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Dr. Gordon shrugged. “My thoughts exactly. But you know how police are. They aren’t just out here messing with our boys. They mess with us, too.”
“Maybe I’m misunderstanding you here…you’re saying the police think you did something to Nyleah?” Ladonna said.
“I don’t know. Some foolishness about this or that. None of it makes any sense, and I don’t even wanna trouble y’all with it. But like I said, that’s one thing y’all can do for us Gordons. Tell the police to go to hell.” Bobby chuckled uncomfortably. “We’re still grieving. We don’t need them all up in our Kool-Aid. You know what I’m saying.”
Ladonna wasn’t sure she did, but before she could ask any more questions, there was noise in the hallway by the stairs. Ladonna turned to see her daughters heading for the door. “Bria?” she called. “Come in here for a second.”
Bria and Carmen made their way to the living room. Bria was smiling, but as soon as she entered the living room, she froze, and the smile slid from her face.
“Dr. Gordon is here,” Ladonna said. She wanted Bria to speak, especially since Bobby was actually in attendance, but the girl wouldn’t move from her spot in the hallway. Ladonna actually began to feel embarrassed by the display. “Are you alright?”
Bria walked into the room at a snail’s pace, Carmen so closely by her side that their shoulders were touching.
“Hi everybody. It’s good to see you,” Carmen said sweetly. Everyone spoke back. “Dr. Gordon, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Me too,” Bria said, so quiet only Ladonna seemed to hear it.
“Thank you, Carmen. It’s Carmen, yes?”
Carmen smiled, a smile Ladonna knew to be the equivalent of a snake hissing before it strikes. And she wondered why.
“It was nice seeing everyone,” Carmen said. She grabbed Bria’s arm and turned her around, and the two headed out the front door.
Ladonna shot a glance at her husband, but he didn’t look at her. He seemed preoccupied. When he didn’t notice her, she shot a quick look at Joe and was happy when he returned the favor. It was those little moments that felt so sweet. She hid a smile and glanced at Marcus again, only this time, he was staring directly at her. Her blood ran cold and she quickly looked away, praying he didn’t catch that little moment she had stolen with Joe.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Heythere,Vaughn.Ihave a few things for you. I’m not even gonna keep you in suspense. The thickest envelope is the phone records you’ve been waiting for.”
Webb dropped his pen and stood so abruptly he knocked his chair over. “Finally!” He snatched the packet from Miranda, the admin. She was used to his antics, so she simply watched in amusement as he fumbled with and tore into the large manila envelope, his hands trembling in excitement.
“I hope it’s everything you dreamed it would be,” she called as she headed out the door.
Webb heard nothing. He was already skimming and flipping, skimming and flipping. It took him a few minutes to realize he wasn’t taking any notes, and the reason he wasn’t taking notes was because he wasn’t even sure what he was looking at.
He set the thick packet on his desk and opened his drawer. He took out his highlighters, his favorite Atlanta Falcons ink pen, and a box of small sticky notes. He piled them all on top of the packet and carried the pile into the conference room where he could spread out. He texted Ackerman to meet him there, and then set about doing things right.
He wrote Nyleah’s number in red on the dry erase board, and Bobby Gordon’s number in blue just underneath it. The blue number was the priority. Anywhere he spotted it in the packet, he was to highlight it. Once all instances of Bobby’s number were marked, then and only then would he circle back and read the messages and make note of the times. Same for phone calls.
He was about ten minutes and 30 out of 197 pages in when Ackerman rolled in, coffee in one hand and a bag of Danishes in the other. “Phone records?” he asked.
Webb nodded without looking up.
“Fuck yeah.”
The two men spent the next several hours planted in the conference room, only venturing out to use the restroom or answer phone calls.
There were several texts between Nyleah and Bobby that seemed benign. Call times for practice, a birthday acknowledgment, Nyleah sicking out of a performance. But then the texts became more personal. I miss you, requests for off-campus meetups, and the like. The inappropriate relationship between the two was clearly established in those texts. Good enough to get him fired, but nothing close to what they needed.
Until about two months before the party. Just one text from Bobby and one reply from Nyleah.
RG:How’s my baby doing?
One could interpret that as him inquiring about Nyleah’s state of being on that day. But her response removed all doubt.
NF:He or she is fine, just making me very nauseous
“She was pregnant,” Webb announced. “Look.”
