We Come Alive 5

Breaking And Fixing

Thursday morning, Ricky was thinking about quitting his job at the fast food restaurant he was working at since he wouldn't be able to work from how often he was forced to come to the school for this investigation.

Ricky yawned, fixing the beanie on top of his head while he waited for Charlie to come back into the room. He was sitting in his old office since they were using it for the investigation.

He glanced up when the door opened and Charlie walked in with her long black dress scraping the floor as she walked. She sat down across from him and crossed her legs, glancing over her notepad then met his gaze.

"Why do you always cover your hair?" Charlie asked curiously.

Ricky shrugged. "I didn't have time to do it in the morning. You want me here every single day bright and early."

Charlie smirked, glancing down at her notepad and clicked on the tape recorder. "Richard—"

"Call me Ricky." He corrected, throwing his head back to look at the ceiling.

"Ricky..." Charlie begun, "in the time that you worked as a coach for the Grand Ridge High School baseball team, six out of the twenty players were payed to be on the team. Did you have any knowledge of that?"

"Not until they stopped being paid." He answered, still staring up.

"What are your connections to those six players, Stephen Coleman, Clover Jones, Ethan Hernandez, Diego Martinez, Jacob Miller, and Jose Garcia?"

Ricky brought his head back up and looked Charlie in the eyes. "I'm friends with them. Met most of them my sophomore year of high school. We played on the football team together. We're close."

Charlie nodded slowly, resting her elbows on the desk they were seated at. "That's the only connection?"

Ricky sighed, chuckling some as he looked around the empty office. Only a desk, two chairs they were sitting in, and a few boxes of sports equipment.

"When Jacob ran away from home, I let him live with me and my family in my childhood home. I moved out into an apartment, took Jacob with me." He answered. "And I dated Clover for two years when I was in high school. From my sophomore year to just before my senior year."

Charlie nodded, scribbling down some notes. "What are your connections to the other four men involved in this investigation, Mateo Sanchez, Victor Petrov, Sam Brown, and Daniel 'Danny' Williams?"

Ricky tapped his finger tips against the wood top desk. "Mateo, Sam, and Victor were my high school coaches turned co-workers. Danny is just a co-worker. I don't involve myself with him outside of this place."

"But you do the other three?" Charlie questioned.

Ricky shrugged one shoulder. "We...they care about us. They're not like people like you and Nicole who just want a pay check then keep moving." He slyly insulted. "I didn't have a choice when my back was against the wall. Some times it was either broken bones or a broken heart. One can be fixed pretty quickly, the other you need to get casts to heal."

"Can you give me an example of the first time you've had that...back against the wall moment with them?" Charlie requested, fully invested now in what he was saying.

Ricky chuckled quietly, looking around the room to avoid eye contact. "Ummm...like once I was at home hanging out after school. Sitting in the kitchen drawing on the back of my homework or something. Just wasting time. My dad comes in the house, drunk as usual, and got mad. Starts beating me, badly. Couldn't hit my mom cause she was pregnant so I'd have to do."