Beneath The Surface (23 page)

“All right,” Black said and ended the call.

Wanda put down her cell. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Marcus said before he pulled the covers over his head. He continued running his hand along Wanda’s thigh, and then gently spread her legs.

Wanda giggled. “What are you doing under there?”

“I have a meeting,” he replied and crawled between her thighs. Soon his lips and tongue where engaged with her lips and clit; slowly tonguing her lips and sucking lightly on her clit. Wanda spread her legs a little wider and held his head in place.

Marcus slid his hand along her thigh and gently pushed his finger inside her. He could feel her clit getting harder as he ran the tip of his tongue across it. Her head drifted back and she moaned her approval. Marcus heard her moans and felt her body begin to quiver. “Oh, yes! Oh my God—yes!” she screamed and quickly pulled Marcus on top of her.

“I wanna feel you inside me. I know you love this wet pussy.”

Without a word, Marcus entered her and started to move in and out of her, slowly. And before too long, Wanda wrapped her legs around his waist and began grinding her hips into him. Wanda rocked her hips furiously until they both reached a climax.

Wanda got up and quickly made her way into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and hoped Marcus wouldn’t follow her in for another round. He was fuckin’ the shit out of her. And although she loved every minute of it, she knew that if she let him, he would fuck her all day. “And what would be the harm in that,” she said and stepped in the shower. One thing she was sure of: she had definitely traded up.

When she was done with the shower, she returned to the bedroom to get dressed, and found that Marcus had gone back to sleep. Once she was dressed, she woke him up.

“Go on and get up. I’m hungry; so when you’re ready, I’ll take you to lunch,” Wanda said, and Marcus got out of bed.

“What are you hungry for, Wanda?” Marcus asked on his way to the shower.

“I have a taste for grilled North Atlantic salmon, with a sun dried tomato relish, roasted peppers, and black olive salad.”

“I take it you’ve got someplace in mind?”

“Cuisine.”

“I thought they weren’t open for lunch.”

“Chef is there by now and he’ll cook for me. I have connections, you know,” Wanda mused. “Now hurry up.”

As expected, chef was more than happy to make Wanda whatever she wanted. He made grilled Black Angus sirloin steak, with a baked potato and roasted peppers, marinated in basil, garlic and olive oil for Marcus. Shareholder litigation on managerial misconduct within corporations was the topic of their lunch discussion.

“Derivative lawsuits and federal securities class actions are a way to control the managerial agency costs, created by the separation of ownership and control in the modern corporation.”

“Yes,” Wanda said and sipped her martini, “but hopes that these suits would effectively monitor managerial misconduct have been replaced with concerns about the size of the litigation agency costs of such representative litigation.”

“However, a new form of shareholder litigation has emerged that is distinct from derivative or securities fraud claims. Now class action lawsuits filed under state law, challenges director conduct in mergers and acquisitions. The empirical data shows that these acquisition-oriented suits are now the dominant form of corporate litigation, outnumbering derivative suits by a wide margin.”

“One could argue that like with derivative suits and securities fraud class actions, good policy must balance the positive management agency cost, reducing effects of these acquisition-oriented shareholder suits against their litigation agency costs.”

As they walked out of Cuisine, Marcus put his arm around Wanda and pulled her close to him. Without really stopping to think about what she was doing or where she was, Wanda threw her arms around Marcus’s neck and kissed him.

“Hello Wanda.”

Wanda let go of Marcus and was shocked to see Nick and Rain standing in the doorway.

“Hello Nick,” Wanda said and looked over at Marcus. “Marcus Douglas, I’d like you to meet, Nick Simmons.”

Being a gentleman and not having any idea about their prior relationship, Marcus stepped forward to shake Nick’s hand. “Good to meet you, Nick.”

Nick shook his hand, but he never took his eyes off Wanda. “Can I speak with you for a minute, Wanda,” Nick said, and grabbed Wanda by the hand.

Rain looked on and could barely hold back the laughter. Marcus looked at Rain and smiled. “Hi, I’m Marcus Douglas.”

“Lorraine Robinson,” Rain said in her most ladylike manner.

Nick and Wanda didn’t get far before . . . “What are you doing here?” Nick asked.

“I’m having lunch,” Wanda replied with attitude. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Black.”

“I talked to Mike this morning. He should be in Nassau by now,” Wanda spit out and glared at Rain.

Rain smiled and looked right back at her.

“What’s really goin’ on, Wanda?” He started to say,
You
fuckin’ this nigga again,
but thought better of it. He always thought that there was something more going on between them than just the law; funny how he just shows up right after we break up. “So
you fuckin’
this nigga now?” Nick asked quietly. Now he wondered how long had it really been going on?

“You still fuckin’ that low-life bitch?” Wanda said and pointed at Rain. Only she said it loud enough for Rain to hear.

“Excuse me a minute, Marcus,” Rain said politely and stepped quickly to Wanda. “Who the fuck you callin’ a bitch,” Rain said and slapped the shit outta Wanda.

Wanda grabbed her cheek and Marcus rushed to her side.

Nick grabbed Rain.

“You fuckin’ lucky
my man
is here, bitch, or I’d be kickin’ your bitch-ass right now,” Rain shouted as Nick carried her out of Cuisine.

“You okay?” Marcus asked.

“I’m fine, Marcus.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, Marcus, I’m fine.”

“Good. Now you want to explain to me what just happened?”

“Not really, Marcus. Not right now, anyway. Let’s just get out of here,” Wanda said and led Marcus out of the supper club.

It was late in the day when Carmen got a call from Detective Mitchell. “Carmen, it’s Diane,” Mitchell said.

“Hello Diane,” Carmen said, feeling sort of lackadaisical because Black hadn’t called her like he said he would.

“You all right, honey?”

“I’m fine,” Carmen said, even though she wasn’t. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted let you know that I have some information on the women you asked me about last night.”

“That’s great.”

“Why don’t you meet me at the station and I’ll tell you about it,” Mitchell said, and Carmen agreed.

Carmen hung up the phone and got up off the couch. She made her way to the bathroom. After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Carmen caught a cab to the precinct to meet the detective.

“Thank you for coming, Carmen,” Mitchell began.

“I should be thanking you. You’re the one doing me a favor by looking into this. And besides, I wasn’t doing anything anyway.”

“Well, to start with, I found one of the women you asked me about.”

“That was fast.”

“I’m a cop, honey, I do this for livin’. Take a look at this picture.” Mitchell handed Carmen another picture. “That is Cecelia Cunningham. She had a record loitering with intent to commit prostitution and was positively identified from her fingerprints.”

“Where was this body found?” Carmen asked.

“The body was found in a dumpster in lower Manhattan, about two months ago.”

“That would be about the time she stopped dancing at Lace.”

“What’s interesting is that she was strangled.”

Carmen looked at the detective. “Coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences, Carmen. Then I came across this.” Mitchell picked up another picture. “I ran across her as a Jane Dow that matched Vallie’s description. She was involved in a hit and run. An eyewitness saw her get out of a cab and standing in the street looking kind of dazed, when she got hit by a car. What made her standout was when I read the coroner’s report. It said she had heroin in her system, which explains why she may have looked dazed. But what caught my attention was there were marks around her neck like she may have been strangled.”

Carmen looked at the picture. “But I’ve never actually seen Vallie, so I couldn’t tell you if that’s her or not.”

“It would be nice if we could get somebody to positively identify the body.”

“I may know somebody,” Carmen said and took out her cell phone. She scrolled through her calls until she got to Margaret’s number. “Margaret; it’s Carmen Taylor.”

“What you want?”

Carmen picked up on her tone. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help. The police may have found Vallie, but I’ve never seen her, so I need you to come and identify the body.”

“I’m sorry, Carmen; but I can’t help you. I shouldn’t even be talkin’ to you.”

“What’s wrong, Margaret? Did something happen?”

“Finch came by here late last night. He knows that I talked to you,” Margaret said and hung up the phone.

“Well?” Mitchell asked.

“She’s too scared to come in. She said that Finch knows that she talked to me.”

“You know anybody else who might be able to identify her?”

For a second, Carmen considered going to Jada West to see if see could identify the other body; but since she was with a cop, Carmen decided to go in a different direction. “I’m sure any one of the dancers that I talked to could identify the body.”

“Okay. That works for me.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both of these women disappeared on or around the same day, and both of them end up getting strangled; and that they both used to work at Lace with Tangela House,” Carmen said.

“Like I said, I don’t believe in coincidences. There is definitely a connection between these two and Tangela House.”

“I agree,” Carmen said.

“That’s why you’re going to tell me what Jeanette Winters said to you last night.”

“Huh?”

Mitchell smiled at Carmen. “You know, daddy always told me, if you can huh, you can hear.” Carmen smiled at Mitchell. “Come on, Carmen. By now, it should be apparent that I saw the same thing in the video that you saw. Jeanette Winters going to an area that led to the stairs that led to the office. And even though Aneisha Perry, the gallery director, lied to my face to protect her friend, and said she never saw the woman before—I’m a cop, so I still found her.”

“I knew you would,” Carmen said.

“I had her under surveillance. I was waiting for the husband to come back from his business trip. Funny thing is: my officer saw you come out, but he didn’t remember seeing you go in.”