“Yeah, if he’s the guy handling all the recruitment, he’d be the guy enabling or helping out my coach.” I scratched my chest and swallowed down the anger, knowing he was involved. It was inevitable. There was no way all this shit was happening withouthis involvement and the sad thing was that each team had a coach that was dipping their hands into illegal funds.
“I asked him about injuries and what happens if someone wants out of their scholarship or sport on the team—he didn’t know what happens if he wanted out, but the injury thing caught my attention. He said there is an aggressive rehab policy depending on the severity of the issue.”
“Did you bring up Cooper Killian? He’s still a freshman this year but hasn’t shown up to practice since fall ball drills.”
She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and nodded. In that one gesture, confidence rolled off her and filled the room. It was almost… attractive. “I definitely did. He met him twice but admitted he never saw him display any skill. It was tricky, but he didn’t suspect anything.”
“If you were flirting, he probably missed it. You are a senior taking interest in him.”
Her face hardened. “Again, I’m not sure why your opinion of me is so low, but it wasn’t flirting that got me my information.”
“Then what was it?”
“I wanted him to feel that the questions were about the freshman class talent and how they each stood out on their own. I didn’t just mention Cooper. I talked about all the guys in the freshman class. How their skills were, their potential, what they brought to the team. He loved that angle and spilled it all.”
“Well damn.”Good move. Maybe I’m the asshole here.
“Yeah,” she fired back. “I’m terrible at flirting and wouldn’t even know how to go about it to get information that way.”
“I doubt that. You’re a chick.”
“Being a girl doesn’t automatically qualify me to being attractive or flirty enough to get something from them. I learned that a long time ago and instead use questioning to get what I want.”
“Another reason your friends are pushing you into dating?”
“To get me out of my funk. Their words, not mine.” She pointed back to her screen and took a deep breath. “Moving back to the reason we are here…I didn’t get a chance to look into Dean Sanders yet, but if he’s involved with every sport?—”
“Then there could be countless students involved in this,” I finished for her.
“One thing I want to follow up on is about those players who received partial-scholarships. His story sounded pretty standard, similar to what I imagine your experience was. But what about the kids on the team who got some help? Did they still sign and have the coaches come out?”
“I’m not sure, but what’s your take on that?”
She crossed one of her legs over the other and twisted her lips to one side of her mouth before she spoke. “It would be easier to go under the radar with all this if they were dealing with partials. Less media, less social media blasts, less of everything. I bet the coaches don’t go out for signing. Basically, less people would know about the player, making it easier to cover up.”
“Well, last night I found out that there’s no evidence as far as the rosters go. Even baseball, there’s no evidence of Max, Cooper or Dillon being a part of the team anywhere on the school’s website.”
“What?” she asked, her wide eyes taking up half her face. “None?”
“That I could find.”
“Well, fuck me.” She made a raspberry with her lips and looked so unlike…Amber that I smiled. She looked pissed off and disgusted, the same feelings I had been battling with the entire time. A part of me was afraid she was going to back out at the new hurdle, and I needed to come up with a way to get her to stay.
“Look, it’ll be tough, but we can still connect some of the dots. Don’t throw in the towel now. We know there’s somethinggoing on.” I reached out my hand to put it on her arm, but decided against it when she narrowed her eyes at me.
“I’m not throwing in the towel, Jeff. I’m pissed because that means they are covering their tracks. This will be harder than you or I could’ve thought.” She cleared her throat and dove onto her laptop, typing furiously fast so her fingers blurred as I watched. “Athletes.”
“Hm?” I did not follow her thoughts at all, but I was just happy she wasn’t directing that angry expression at me anymore.
“We need to focus on the athletes, or fake-athletes. We need to get them to talk because even if they didn’t know what was happening, they’ll be able to help paint a picture of how.” She pulled up a picture of Cooper, the one I remembered from the year before.The kid I shouldn’t have even seen.
I laughed at the irony and she shot me a look, making me feel the need to explain. “Last year, I only met Max because I was lingering after a fall workout. Max was walking around with one of the assistant coaches, Tee, and he did a quick introduction to him.”
“And Max did an announcement that he was injured and not coming back or…?”
“We just heard he wouldn’t recover. It happens and none of us really knew about him or of him so it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Give me five minutes.” She didn’t wait for me to respond before she dove back onto her laptop. It was hard not to watch her when she stared at her screen and made small movements with her lips as she read the words.Huh, her lips are pinker today.
