What You Don't Know, page 4
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Bridget Johnson: Farrah never introduced us to him. I mean, we heard about him, but only snippets. And the snippets were … not good. I guess he’d been in jail a few times for battery and assault. He definitely didn’t sound like a good guy.
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Chloe Marston: A volatile relationship? Oh, yeah. Totally. They’d break up, get back together, break up, get back together. She said he never got physically abusive, and I never saw him hit her or anything, so I can’t speak to that, but he was definitely verbally abusive. I absolutely saw that.
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Laila Amari: Farrah was confident in just about every aspect of her life. Incredibly intelligent and kind, a loyal friend. But when it came to relationships, she had zero self-esteem. Totally insecure about guys and her looks. She’d dated a little in high school, but nothing serious, nothing long-term. A black girl from the lily white suburbs of Highland Park with no real experience with guys. Fresh meat for a thug like Theo.
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Chloe Marston: If a guy can be a gold digger, well, he was it. Theo was obsessed with Farrah’s money, her background, her lifestyle, how she grew up. Talked about her dad. All. The. Time. She’d loan him money. Buy him things. Sometimes, and I don’t know why, she’d let him drive her car. A brand new Range Rover. He’d brag to people about how she’d let him do whatever he wanted, how he had her under his control. He was trash. Absolute trash.
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Laila Amari: Finally, thank God, Farrah broke things off with him. She’d met someone else. A really, really great guy. And this did not sit well with Theo. He viewed her as his property. His meal ticket, his gravy train. She belonged to him. No one was going to take Farrah away from him. No one.
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Bridget Johnson: He was the first person I thought of and I told the police they should take a look at him.
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Skye Stafford: Theo shot to the top of the suspect list right away.
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Laila Amari: When I heard what happened, I said, this had to be Theo. This was exactly the kind of thing he would do. Round up some of his boys and show up at her house. No, from the moment I heard about this, I definitely believed Theo was behind the whole thing.
11:10 a.m.
What the fuck?
That was the first thought to slam into Farrah’s brain upon seeing three strangers standing in the foyer, pointing guns at her parents.
It was still racing through her mind as she darted down the hall toward her bedroom, her cell phone clamped in her suddenly drenched palm, her heart pounding, blood pulsing in her ears. From downstairs, one of them yelled something about “that bitch.” That must be her.
Her bare feet slipped a little on the shiny wood floor just outside her room and she gripped the doorframe to keep from tumbling. Behind her, she heard one of the guys yell out for her to stop as he came running down the hall after her. Not the same one who called her a bitch.
She flew into her room, flinging the door shut behind her. She leaned against it, wishing, as she sometimes had growing up, the door had a lock. Her mother didn’t believe in locks.
Farrah’s fingers trembled uncontrollably as she tried to unlock her phone to hit the panic button, the screen freezing. Damn it. It was doing that a lot lately. It was time for a new phone.
How long would it take for the police to get here? Surely the alarm company would have them on some kind of priority list or something.
Theo flashed across her mind. Was he behind this? He was always bragging about how his boys would fuck people up for him if he asked. Would he try to come after her parents to get to her? He’d never explicitly threatened her or her parents.
Still. It was possible.
The door exploded with a wallop and the phone jumped out of her hands, sailing across the room. She screamed, scrambling to escape the guy—sickeningly skinny and muscular all at once—as he charged toward her, sweat and irritation blurring his face. She ran across the room, searching for where the phone had landed. Her eye fell on the plastic desk chair. Without thinking, she hoisted it up, grunting as she did so, and hurled it toward him. It bounced against his shoulder and he grumbled, briefly stumbling backward and falling.
She flattened herself against the wall, tears clouding her eyes, her breath now coming in gasping, shallow gulps, as she tried to get her bearings. She dropped to the floor, spotting the phone under the desk, and scrambled toward it, breathing a sigh of relief as her hand closed around the hard plastic.
This time, the phone unlocked immediately.
She scrolled through her mountain of apps, cursing herself for not putting the panic button right on the front screen.
With another grunt, he rose up from the floor and leapt toward her.
Right there.
Farrah jammed her finger against the bright red icon.
Screen frozen.
She whimpered and tried again.
Come on, come on, come on.
Still nothing.
She hit the screen with the heel of her hand, tears of frustration pooling in her eyes.
The screen leapt to life.
Farrah let out a cry of relief.
Just as her fingertip made contact with the button, he slapped the phone out of her hand, sending it soaring across the room once more. She screamed again as he wrenched her up from the floor, his fingers pinned around the tiny, delicate bones of her wrist.
“Get the fuck up,” he said, a cloud of something rotten wafting from his body. “We going downstairs.”
11:15 a.m.
A scream erupted from upstairs and Malcolm’s heart leapt out of his chest and stopped in mid-air. Breath stalled in his lungs. Mind blank. Ears ringing. He closed his eyes, unable to wipe away the image of a wide-eyed Farrah, clad only in a black tank top and blue-striped boxer shorts, phone in one hand, bounding innocently down the stairs, likely in search of breakfast. Stumbling into this catastrophe.
The second accomplice emerged at the top of the steps, a trembling, squirming, teary-eyed Farrah in his grip.
“I got her, Tree,” the guy said, pride lacing his words. “See? I got her.”
Tree. A nickname. Must be because he’s so tall.
Tree’s head whipped toward them, his mouth open to say something. Instead, when he looked at Farrah, he smiled.
No. He leered. This punk leered at his little girl.
Malcolm pursed his lips, his fists curled, ready to burst. His insides coiled. Anger ignited across his skin. His grasp on Blair went slack as he prepared to strike. She held onto him, pressing her palm against his back to hold him to her, as though she were now the one keeping him calm.
Tree puffed his chest out a little and knitted his lips together as Malcolm watched the boy’s gaze roam across his little girl like an appreciative butcher appraising a cut of meat. Farrah grimaced under his lewdness and shut her eyes while he laughed.
“Tree!” Malcolm shouted. “Hey. Hey! We’re talking here, you and me. My daughter doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Damn, you fine as hell,” he whispered, ogling Farrah. “What’s your name?”
“Daddy—”
The girl snapped her gum. “Oh, hell no. I know you not trying to step to Miss Bougie.”
“It’s okay, baby girl,” he said, edging closer.
“Malcolm,” Blair whispered as she continued writhing against his grasp, the unmistakable hiss of do something underscoring his name.
“Man, Cookie, shut the hell up. You always worried about what I’m doing.”
Cookie. Another nickname.
“Daddy?”
He grimaced. It was hard not to hear the fear shaking in his daughter’s voice. It was hard to hear the fear in Farrah’s voice.
“You need to let my daughter go,” Malcolm said calmly.
Sweaty Smelly Guy’s eyes darted to his boss, seemingly torn. “T?”
Tree continued staring at Farrah, his eyes traveling down, up, and back again, while his girlfriend silently fumed.
“Tree. Tree! We were negotiating, remember?”
At the sound of Malcolm’s voice, the boy’s head snapped away from Farrah, almost as if he was coming out of a trance. Malcolm’s chest tightened and red rage clouded his vision as Tree shuffled around until the two of them were facing each other.
“You know, man, I’m real mad you didn’t tell me we had company upstairs.” He flicked another glance in Farrah’s direction. “That’s, what do you call it, dealing in bad faith.”
“Don’t you touch her, or I swear to God, I will—” Blair rasped, flailing against his grasp once again.
“Man, bitch, shut up,” Tree said. “You ain’t about to do nothing.”
“Tree.” Malcolm pursed his lips. “I can’t let you talk to my wife like that, man.”
“I’ll talk to her any damn way I want. You feel me?”
Malcolm took a silent inhale as he continued to hold Blair’s quivering body closer to him.
“No need for name-calling. No need for anybody getting upset. I’m here, man. I’m still here. Ready to negotiate with you. I’ll say it again. We don’t want any trouble. What do you want? What can I do?”
Tree sniffed, nodding as he looked around the room, his eyes growing wider with each new object, each shiny new thing. Finally, his gaze pivoted back to Malcolm.
“Tell the truth. You got a safe full of cash up in here, don’t you? Probably got stacks of gold and shit, just piled up to the ceiling, don’t you?” He laughed. “Probably got a room just for stacking up your paper.”
“Like I told you before, I got about two thousand in cash on me and another ten in the house. I’ll give you that, whatever my wife and daughter have. I’ve got three Rolexes, my wife has jewelry, I’ve got cars. I—” Malcolm looked at his hand, his Super Bowl ring flashing in the light. He wrenched it from his finger and waved it around. “You see this? I got five more of them upstairs. You know what you can get for these?”
“That for real?” the smelly one asked, leaning a little closer to Malcolm for inspection.
“It’s real, man, and it’s yours. All of them. Just take whatever you want and we’ll forget this whole thing.”
“What kind of cars you got—?” the smelly one piped in.
“Man, shut up, Dio!” Tree shouted before looking at Malcolm again. He sniffed back a noisy lump of mucus. “All right, so since my boy asked, what kind of cars you got?”
And Dio makes three.
“Porsche, Mercedes, Range Rover, a Hummer—a brand new Hummer, only got a few hundred miles on it.” Malcolm clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It’s yours.”
“What if I said I wanted two cars, huh? One for me, one for my girl?”
“I want the Mercedes.” Cookie giggled.
“Done,” Malcolm said. “What about you, Tree? Which one do you want?”
“What, I can’t get no car?” Dio asked.
“Man, you ain’t even know how to drive, what the hell you gonna do with a car?” Tree said, his eyes still locked on Malcolm.
“I could learn,” the boy muttered under his breath before falling silent again.
“We got a deal?” Malcolm asked.
Tree was quiet, still staring at Malcolm. He exhaled a little. He was going to go for it. Throw a couple of cars his way, some cash, some hardware and that would be it. It’d be over soon.
Tree cleared his throat. Malcolm shifted a little, his palm damp with the sheets of sweat rolling down Blair’s back. She had curled into him, her body quaking savagely, her heart thrumming against him. He held her closer. If he let her go, she’d do something stupid, something that would sign all their death warrants.
“Do we have a deal?” Malcolm repeated, aware of the mild tremor of impatience in his voice. “Huh? Tree?”
“Yeah, yeah, that all sounds good,” the boy finally responded as he sniffed back another clump of mucus. “But it’s not enough.”
Malcolm pursed his lips. “Okay, what do you want? Tell me.”
“I know you got more than twelve G’s up in here.”
“I told you, that’s it—”
“I know you got more than that. I know it. I know you keep the paper stacked. So come on, Malcolm. Where’s the rest of it?”
“Tree—”
“You know what? I’ve had enough of this. Lock they asses up,” Tree said, flicking his chin toward his accomplices. “Lock ’em in those rooms upstairs. Separate. Keep them in separate rooms so they can’t talk to each other, try to come up with some plan or something. Tie them up and lock ’em in until Malcolm feels like talking.”
The two accomplices stood frozen until Tree barked, “Now!” causing them to scatter into position. Blair stood rigid in his arms as the girl yanked on his wife’s ponytail. Blair yelped as her head jerked back. Malcolm pulled her to him and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dio clamp his arm around the waist of a kicking and screaming Farrah in an attempt to drag her upstairs. Malcolm’s head pivoted between the two disasters, his next move scrawling itself across the playbook in his head. Let the third one take Farrah upstairs—that would only leave two. Push Blair to the ground—send her sprawling so it would take some time for her to recover—and tackle the girl, turn her gun on her, force Tree’s hand.
Hut-hut-hut.
“You let her go or I’m a blow a huge fucking hole in your head,” the girl squeaked.
Malcolm grimaced at the gun suddenly snug against his cranium. Blair looked at him, terror shining in her eyes. He gave her the most imperceptible nod and reassuring smile he could manage. She returned her own tiny nod and smile.
He let her go.
Malcolm watched helplessly as Cookie snatched Blair by the arm and hustled her toward the staircase, with Farrah and the second accomplice halfway upstairs. He heard doors slam shut and he slowly turned toward Tree, his hands up. The two stared at each other, the boy still aiming the gun at him.
“All right, Malcolm. It’s just you and me now.”
The Gilberts
Isabelle Ryan, Criminologist: If there was a “template” for how to have a successful post-football career, Malcolm Gilbert is the poster child. He retired from the game and managed to avoid many of the pitfalls that seem to crush so many other professional sports players. He didn’t go broke, suffered no career-ending injuries, continued to have very lucrative endorsement deals. His company, MG Enterprises, invested heavily in hotels and restaurants, becoming incredibly profitable. He did very, very well for himself.
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Skye Stafford: Blair Gilbert was a stay-at-home mom and by all accounts, a fantastic mother. She and her daughter, Farrah, were exceptionally close. She was very much the “suburban mom,” the “soccer mom,” shuttling Farrah to dance classes, music and swim lessons, serving as room mom and chaperone for dances and other school activities. She loved every minute of it.
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Bridget Johnson: It was so important to Blair that Farrah have a normal childhood, something that was totally opposite of what we had. She wanted her to have slumber parties and skating and pool parties and go to football games and play sports and go to dances and be allowed to be a kid. Be carefree.
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Kip Sellers, Friend of Malcolm Gilbert: Did Malcolm have any enemies? I’m sure some of those guys he played against probably hated his guts (Laughs). But you know it’s all trash talk, what you do on the field. Nothing serious.
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Don Jensen, Friend of Malcolm Gilbert: People loved Malcolm. He was “that guy,” Mr. Smooth. Mr. Charm. The guy who would send over a bottle of champagne to a table of strangers at a restaurant, because why not? The guy who would sometimes pick up the tab for an entire restaurant, just because. The guy who’d sign every autograph, pose for every picture, answer whatever question a fan had about some game from 1975, 1992, or whenever. Questions he’d answered a million times, games he’d talked about for decades. And it was always with a smile.
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Cap Gleason: Malcolm could be tough on his teammates, sure. But it was borne out of competitiveness, out of wanting to be—needing to be—the best. Nobody held any grudges. Nobody resented him. If anything, it made them work that much harder not to just meet, but exceed his expectations.
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Alex Martinez: Every season, when we’d get back to training camp, there’d be some electronic gift—a boom box, a brand new color TV. One year he bought everyone a car phone—even the wives (Laughs). That tells you how long ago this was. We won the Super Bowl, and everyone got a gold watch. After we broke the Dolphins’ record by winning our second Super Bowl after a second perfect season, he bought the entire O-line a Mercedes—paid the taxes on them, too. He would always say, no man is an island, that we were all on that island together.
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Felice Patterson: Well, you know Blair and I were more than just neighbors. We were really good friends. Quite close in fact. But I will tell you, she could be a bit of a cold fish at times.
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Kim Fletcher, Friend of the Gilberts: Cold fish? No, no, I wouldn’t say that. Bad temper? A hundred percent. She could snap on you in a minute. Act first, think later. It would blow over pretty quickly, but in the meantime, watch out.
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Lani Jacobs: Blair? Oh, yeah, she could be a bitch (Laughs).
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Kim Fletcher: Blair tangled with a few people—gardeners, servers, handymen, construction workers. I mean, she was always on Howl leaving these long, nasty reviews about service people, restaurants, that kind of thing.
