Games Divas Play (A Diva Mystery Novel)

by Angela Burt-Murray

  “How is it having the cameras following you, Kim Kardashian?”

  “Whatever, heffa. It was hard at first, but honestly now it’s like I forget they are even there.”

  “OK, but don’t let me turn on the show and see your ass throwing drinks in folks’ faces and pulling out weaves and ish like those other reality shows,” I joked as she placed her American Express black card on top of the bill.

  “Never that. Always classy.”

  “Yes, that you are, my dear. And I have to thank you again for approaching Miki about doing the show and telling her it was my idea. What made you do that?”

  “I felt bad about deceiving you in Phoenix about the cover story on the pregnancy announcement. You put your job on the line for me, so I thought if there was a way for me to save your job, I should do it.”

  “And it didn’t hurt that you killed Laila’s show in the process, right?” I looked at her underneath my lowered lashes as she smirked while signing the credit card slip for dinner.

  “Well, I never explicitly told Miki she needed to cancel Laila’s show. I think she saw the merits on her own of signing our show and cutting Laila loose, especially after I told her that I’d hate to have to include her and the network in a suit against Laila for causing me to lose my baby.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember at the gala when you were trying to pull me away from the fight and suddenly I fell back into the crowd?”

  “Yeah . . . I always thought someone stepped on your dress.”

  “I fell because something pulled me back onto the ground. At first I thought maybe someone had stepped on my dress, too, but when I replayed that image over in my mind, I remember seeing Laila skulking around on the ground and going to crawl under a table. I know that bitch pulled me down, and after I told Miki to check all of her camera footage, she seemed to see things my way.”

  “Wow, no wonder she was so eager to get that deal done and cut ties with Laila. A lawsuit would have been a huge black eye for the network and likely ended her career.”

  “Exactly. And following my plan, everybody wins.”

  “I ain’t mad at your gangsta, girl,” I said, raising my glass to her again before taking a sip. “But, speaking of Laila, there’s one thing I’ve never been able to figure out.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, putting her credit card back into her wallet.

  “What were you doing at the Four Seasons?” I said. Just as the detective had said, Kareem’s prints were the only ones found on the gun, and he told the prosecutor that it was a lover’s quarrel between the two of them, but I still had my suspicions that wasn’t the whole truth.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that Diablo’s crew happened to snatch you up in front of the same hotel where someone had just killed your husband’s former mistress?”

  As I braced myself for my best friend’s answer, Vanessa took her black Prada makeup bag out of her navy-blue Dior handbag and removed her gold compact and lip gloss, and then touched up her lips in the mirror.

  “No comment,” she said as she snapped the compact closed and dropped everything back in her bag, leaned over and kissed me, and then slid out of the booth and headed for the door, toward the waiting cameras.

  Turning the key in the lock of my apartment door, I could see that thanks to the efforts of Denise and her team at the Organized Home, my apartment no longer looked like the war zone I had left this morning. All of the boxes were sealed, labeled, and stacked neatly in the hallway, ready to be shipped out in the morning. So just as she had promised, all I needed to do was focus on packing an overnight bag and my toiletries. I wonder what it would cost to have this woman run every aspect of my life.

  Just as I had taken off my clothes and changed into a pair of black leggings and an old Harvard T-shirt, the doorbell rang. I padded down the hallway in my bare feet, thinking it had to be someone from Denise’s team with a last-minute job since the doorman hadn’t buzzed to announce a visitor. When I opened the door, a large white bag of Chinese food greeted me. I couldn’t see his face behind the bag, but I recognized my deliveryman immediately.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, smiling happily as Terrence lowered the bag and leaned in to kiss me. “I thought you weren’t going to be back from DC until later.”

  “We wrapped up early, so I jumped on the shuttle to get back and help you pack and feed you dinner. But it looks like you don’t need me. Nice job.” Terrence followed me down the hallway past neat rows of boxes into the living room.

  “Well, it’s very kind of you, but as you can see, for once I’ve got everything under control. And I already ate.”

  “Well, then you won’t mind if I eat. I’m starving. Haven’t eaten all day,” Terrence said as he took a seat on the couch, opened the bag, and set out a couple of white takeout containers on the coffee table.

  I curled up next to him on the couch and reached for a fortune cookie, but he swatted my hand away.

  “No food, no fortune. It’s bad luck,” he said, separating the wooden chopsticks and diving into his kung pao chicken.

  “Where the hell did you get that from? You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said, laughing as I threw my legs across his lap and put my arms around his waist and nibbled on his ear.

  “I thought you said you weren’t hungry,” Terrence said, moaning as my tongue traveled down his neck and my hand began to unbutton his shirt.

  “I said I already ate. But I didn’t say I wasn’t hungry,” I said, laughing softly. “But I’ll let you finish so you can get your strength up.”

  “Oh, so it’s like that. You’re just going to tease a brother and then try to send him back to his food?” Terrence put his chopsticks down, flipped me onto the couch, and laid his body on top of mine. His lips were hot and wet along my neck.

  “I was just trying to help you out,” I said as he reached under my thin T-shirt and found my breast. I moaned and closed my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Suddenly he sat back up on the couch and returned to his food.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I should eat first,” he smirked, shoving some rice in his mouth as he watched me pull my shirt down and struggle to sit up on the couch.

  “You’ll pay for that later,” I said playfully, punching him on the arm.

  “Promise?”

  “Oh, I promise. So how was the Diablo meeting in Washington?” I sat up and picked at a spicy pepper over his shoulder and popped it into my mouth.

  “Good meeting. We reviewed our entire case on Diablo with the FBI team, and they are going to give us all the resources we need to build an airtight case for kidnapping, racketeering, and drug smuggling. Quadron’s operation is vast and growing. They deal in marijuana and opium poppy, grown mainly in the mountains of southwest Mexico. They also control the meth traffic. Pablo Quadron is the brother of Geraldo Quadron, the head of the Diablo Negro family, and he’s been responsible for their other side businesses—sports betting, sex trafficking, and their expansion into meth. The FBI and DEA have been after the major players in Diablo for years and considered them one of their biggest threats, calling them a clear and present danger to America and its citizens. Pablo Quadron alone is believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, including at least fifteen DEA agents. He’s a big fish, and we got him.”

  “I’m proud of you, baby,” I said, planting a kiss on his cheek as I breathed yet another sigh of relief that he and his team made it out of that warehouse alive. Seeing him run out of there pulling Marcus and Vanessa along had been the happiest sight of my life.

  “And is Kareem talking yet? Will he testify against Diablo?”

  Kareem had kept his silence and refused to answer any questions about Diablo when Terrence and the prosecutor tried to question him with his lawyer after hi
s arrest. Even when the district attorney intimated there was the potential of a lighter sentence for helping the state build its case against the drug cartel, he still refused.

  “Unfortunately, Kareem won’t be saying anything to anyone anymore. He was found dead in Rikers yard this morning. He was lying on the weight bench and someone dropped a hundred-pound weight on his face and neck.”

  “Oh my God . . .” My hand flew up to my mouth. I knew Terrence had questioned Vanessa about why she went to the Four Seasons that night but hadn’t gotten any further than I had with her at our dinner tonight. And I knew we were both thinking the same thing right now: with Kareem dead, no one could ever point the finger at Vanessa for Laila’s murder. “Do they know who did it?”

  “Of course no one is talking, but I’ve got to believe it’s Diablo. But there’s no way right now to tie them to Kareem’s murder.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “We’ll continue to build our case and prosecute both Pablo and John.” Terrence finished his meal and put the containers back into the bag and then fell back against the couch.

  “And what will be your involvement?” I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

  “On the flight back, my boss, District Attorney Kimberly Williams, told me she wanted me to lead the prosecution.”

  “Oh my God, that’s huge, Terrence! I’m so proud of you. This is going to be the case that makes your career and leads to the district attorney’s office, something you’ve always wanted.” Even as I said the words, I felt myself deflating because I knew this case would consume him for months and require all of his time and attention. Where would that leave us? It was bad enough that I was going to be living in DC for several months and traveling back and forth, but this was too much.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he said lifting my chin, which had dropped down to my chest as I played with the hem of my T-shirt.

  “Nothing. I’m really happy for you. This is big.” I looked around the apartment at all the boxes packed and ready to go to Washington, wondering why it seemed like we were always moving in opposite directions.

  “Yes, it’s big, but it’s not bigger than us.” He lifted my chin with his finger, and the dark brown eyes, framed by endless lashes, that I loved looking into had a seriousness that wasn’t there before. “Nothing is bigger than us, and nothing is getting in the way, Nia.” He dipped his head down and kissed me. His tongue searched for mine as he pushed me back down onto the couch.

  I curled my arms around his neck and sighed deeply.

  “I love you, Terrence,” I said, willing myself to believe that we could make a long-distance relationship work during the busiest time of both of our careers.

  “I love you, too, Nia. Nothing is going to come between us. Now about that promise you made earlier . . .”

  Special Preview Chapter from upcoming Capitol Diva

  CHAPTER 1

  She could hear the sounds of the party through the vent. The tinkling of laughter, deep self-important voices, champagne glasses clinking, and a jazz quartet playing softly.

  It was all so civilized. Unlike what was happening to her.

  The sharp blade of the man’s knife moved along her trembling inner thigh as the man’s ragged breathing quickened. She turned her throbbing head to the side and closed her eyes tight against the sight of him pushing her legs apart on the hard wooden desk. As tears ran down the side of her swollen face, she felt two more pairs of hands holding her body down, one at her shoulders and the other at her feet, pawing at what was left of the dress she had borrowed from Nia and ripping away the shreds of once-beautiful red velvet fabric. There was no use crying out now. Not that she could anyway; they had started by breaking her jaw.

  Through her hazy consciousness, she heard the band stop playing, and with the sound of polite applause, she knew that the black-tie members of Washington’s elite were now taking their seats at their $50,000 tables in the hotel’s grand ballroom. It was time for this evening’s program to begin to kick off the annual African American Congressional Caucus weekend.

  They heard the music stop, too, so the men knew unfortunately they would not be able to savor the capture of their prey tonight. One of them was now inside her, grunting. He grabbed at her hair to pull her close to the face that she had always thought so handsome but was now twisted into an unrecognizable mask of hate as he spat guttural curses in her ear. The other two men lowered the zippers on their tuxedo pants as they growled at him to hurry up so that they could have their turn. They knew there wasn’t much time left; if they weren’t back in that ballroom soon, they would certainly be missed.

  As she began to lose consciousness for the last time, she heard through the vent the announcement that everyone in the ballroom had been waiting for all night.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the president of the United States.” As the band began to play the thunderous tones of “Hail to the Chief,” the audience rose once again to applaud.

  Photo © Exhale TV

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Angela Burt-Murray is the cofounder of CocoaFab.com, former editor in chief of Essence magazine, and a self-confessed cupcake and reality TV junkie. She is the cohost of the talk show Exhale and coauthor of the humor book The Angry Black Woman’s Guide to Life and the novel The Vow. She resides in Atlanta with her husband, Leonard; two sons, Solomon and Ellison; and a ridiculously lazy bulldog named Cosby.