Body of Evidence (Marcus Douglas 2)

Marcus sat quietly accessing the situation and weighing his options carefully. “Okay, so here’s what we need to do. When you get back to Atlanta, I want you to go and talk to Scott. We need to learn as much as possible about his relationship with Abril or Adina. We’ve got one man basically saying she was running serious game, now we need to know what the nature of her relationship with Scott was all about.”

“You think he’ll admit he was being scammed?”

“Do you think he even knows?” Marcus inquired.

As if he was pondering the question for the very first time, Garrett gazed out of the window.

“If Scott found out that she was, not only scamming him but these other guys, he might just kill her for it.”

“If the pattern continues, the same could be said for any of the men she was seeing. I mean, she was targeting these fat cats and basically milking them for tens of thousands of dollars.”

“Yeah, but notice her approach. I mean she could’ve been the type to just charge for the goods up front, you know like most women,” Garrett spat.

Marcus frowned at his comment. “Damn, Garrett, who you been running with?”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Garrett promised. When the taxi pulled up in front of his hotel, Marcus looked at Garrett and asked, “Are you going back right away?”

Garrett nodded, “Yeah, I ain’t got no reason to hang around here in the Big Apple.”

“I’ve got some additional business here,” he lied. “But I’ll be back in the office in a few days,” Marcus assured him.

“Cool, I’ll call you after you’ve talked to Scott.”

Marcus paid his fare and stood as the taxi took off to take Garrett back to the airport. He felt like a kid about to get ice cream he knew he damn well didn’t deserve. He could hardly wait for an elevator to come, so he could rush to his room and call Panthea. He missed her, and that he couldn’t deny.

Tucked away in his big ass empty room, Marcus called Panthea’s cell phone for the seventh time. “Where the hell could she be? Did she go back to that bitch-ass husband of hers?” he said, fussing out loud.

That’s how he felt about men who put their hands on women in any way other than a loving manner. He was just about to give up when Panthea finally answered. “Hello?”

“Hello, Panthea,” Marcus said.

“Hi baby,” Panthea said when she realized it was him on the other end.

“Hi yourself. I’ve been looking for you,” Marcus informed her.

“Well, you’ve found me, baby. Now the question is what exactly are you going to do with me?”

Marcus laughed. She didn’t really want him to answer that question. His mind could think of quite a few positions he’d like to see her in. But instead of saying so, he told her how he was going to make it happen.

“Why don’t you join me here in New York and find out? I can show you far better than I can tell you.”

“You want me to come to New York?” Panthea clarified.

“We could get you on a flight tonight. I just want you here,” he said and meant every word of it.

“Maybe I should call and make arrangements, and call you back,” Panthea offered, trying her best to mask both her surprise and her excitement.

“No need. I’ve already arranged for you to take a first class flight on Delta. All you need to do is show up at the airport an hour before your flight.”

“You are so good to me,” Panthea sang. “So very, very good to me.”

Marcus wondered if she could even begin to understand just how much she was beginning to mean to him.

16

When Panthea arrived at JFK, she saw a man holding a place card with her name written in small block letters. “Panthea Daniels, that’s me,” she said as she read the card a nice-looking Asian man was holding.

“Great. Follow me,” he instructed.