Previously…
– Sarah and Matt tasked Landon with copying files from Zane’s computer onto a flash drive so they could determine whether he’d hacked the Objection servers to frame Tori.
– Zane left work early and caught Landon leaving the apartment. He accused Landon of trying to break in, and a physical fight ensued. Helen arrived in time to clobber Zane over the head to stop him from hurting Landon further.
– Isaac treated Zane for a concussion at the hospital, while Landon covertly gave Sarah and Matt the flash drive with the copied files.

The hooks that attach the curtain to the metal bar above clang and clatter as Tori Gray peeks through the hanging fabric.

“There you are,” she says once she spots Zane Tanaka. “How are you? How bad is it?”

“It’s just a concussion,” her boyfriend responds from the cot where he reclines against several pillows so that his head and upper body are elevated. “Hurts like hell, but I’m gonna be fine.”

Tori lets out a sigh of relief and comes to the side of the bed. She carefully pulls him into an embrace. “Thank god. Zane, what happened?!”

His face scrunches up. “I don’t really remember. Okay, I remember that dweeb Landon—”

“He said you beat him up. He has this huge bruise on his face.”

“He was trying to break into our apartment!”

“Why would he breaking into our apartment?” 

“I don’t know. He’s, like, obsessed with you,” Zane says. “And then I guess he nailed me on the head, or—”

“That wasn’t Landon,” Tori informs him. “It was Mrs. Chase.”

“What? How?”

“It’s Mrs. Chase.” Tori shrugs as if that should explain it all. “She was coming to deliver some chili to us and saw you going after Landon, so she hit you on the head with the pot to get you to stop.”

“What the fuck?” Zane says, sitting upright. “That old biddy assaulted me! I should press charges.”

“From the sounds of it, she was trying to help Landon. Did you really have to beat him up?”

“Tori, he’s a creep.” Zane levels a deathly serious stare at her. “I don’t know what his game is, but he was trying to break into our place. I swear. I saw him trying the doorknob and everything.”

“He told me that, too. He said he heard something inside and was just seeing–”

“Bullshit. Who tries to walk into somebody else’s home if they don’t answer the door? That’s weird.”

Tori hesitates, uncertain what to believe. Landon’s explanation is perfectly plausible in its innocence — but Zane’s interpretation of events could still be true.

“Did you have to hit him?” she asks. “And Mrs. Chase said you were strangling him when she got there.”

“It got heated. I’m sorry. I don’t trust the guy,” Zane says. “I’m not proud of my actions, Tori, but I’m not going to say I was wrong for trying to protect our home, either. Because I wasn’t.”

—–

Diane Bishop hurries off the elevator, and — after dodging a janitorial cart that nearly bowls her over — finds Sarah Fisher Gray in the waiting area.

“I am so sorry this got out of hand,” Diane says breathlessly without even greeting her friend. “And you know how much I hate apologizing.”

“I know,” Sarah replies with a tense nod. “And I appreciate your help. I asked you to keep Zane at work, not hog-tie him in a closet.”

“Maybe I should’ve. Although your mom did get the best of me when she tricked me and then locked me in that shed that one time…” Diane’s eyes pop open wide. “Am I losing my touch?!”

Sarah can’t help but crack a grin, in spite of the serious circumstances. “We can worry about that later. Tori’s in with Zane now, by the way.”

“Good. Well, not good, but I also don’t need him getting killed while he’s supposed to be working for me.” Something nearby catches Diane’s attention, and she points her index finger at it. “What’s that?”

“A pot of chili,” Sarah explains.

“Huh?”

“Helen Chase left it there. She’s off talking to Don.”

“I am so confused,” Diane says.

“That’s what she nailed Zane on the head with. She got there in the nick of time. She said he was strangling Landon–”

“What the hell? How’s Landon?”

“He seems fine. We convinced him to let the doctors take a look, just to be careful.”

“So I guess the plan didn’t work,” Diane says. “If Zane caught Landon—”

“That’s the thing,” Sarah says, glancing both ways and then lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Zane thought he caught Landon trying to get into the apartment… but Landon was on his way out.”

“Did he…?”

“He got the flash drive. I wanted to wait for Tori, so Matt offered to go home with it so he could upload it to the cloud and let my contact analyze the files.”

Diane’s plump lips curl into a grin. “So while Zane is in there acting like he’s the victim in this situation…”

“…Matt’s about to get the proof that Zane hacked into the Objection servers to frame Tori,” Sarah finishes for her. “And once we have that, Tori will finally — finally! — have to admit what a piece of crap he is.”

—–

On the second floor of her family home, Paula Fisher steps into the doorway of the room that her daughter and Matt share. She finds her son-in-law sitting on the bed with his laptop, his attention focused on it. It takes him a few seconds to glance up once he senses Paula’s presence.

“Billy’s in bed reading,” Paula tells him. “I think he could tell something exciting was going on — I haven’t had to negotiate with him to go to bed like that in quite a while.”

“Thanks for staying with him while we ran out,” Matt says. 

“Have you heard anything more from Sarah? How are things at the hospital?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. She talked Landon into getting checked out by the doctors, though.”

“That’s good,” Paula replies, wincing as she recalls Matt’s earlier description of the fight between Landon and Zane that Helen happened to break up. “I still don’t understand exactly what happened tonight.”

“It’s a long story,” Matt says as he taps away at the laptop’s keyboard.

Paula watches him quietly, narrowing her eyes with growing suspicion. “That’s the impression I’ve gotten. There wouldn’t have been some ulterior motive to this dinner with Tori that we had tonight, would there?”

Matt’s gaze snaps up toward her. He opens his mouth to speak and then stops. “Was it that obvious?”

“It’s become obvious as the night’s gone on. All this craziness with the hospital…”

He hesitates for a lengthy beat before admitting, “Sarah and I kinda had a– a plan.”

“Oh, dear. A plan that hit some snags?”

“A couple, yeah. But it’s all gonna work out.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because of this.” Matt points to the flash drive sticking out of the side of the laptop. “I can explain it all later — but we’re about to have proof that the last thing Zane’s got in mind are Tori’s best interests.”

—–

Diane takes the elevator back down to the hospital’s ground floor and crosses to the surprisingly decent café, where she orders herbal teas for herself and Sarah. She has one hot to-go cup clutched in each hand and is heading back toward the elevators when she sees Isaac Banks mere yards away from her. In the moment that it takes her to process the sight and make a decision to dodge him, Isaac notices her, too.

He sticks his hands into the pockets of his white doctor’s coat and approaches tentatively. 

“Everything okay?” he asks, his tone cool.

Diane nods. “Yeah. An employee of mine got conked over the head with a pot of chili — and he’s my best friend’s daughter’s boyfriend — so I came to check on everyone.”

Isaac cocks his head. “I actually just saw a patient who got knocked on the head with something heavy.”

“Zane Tanaka?”

“You know I can’t talk about patients’ cases.”

“Right, right.” She shrugs both shoulders. “I should get back upstairs.”

She averts her gaze and hears him inhale deeply through both nostrils. She only makes it a few steps before he calls after her.

“Diane. Hold up.”

She stops walking but doesn’t yet turn back toward him.

“Last time I saw you, downtown,” he says, “you said there was something we should talk about. Privately.”

Diane’s whole body tenses at the memory. She was so close to telling him about her shameful history with Tim, and how Samantha and Tempest became involved with it…

“But then my sister walked up and you completely shut down,” Isaac continues. “So what’s up?”

She swivels her head over her shoulder to look back at him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It sounded kinda important.”

“It wasn’t,” she says curtly, even though a part of her still longs to tell him her darkest secret, to explain why her sordid history with Tempest would make it impossible for them to be together. But there is no point, because it still wouldn’t free them to take things any further.

“Diane…”

“I have to get back upstairs,” she says, and without missing a beat, she walks toward the elevators, tea in hand, doing her best to leave Isaac behind her.

—–

Sarah remains in the waiting area, anxiously checking her phone for updates from Matt, even though she knows it is probably too soon for her contact to have examined the contents of the flash drive. She is about to check it one more time when she sees Landon Esco emerging through the swinging double doors, holding a cold gel pack to his cheek.

“What did the doctor say?” Sarah asks him.

“That I’m fine except I’m gonna have a shiner for a while,” he says. “Told me to keep icing it and stuff.”

“That’s good advice. And I’m really glad that you weren’t hurt worse, Landon. Matt and I — we can’t thank you enough for your help with this.”

“If it gets Tori away from Zane once and for all, it was worth it.”

Sarah is about to respond when she sees her daughter also come through the double doors. She and Landon both stiffen instinctively. 

“How’s Zane?” Sarah asks, hating that she even has to bother with the pleasantries. 

“It’s only a concussion. He’ll be fine,” Tori says, with a heavy note of exasperation. Then she looks squarely at Landon. “I need to talk to you.”

He gulps. “About what?”

“About whatever happened tonight. Zane says…” She trails off and then glances at her mom. “Would you give us a moment, Mom?”

Sarah does her best to avoid making any kind of incriminating eye contact with Landon and instead brushes a few strands of her blonde hair behind one ear. “Of course.”

“I don’t mind if your mom hears this,” Landon says. “The thing is — Zane wasn’t totally wrong.”

Sarah’s breath catches in her throat.

“I was trying the doorknob,” he says. “Because I really needed to see you. I– Tori, I have these, these feelings for you, and I’ve tried to ignore them for so long, but I just felt like I had to tell you.”

His words wash over Tori, who seems genuinely surprised, yet she says nothing.

“That’s the only reason I was there tonight,” Landon continues. “I guess Zane had some sixth sense about it, or… I don’t know. But now you know the truth.”

Tori stares him in the eyes for several silent, excruciating seconds.

“Thank you for being honest with me,” she says. “And I’m sorry Zane did this to you. That was wrong of him. But I’m with him. That’s not gonna change.”

The only response Landon offers is a contrite nod.

“I told Zane I’d see if the nurses had his discharge papers yet,” Tori then says. “I want to get him home so he can rest.”

“Do you need any help?” Sarah asks.

“No, I’ve got it. But thanks, Mom. I’ll check in with you guys in the morning.”

Tori heads for the nurses’ station, leaving her mother and Landon standing in the waiting area engulfed in a tense, uncertain quiet. Sarah waits until Tori is fully occupied speaking with a nurse before she addresses Landon, in a half-whisper:

“You didn’t have to make up that story.”

Landon bows his head, still clutching the cold pack to his face.

“I didn’t want Tori to blame you and Mr. Gray for all of this,” he finally says. “I know you’re only trying to help her, and she’s gotten so mad at you for it before…”

“Thank you, Landon,” Sarah says, and then she feels her phone vibrating. She quickly pulls it out and sees Matt’s name on the caller ID.

“It’s Matt,” she tells Landon before stepping aside to the far corner of the waiting area.

Once she is there, she answers the call and holds the iPhone to her face.

“Anything yet?” she asks, unable to conceal the frantic feelings bubbling up inside herself.

“I just heard from your guy,” Matt replies, with uncharacteristic intensity.

“And?”

“It’s not there.”

“What do you mean?”

“He went through the files looking for what he told us to find,” Matt says, “and there’s nothing there. Zane never hacked into the server.”

“There’s no way—”

“He said he’s sure of it. Whoever’s mistake Tori got blamed for at work — it wasn’t Zane.”

END OF EPISODE 1083

Are you surprised that Zane wasn’t the one to hack Objection?
Will Tori realize that Landon was telling the truth about his feelings?
Should Diane be fully honest with Isaac?
Discuss all this and more in the comments below!

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