Free Love After All by Celeste O. Norfleet

talk about this when I get back. My flight’s about to take off.”
    â€œYour flight? What flight? You can’t leave. You need to go back to that hotel and wait until he contacts you. Stay as long as it takes,” Marcus demanded. “You can’t just walk away and leave. We need those original documents.”
    â€œYes, I realize that, but I waited for twenty-four hours. That’s enough patience. If this person wants payment he’s going to have to contact me again.”
    â€œThose documents could ruin this company, and you decide that a few more days aren’t worth your time?”
    â€œI didn’t say that. Apparently, whoever this person is wants to play games, but if he wants payment he’s going to have to meet me face-to-face. I’m through playing his game.”
    â€œAnd what about the company? If word gets out—”
    â€œThe company will be fine.”
    â€œMy reputation is on the line.”
    â€œYou should have considered that before you started all this.”
    â€œIt’s well and good for you to say that now that you’ve enjoyed the bounty that my actions provided. I did it for us, for this company, for you.”
    â€œYou did it for yourself.”
    â€œThat’s your mother talking,” Marcus declared.
    â€œDon’t bring her into this, she has nothing to do with it.”
    â€œBe that as it may, she was right there by my side every step of the way.”
    â€œI won’t get into this with you right now. It’s his move, we’ll just have to wait to see what happens next.”
    â€œWe can’t afford to just sit around and wait.”
    â€œCorrection, you can’t afford to wait. I can.”
    Jackson closed his cell phone and put it in his shirt pocket. He took a deep breath and turned to look out the window.
    As always, their conversation had ended abruptly. Jackson took a sip of his beer. He looked back over to the bar. A different bartender was there, laughing and talking to a few patrons at the counter.
    The perfumed-scented air, now completely faded and obscured by cigarette smoke, had dissipated, but Jackson smiled remembering the woman who had sat at the table. She, whoever she was, was the one bright moment in an otherwise disappointing and dismal trip, and now he was more than glad to be headed back home.
    Â 
    Transformed, she was the profiled epitome of executive style. Samantha, now completely reinvented in a stylish Suzi White business suit, four-inch Manolo Blahnik heels and designer reading glasses, sat in her first-class seat with the latest editions of Architectural Digest magazine and Computer Today on her lap. She flipped through the pages as her thoughts centered on her task. She steeled her courage as she focused on what she needed to do. Patiently, she waited for her part to begin.
    As she glanced around the cabin, she remembered her last experience in first-class. It involved her brother, a banker, a baseball player, his agent and a large endowment to her education fund, which was eventually paid in full, compliments of her brother, who had simply asked her to do him a favor and she did.
    The thought immediately made her smile. Where her father had mastered the jaunty carefree life of the con, her half brother, Jefferson, seven years her senior, had achieved flawless perfection. Like a Hollywood mogul, he directed, produced and wrote everything from start to finish. Every character and mark played right into his hands. And like a chess master he was twenty-five moves ahead before anyone even sat down to play.
    And as with his skill, everything worked in timely fashion, perfect precision, and everyone walked away either richer, wiser or wishing that they’d never gotten up that morning. But no one complained. How could they? Greed had a way of making a point.
    That was the last time she saw her brother. She heard that he had retired and was off to places unknown, doing exactly what we