“Did anyone ever try to convince you to go to the bar?” Zack asked Lucy. “Were you ever pressured?”

  “No, but remember that I was considered a major goody-two-shoes. My friends and I did once try and get in, but we were turned away.”

  “Probably because you weren’t with one of the inside guys,” Cooper replied. “I bet Farrow probably had to be careful about who he let in. He didn’t want his dirty little secret to become common knowledge.”

  “I knew he was a worm,” Frankie declared. “A real slimeball. I could see it a mile away. As for Dad, he probably knew and didn’t care. He’d just call it boys being boys or something horrific like that.”

  “I’m not so sure Dad knew,” Tate observed. “Don’t get me wrong. I doubt Dad would have cared, but Zack’s friend told him explicitly that they didn’t want him to know because they thought he would tell his dad and get it all shut down.”

  “They didn’t even keep it all a secret,” Jane said. “From what you all have told me, it was a well-known rumor that teenagers could get into a certain bar on campus.”

  “Managing to keep it to a rumor is amazing,” Zack replied. “I wonder if there were any adults that heard the rumor, too?”

  “They probably wouldn’t believe it,” Tate said. “Half the gossip in this town is just plain wrong or a lie. I’m guessing they thought that the teenagers were making it all up to sound older or something.”

  “Are you going to open your envelope?” Jane asked. “I admit openly that I tried to convince Lucy to call you so she could open it earlier.”

  “I am going to open it,” Zack replied. “I’m as curious as you are.”

  Cooper had said that the envelope wasn’t from him or Sam, as far as he knew. He hadn’t even thought to give Zack a key to the mailbox because he never used it. The mail carrier just dropped the mail on the stairs.

  Ripping open the top of the envelope, he opened it to see a folded piece of paper. When he pulled it out, a small thumb drive dropped onto the oak bar surface.

  “It’s a jump drive,” Lucy said. “That’s…odd.”

  “Maybe this note will tell us something,” Zack said, unfolding it and scanning the brief contents.

  His stomach clenched in his abdomen as he read it several times over, still not quite believing what was written. It was a shock, but after all that had happened, it probably shouldn’t have been.

  “It’s from Ethan,” he finally said. “He says that the guilt is eating him alive, and he can barely look at himself in the mirror. He’s sorry for the part he played in it. He says that he’s in danger, so he wants me to have it. He knows that if something happens to him, I’ll do what’s right.”

  “Something did happen to him,” Jane said, with a visible shudder. “Spooky as hell. Now he’s pawned the danger onto you. Nice friends you have.”

  “He gave you a thumb drive?” Lucy said. “Does he say what’s on it? Whatever it is, he was in danger because of it.”

  “He didn’t.” Zack handed her the note. “Just that I’d do the right thing.”

  Cooper picked it up, turning it over to look at it from all angles. From what Zack could see, it looked like an everyday, garden-variety thumb drive. Nothing special.

  It’d what it contained that was important.

  “There’s only one way to find out what’s on it,” Cooper said. “Tate, where’s your laptop?”

  “In the office. I’ll get it and we’ll take a look.”

  Tate was only gone for a moment, bringing back his laptop. Leaving one of his employees to tend the bar, he had them gather in one of the booths in the corner where no one would be able to listen in or see what was on the screen.

  “Let’s see what Ethan was shot for,” Tate said, pulling up the contents of the drive. “It looks like there are several videos on this. I’ll open one.”

  Zack wasn’t sure what he was watching for a moment. By the time he realized, everyone else had as well.

  “Holy hell, Ethan was shot for porn,” Frankie whispered. “That’s porn.”

  It was worse than that. This was porn starring Ethan, and what appeared to be a drunk or drugged Sarah. They were in some bedroom that Zack didn’t recognize but he could clearly see who it was. Ethan and Sarah were having sex on the bed. Sort of. Sarah was clearly incoherent, lying there passed out.

  “Who gets shot for porn?” Cooper asked. “It’s given away freely on the internet.”

  “It’s Ethan and Sarah,” Lucy said, her voice low. “He videotaped her and him together. What a scumbag.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know he was being filmed,” Jane said. “He might be a victim, too.”

  “He knew,” Zack said, taking no joy in saying it out loud. “He keeps looking at the camera. And he’s talking to someone out of frame. Wait…did you see that? There was an arm in the screen. There’s a third person there.”

  “That third person might be the one that shot Ethan,” Tate said. “Or not. I’m just thinking out loud here.”

  “That’s a good theory,” Cooper said. “If the other person didn’t want the video seen, they might be willing to kill for it.”

  “Can we turn that off?” Frankie said. “I don’t really want to watch your friends go at it, especially when one of them is too impaired to consent. This is rape, and I’m not feeling all that sorry for Ethan right this minute.”

  Tate closed out the video, and double clicked on another file.

  “Let’s see what else is on the drive. Maybe the third person will show themselves.”

  It was another sex video, although this time not of Ethan and Sarah. It was his friend Jay and then-girlfriend Melanie. This time, Melanie was giggly but not falling down drunk. Jay kept glancing in the direction of the camera, but Melanie didn’t seem to know it was there. From what Zack could see, there wasn’t a third party in the room.

  The other files were much the same. About half a dozen guys from Zack’s high school and their girlfriends in various stages of inebriation.

  “The boys know that the camera is there, but those poor girls don’t. I’m sick to my stomach watching this,” Lucy said, turning her head away. “I think you can tell Jay that these girls did not, in fact, know what they were getting into and consenting to it. What an asshole.”

  “What a criminal,” Jane sneered. “This is highly against the law. They’re not just creepy teenage boys, they’re criminals and rapists. And yes, I feel nauseous, too. This is vile stuff. No wonder they kept it under wraps and didn’t want anyone to know. Ethan felt guilty? He couldn’t look at himself in the mirror? He damn well ought to feel guilty. Christ, he didn’t care about this until Sarah was found.”

  Zack didn’t want to see anymore. It made him sick to see people that he had been friends with – trusted, even - do something so horrific to another human being. Those girls had trusted their boyfriends, and they’d been taken advantage of. For what? Drugs? Booze? Feeling like they were adults when they were anything but?

  “From what we know, these videos are worth killing for,” Tate said. “It got Ethan shot, and it could get you dead, too.”

  “No one knows he has it,” Cooper pointed out.

  “Unless Ethan told someone,” Lucy replied. “Or someone has a lucky guess as to who he gave it to.”

  “That’s probably why your condo was broken into and tossed,” Jane said. “They were looking for the drive, thinking that Zack may have hidden it there. You said that you ran into Ethan, and he seemed paranoid, looking over his shoulder. Maybe they thought he gave it to you.”

  “They should have gone into Cooper’s as well,” Tate said. “But they didn’t.”

  “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.”

  Zack trusted Finn. But he didn’t trust some of the staff. Lucy was right that this was an extremely sensitive subject. Zack didn’t want to be the catalyst released these videos in the wild, so to speak. They had to tread delicately here.

  Not just for Sarah, but for all the young women caught up in this.

  As for his high school buddies?

  He didn’t feel a bit sorry for them and the consequences he hoped they’d finally face for their actions.

  25

  Lucy simply couldn’t watch that video one more time. They’d all closely gathered around the screen, slowing the video down to a crawl so they could see almost every frame individually. An arm would appear in the corner for a moment and then be gone. So far, they’d heard soft voices, too, but hadn’t been able to identify whose they might be.

  Seeing Sarah lying on the bed, practically passed out and unaware, had bile rising in Lucy’s throat. It was disgusting that a few teenage boys thought that this behavior was justified because they wanted something that was against the law. How entitled did a human have to be to think that way?

  Sarah and the other girls hadn’t even been treated like human beings. They’d been treated like…blow-up dolls without any feelings. It was sickening. Now these so-called “men” had wives and families. Would they be okay with this happening to their spouse or daughters? Did they just think that the ends justified the means?

  She was ready to simply call Finn and let him handle it from here. This entire situation was going to open a nasty wound in the community. People were going to get arrested; stories would be told and not all of them would be even remotely true. Lives would be changed forever and not in a positive way. There would be finger pointing, sides taken, and families torn into shreds. It wouldn’t be pretty, and while Lucy had been all in helping Zack find out the truth about what happened to his half-sister, this was something that neither one of them had envisioned when they’d started. They needed a professional to go any further.

  “Look,” Zack said, excitedly, jumping up from his seat and pointing to the screen. “Do you see that? Do you? It’s a tattoo. I know I’ve seen it before. I swear I have.”

  Tate was tapping on the keyboard, telling Zack to hold his horses. He’d zoom in on the video.

  Everyone was leaning over, getting as close to the screen as they could. The picture zoomed in, and Lucy could see the tattoo that Zack was talking about. It was clear now when it had been too small before.

  “I’ve seen it, too,” Lucy said. “But I don’t know where.”

  Zack sat back down, scraping his fingers through his hair.

  “I know I’ve seen it before,” he said. “It looks really familiar.”

  The tattoo was a feather with scrolls around it, along with what looked to be a crow on the upper arm although it was less clear.

  Lucy’s phone vibrated in her purse, and she retrieved it to see who was calling. The number wasn’t familiar but it was the local area code.

  “Lucy, this is Deputy Blake. It looks like someone has broken into the back door of your store. Can you come here so we can make a report as to what might have been stolen?”

  Lucy groaned out loud at the news. First her condo, and now her bookstore. Was this person looking for the thumb drive? Or was this simply a campaign to scare her off?

  “I’m at Tate’s so I’ll be right over. Thanks for calling, Blake.”

  She ended the call and stuffed the phone back into her purse.

  “The store has been broken into. Deputy Blake is there. I need to go.”

  “You can’t go alone,” Jane said, hopping up from the booth. “I’ll go with you. It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Zack said, starting to get up, but Lucy shook her head no.

  “You have to stay here and figure out who the third person is. We’ll be fine. The police will be there after all, and it’s practically next door.”

  “I don’t like this at all,” Zack said. “Even if it is a few doors down.”

  “I’ll go with them,” Cooper offered. “I can’t help with this video, but I can make sure that Jane and Lucy stay safe. Plus, as Lucy said, Blake will be there, too. He wouldn’t have called her to come if the perpetrator were still there.”

  It was easy to see that Zack was conflicted, but Lucy was firm about this. He needed to keep watching the video and figuring out who it was. She didn’t want to leave him to do this on his own, but she didn’t have much choice.

  “It will be fine,” Lucy assured him. “But I think we might be there for a while. He’ll need me to tell him if anything is missing and that will take some time.”

  “If we can’t figure anything out in the next thirty minutes or so, we’ll go over to help,” Zack said. “I really don’t like you out there on your own.”

  “Ouch, big brother. I’ve been known to be a tough guy once or twice,” Cooper said. “And Jane scares the bejesus out of most everyone.”

  Jane elbowed Cooper in the ribs.

  “We’ll be fine,” she said. “The sooner we get there and see what we’re dealing with, the sooner we can be back here working on the video.”