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“Maybe they haven’t yet,” Zack replied. “His place is tougher because he’s there most of the time.”
“And it’s in the middle of downtown,” Lucy said. “Lots of people around. It wouldn’t be easy.”
“Or they could have just been trying to scare Lucy and Zack away,” Cooper said. “They wanted you to stop asking questions. If they knew you had the thumb drive, I believe they wouldn’t hesitate to try and get it from you using any means necessary. Look what they did to Ethan.”
“I’d like to believe that they don’t know that we have this,” Zack said. “But we have to assume that they do.”
“So we call Finn and turn this over to him,” Tate said. “Because from what you’ve learned, it looks like Farrow was running some sort of porn video scam on these young girls in exchange for giving the guys drugs.”
“Ethan must have been thinking about revealing it,” Zack said. “That’s why he was shot. Jesus, this is surreal. This was going on in our little town and no one knew.”
“There were rumors,” Lucy reminded him. “Lots of rumors about how teenagers could get into the bar. But it looks like they were able to keep the sex stuff a secret, which isn’t shocking. The guys probably told the girls that if they talked about being there, they wouldn’t get to go inside anymore.”
Something still didn’t sit right with Zack. He’d gone over this in his head, and it didn’t quite make sense.
“Am I crazy here? How did Ed Farrow even set any of this up? By himself? How did he reach out to the guys in school? How did he let them know what he wanted? I don’t remember Farrow ever being around when we were in school. I only saw him a few times because he was friends with Dad.”
Cooper was nodding in agreement.
“He would have needed help. Someone who had access to what he needed.”
“That would be Ethan,” Frankie said. “Right? He was probably the ringleader.”
“Maybe,” Zack conceded. “It just seems like he would need some help.”
“You mean another adult?” Tate asked. “Are you thinking about that arm in the first video we saw?”
“I am. It could be Farrow, of course, or it could be one of the other guys. But maybe there was another person involved here. Someone willing to shoot to cover it all up. I guess I’m painting Farrow with the same brush as Dad, but I can’t see Joel Winslow getting involved in the details. I think Farrow is the same. They wouldn’t do it themselves. Arrogant assholes like my dad don’t get their hands dirty. They have people that work for them do it.”
“That sounds like dear old Dad,” Cooper said with a scowl. “Maybe we should take another look at that video. Turn up the sound. We might hear them say something.”
“Maybe we should call Finn and let him do the cop stuff,” Frankie suggested. “Not that I’m throwing shade at what Zack and Lucy have uncovered about our sister’s death, but it might be time to bring in the professionals. Sarah is probably dead because of those videos. Maybe she was going to blow the whistle, but she didn’t get a chance. And someone tried to kill Ethan for the same thing. Clearly, this is dangerous.”
“I had the same thought,” Zack admitted. “But…while I trust Finn, I’m not sure I trust everyone in the sheriff’s office not to blab this all over town. We know that he had a leak about Sarah’s parentage.”
“She was fired,” Tate said. “She told Cooper because they were involved.”
“We were involved several months ago,” Cooper corrected. “She and I haven’t seen each other in a long time. I was surprised to even hear from her, to be honest. I certainly didn’t ask her to share confidential information with me. It wasn’t that serious.”
“She could still have friends there,” Lucy replied. “I think Zack is right. We need to be careful about this, if not because of safety then for sensitivity. If those videos become public in any way, a lot of now adult women are going to be mortified. I’m not wanting to ruin lives.”
Zack was torn in two directions. He agreed with Lucy that this could take a wrecking ball to people’s lives, but it didn’t feel right to withhold it from Finn either.
“What is the private investigator working on?” he asked, stalling for time.
“They’ve pivoted from Dad’s business to Farrow,” Frankie replied. “I’ve already sent a message to him about what we found. He’s going to dig deep into the financials. If Farrow had help, he had to pay for it. There might be a money trail.”
“If he was smart, he paid cash,” Cooper replied cynically. “At least that’s what I would do.”
“Do you know a lot about crime?” Jane asked with a laugh. “You seem to have some strong opinions about it.”
“I know about as much as anyone else,” Cooper said. “But I do read a lot of crime fiction. A lot of people are caught because of money trails.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and find one,” Tate said. “We can only hope.”
“In the meantime,” Cooper said, “let’s take another look at the video with the third person. Maybe we’ll see or hear something we didn’t before. We don’t have to decide to call Finn right now. Nothing is going to change in the next hour or so.”
“Then let’s do it,” Tate said. “I’ll get some earbuds so we can turn the volume up. Then we’ll call Finn.”
