followed a limousine that had both Marcus and Vanessa in the back out to a warehouse in Rahway, New Jersey. They had to leave to head back to the city for anoth
er shoot.”

“MJ, you’re the best!” I exclaimed. “E-mail me the directions to the w
arehouse.”

“Already done, boss lady. Let me know what you
find out.”

“Th
anks, MJ!”

Terrence grabbed his cell phone after I hung up and put his own call on speaker as he whipped the car around in the middle of the street and headed across town to the Linco
ln Tunnel.

“Lee Howard,” a deep gravelly voice growled when the call
connected.

“Lee, it’s
Terrence.”

“What’s up, man? Long time no hear now that you wear a suit for a living.” The voice chuckled on the other end of
the line.

“Very funny, Lee. Look, I’ve got a possible hostage situation with a high-value target at a warehouse in Rahway, New Jersey. I believe they are being held by Diab
lo Negro.”

“Sounds like my kind of party,” Lee said, his deep voice perking up with
interest.

“That’s exactly why I called you ex–Navy Seals guys instead of my boys in NYPD. I need a team with special–forces type experience. Who’s working tonight? I need your best crash team to meet me out there stat. They’re going to need to come in heavy, but we need the high-value targets alive. No
mistakes.”

“No problem. I’ve got the perfect team. They’ve been pulling most of the antiterrorism raids throughout the tri-state but nothing much lately, so they’ll be happy to have some real fun for
a change.”

“Again, brother. We need the targets alive, a husband and wife. I’ll share more details when you guys g
et there.”

“No problem. We’re on our way.” The phone line
went dead.