Chapter 8 - What He Said When the Warrant Came
They executed the warrant on a Wednesday.
Nadine had told me it would happen and roughly when, and she'd told me to be somewhere safe when it did. I was at Beth's kitchen table — the same table where I'd sat with the untouched tea two weeks before. Beth was next to me. Neither of us was saying much.
My phone rang at 11:14.
Ethan.
Beth looked at me. I looked at her. I answered and put it on speaker.
"What did you do?" His voice was not a voice I recognized. Flat. Scraped clean of everything familiar. "What the hell did you do?"
"I found the account, Ethan."
Silence.
"I found the company in Nevada. I found Sabrina's name on it. I found the burner in your desk." I kept my voice level. "I found all of it."
"You have no idea what you just did." Something hard came up under the flatness. "You have no idea what you've walked into, or who you just made angry."
"I think I understand it pretty well, actually."
"Listen to me." Lower now, faster. "This can still be fixed. You call your lawyer right now and tell her you panicked, you misread some paperwork, you were confused. I can make sure none of this lands on you. I'm the only reason it won't."
"Nothing was going to land on me, Ethan. I'm the primary holder. I'm the one who reported it."
Another silence. Longer.
"Sabrina told me you'd never figure it out," he said. "She said you weren't smart enough, and I told her she was wrong to worry, because you never look at anything twice." A pause, and then, like it hadn't just cost him everything: "You were never supposed to find that phone."
Beth shut her eyes.
"Why me?" I said. "Out of everyone. We grew up together. Why did it have to be me?"
The pause went on so long I thought he'd hung up.
"Because you trusted me," he said. "You always trusted me. Since we were kids. That's the whole thing — that's why it works." A breath. "I'm sorry. That part's real. I am sorry."
"I believe you," I said. "But sorry doesn't unfreeze the account."
I ended the call.
Beth put her hand over mine. For a minute neither of us spoke.
"He said Sabrina told him I'd never figure it out," I said.
"She was wrong," Beth said.
"She was wrong," I agreed.
Nadine called twenty minutes later. The warrant had been served at Ethan's office. The servers were secured. Doug Farrell had been taken in for questioning. Sabrina Kohl's accounts were frozen.
"His attorney has already reached out," Nadine said. "He'll be formally charged by Friday. Wire fraud, money laundering. Possibly more once they finish with the servers."
"And my account?"
"Being unwound right now. You'll sign some paperwork, but your exposure is closed. The investigators are satisfied with the timeline."
I looked out Beth's window at her small backyard. A bird feeder. A wooden bench. Small, quiet, ordinary things.
May you like
"Thank you, Nadine."
"You did the hard part," she said. "I'll be in touch."
