“Nicholas Crawford! Wow, now that’s a blast from the past,” he says, sitting back in his chair. “We haven’t heard that name in these parts in a long time.”

Not knowing the best way to respond, I give him a slight nod.

“So, the FBI arrested him, huh?”

“Yes, and that’s why I’m here.”

“No, you’re not.” He laughs, running his fingers through his thinning hair.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said you were here to find out the truth but that’s not true. You’re here to find evidence, if you can call it that, that exonerates him.”

“Yes,” I admit. “I guess so.”

“You know, of course, that Nicholas didn’t exactly do right by us, right?”

Frankly, I don’t even know their names let alone what Nicholas did or didn’t do.

“I don’t know the details,” I admit. “And I don’t really want to know.”

I add the last bit because the truth is that I don’t want to know. The less I know about these men the better. I don’t even want to know their names. All I want to know is what Ricky knows about what happened.

“Smart girl,” the boss says, raising his eyebrows. “So, what makes you think that Ricky knows anything about this? Or that Ricky is even here?”

“It’s a hunch,” I lie.

“Just a hunch?” He starts to laugh, tilting his whole head back and letting the waves of laughter rush through his body all at once.

“I don’t care about anything that you have going on. I just know that Nicholas didn’t kill his partner and I need to find any information I can to help him.”

“Well, you don’t really know if he killed him or not,” the boss points out.

He has said that before and hearing it again makes my blood run cold. But I keep my feelings to myself.

“Will you help me?” I ask, getting tired of the games.

The boss narrows his eyes.

“Ricky, are you here?” I ask the room.

I scan their dead, expressionless faces but no one even looks up at me.

“I need to speak to you. I know you know something,” I insist.

This is a lie, of course. I know very little about anything that has happened before. The only reason I even know Ricky’s name is that it’s the only one that Nicholas’ mom dropped.

He was a good friend of Nicholas back then and if anyone were to know anything it would be him, she said.

The boss gets up, takes one drag of his cigar before putting it gently on the ashtray. Then he walks over to me and positions himself as close to me as possible without actually touching. My whole body recoils into itself as I try to get away from him without actually making a move.