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It sounded like Farrow needed to be kept away from females. All of them.
“If Sarah went to that bar, and he had a habit of letting underage teenagers get in, I wonder if he ever tried to do that to her,” Zack said. “Maybe that’s why he did that. A steady supply of jailbait. You might want to tell that private investigator to check out Ed, as well. Frankie, how did Dad react to his golfing buddy being that friendly with his daughter?”
“He said that I was being dramatic and seeking attention,” Frankie replied with a roll of her eyes, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “That I must have misunderstood, and that I shouldn’t say such things, because other people might get the wrong idea and think that Ed Farrow was a bad person. In other words, Dad didn’t care. Surprised?”
Joel Winslow was never going to win any Father of the Year awards, but shit… He’d blown off his own daughter? Their dad should never have had kids. But the better question was did Joel know about his friend’s penchant for young girls? Had he turned a blind eye to the questionable behavior? And if so, what else was he ignoring for a friend?
“You think that Lucy’s break-in is somehow related to Sarah’s disappearance and death? And Ethan’s shooting?” Cooper asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Zack replied. “But it’s a distinct possibility.”
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to,” Cooper said to Lucy. “Seriously, I mean that. As long as you want.”
“Thank you, Cooper,” Lucy said. “I appreciate that. My parents are pushing for me to stay with them. I told them that I’d think about it.”
Zack didn’t say it out loud, but he wanted Lucy with him. He didn’t feel like he could protect her if she wasn’t close by.
“It’s up to you, but the offer is open.” Cooper swung his attention to Zack. “Should we confront Dad? He has to know more than he’s saying.”
“I’m sure that he does,” Zack agreed. “But I doubt he’d ever admit it or tell us anything useful. He’d just deny everything and act like the victim. You know how he is. You confronted him about Sarah, and he didn’t say a word. He won’t now either. He’s a waste of time, honestly. If he won’t take Frankie’s side about being harassed by a dirty old man that’s his friend, he isn’t going to break down when we talk to him about his daughter that he kept a secret.”
There was a knock at the door and Cooper answered it, letting in Jane, Tate, Piper, and Sam. Tate and Sam were carrying stacks of delicious-smelling pizzas, and Zack realized that they’d never eaten dinner earlier.
Everyone filled their plate before gathering back in the living room, some on the couch or chairs and a few on the floor. Cooper had pulled out a whiteboard and several pads of sticky notes from his bedroom which puzzled the hell out of Zack. Why did his brother have a white board and sticky notes? Was this something left behind from the last tenant? Either way, it was coming in handy now as Cooper propped it up on the seat of a kitchen chair.
“Okay,” his brother said. “Let’s put Sarah in the middle. Mom and Dad can each be on the outside. We don’t know for sure if Mom’s disappearance and Sarah’s are linked. We only suspect it. Then we add Ethan and Ed Farrow. Who else?”
“Sarah’s parents,” Jane replied. “They seem a bit shady. From what everyone says, they didn’t treat her all that well, and her mother isn’t exactly broken-hearted about her child.”
“What about Zack’s friends from high school?” Sam suggested. “They all said that he should drop his questioning which to me seems like suspicious behavior.”
“I’m definitely going to talk to them again,” Zack said. “You’re right. They didn’t want to talk about Sarah, and they were pressuring me to let it all go.”
“Then there’s Lucy,” Frankie said. “Her condo was broken into by someone. That’s a possible connection.”
“We need to talk to Lloyd Daniels, too,” Lucy suggested. “If he knew about Sarah’s real parentage, he might know even more secrets.”
“Agreed,” Zack said. “We can try and talk to him tomorrow.”
“I’m a little confused here,” Jane said as Cooper drew lines to connect some of the sticky notes. “I thought you were going to hire a professional investigator. Is that not the case?”
“We did hire a firm,” Cooper confirmed. “However, our mother’s disappearance is going to be their primary focus, and Sarah’s their secondary although we think that the two might be intertwined. We’d like to be able to give them as much information as possible to help them out. Some people are more likely to speak with us than they are strangers from out of town.”
“That’s true,” Jane said. “I’m still considered a newcomer here in Winslow Heights.”
For the next hour or so they discussed possible connections and theories, but none of them had any actual, hard evidence. It was all simply conjecture and nothing they could take to Finn. Not yet, anyway.
Eventually the pizza was demolished, and they were going in circles. Piper’s wide yawn reminded them that it was getting late, and they all cleaned up the cardboard boxes, plates, and cups before slowly going home one by one.
“I’ll walk you home,” Lucy offered to Jane. “You shouldn’t be out there after dark. Not right now.”
A few days ago, Zack would have said there wasn’t a safer place than this town. He’d been wrong.
“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Cooper said. “I’ll walk Jane home. It will only take a few minutes.”
“I can walk home by myself,” Jane sighed. “I do it all the time after closing the bookstore.”
“Humor us,” Cooper replied with a playful grin. “Lucy and Zack would be sad if anything happened to you.”
