Nano 2017 brainstorming 1

Things to clarify: Riley Beld will become a friend to Laura – or at least a person she will eventually realize she can trust. When she is forced out of town – she losses Jed as her best friend and also thinks she may lose Chad as her boyfriend, but she need to get to the bottom of what happened that night. So, she is living in a motel somewhere in some little town near Nolden. Riley goes to tell her he knows what happened that night, but he can’t just tell her. He winds up staying in the motel, too. After the accident, Riley slipped into maybe a kind of depression or something. His life would never be the same. He would struggle with a lot of things and probably get hooked on alcohol or other drugs. He was no longer a trustworthy person. He and MJ would have ended their friendship long ago. There would still be things hanging over his head, though, that would not allow him to - OH, here’s something. He did something, or didn’t do something, but MJ’s dad got him out of it somehow. He was the judge, afterall. Was Riley maybe dating MJ’s sister? Or someone else close to him? And there were rape allegations? That would be something he would want to go away. In exchange for that, he would keep quiet about what happened the night of the accident. Of course, the allegations against Riley would be false, but he also knew the Jorgensens could make it stick. They were the power in town. He used to think that was a great thing, and that he was protected by his affiliation with Michael. But once the accident happened, the rape allegations would come out. The Jorgensens said they would “fix it” for him, as long as he did not say anything about the accident. There is no statue of limitations on first degree sexual assault in Wisconsin, so he could still be tried and convicted. However, his charge would be second degree sexual assault, which has a statute of limitations of 6 years for second or third degree sexual assault. He was charged with having sex with the girl when she was passed out, which would be second degree – I think. First degree, in this case, would involve a weapon, etc. I don’t think I’ll use a statutory rape – first of all, he’s 24 at the time. Second of all, I want him to look like an undependable jerk, not a total creep. So, it will be rape of an adult that he will be charged with. Or maybe charges were never even filed, but he thinks they were. This could explain a lot of what happened and definitely why he would never tell anyone what happened.
If anyone else knew about this, they would have been threatened, too, of course. Jed was threatened. Cooper was threatened. He actually knew what happened. How would be threatened? I guess, because he was a kid, the threat would not have to be life-changing, but it would seem that way to him. He would be easily intimidated. They might have threatened him with some BS about his dad going to jail and then he would be sent to foster care. That would be enough for a 10-year-old boy to be quiet, I’m sure. Maybe the Jorgensens also offered to pay for Cooper’s college education if Jed could keep him quiet. Cooper would have learned a lot of the wrong lessons by now. He may resent Jed a bit for telling him to keep quiet to get his education paid for. But he would also be scared of losing his dad to prison (on whatever trumped up charge they had him believing).
Both of these seem to make sense with the storyline now. I wasn’t sure before what the threats were. Now it fits, though.