Previously…
– Diane decided to break into Brian’s phone to find out what he has been hiding from her. When she accidentally answered a FaceTime call on it, however, Kelsey Barker appeared and referred to Brian as her husband!
– Natalie tailed Loretta in hopes of figuring out where she is keeping Rosie and Gabrielle.
– Brent, Molly, and Travis realized that Rosie and Gabrielle really had been kidnapped. Brent and Molly studied security footage of a mysterious man using Rosie’s debit card at an ATM a few hours away.

Molly Taylor stands over her kitchen island, scrubbing vigorously at it with a folded piece of paper towel. 

“Are you trying to get down to the next layer of the granite, or what?” her ex-husband asks from his seat at the table.

She looks up. “There’s a spot. Something dried on here. I’m trying to…” She lets out a sigh and drops the paper towel. “I need to do something. This waiting is driving me crazy.”

“Me too,” Brent says, glancing down at the cell phone that hasn’t left his palm ever since he ordered his officers in the field to tail Loretta Ragan after she went into a parking garage downtown and switched cars. 

“Should we go?” Molly asks.

“Go where? We don’t know where Loretta is heading.”

“She’s heading wherever she has Gabrielle and Rosie stashed. They have to be okay…”

“We’re gonna crack this,” Brent assures her. “But putting yourself in danger is not going to help anyone.”

His phone display lights up as the device begins buzzing in his hand.

“Rivera. Hey,” he answers within an instant. “She stop somewhere?”

Molly watches as Brent listens intently. 

“You’re sure that’s the address?” he says. “Yeah, I know it. I know it well. I’m getting in the car now. Don’t make a move until I get there.”

“What? What’s happening? Where are you going?” Molly asks.

“That car took Loretta to Nick Moriani‘s old house,” Brent tells her as he hangs up. 

“The house where Ryan was killed?”

“Yeah. I have no idea what any of this means. But I’m going to check it out.” He stands. “You stay here, okay? I’ll let you know as soon as I have any information at all.”

“Be safe,” she says, and a part of her aches seeing him rush out of the house, heading right for what could be a very dangerous situation — but it also heartens her to see him in his element, as a hero and problem-solver.

When the front door closes, the silence and stillness of the house hit Molly. She knows that she cannot possibly sit here doing nothing.

She retrieves her iPhone from the table, dials, and draws in a nervous breath as the call rings.

“Hi,” she says into the phone. “You have to hear me out. There’s news.”

—–

“Who’s there? And why are you answering my husband’s phone?”

Although she hasn’t heard it in years and years, Diane Bishop recognizes Kelsey Barker‘s voice immediately. Though she has been ducking to avoid being seen on the accidental FaceTime call, Diane now stands, bringing herself into view of the front-facing camera on Brian‘s phone.

“Kelsey?” she says in disbelief. “Husband?!”

Onscreen, Kelsey looks stunned. “Diane.”

The two women appraise one another through the screen for a long, uneasy moment. Diane remembers Kelsey as fresh-faced and innocent, a young woman she could easily dismiss. But the intervening years have narrowed Kelsey’s face a bit, sharpened her cheekbones, and in her 40s, she wears a slight air of sophistication that catches Diane off-guard. 

“I’m sorry, Brian’s phone was sitting here charging, and I accidentally answered your call,” Diane explains.

“Oh.”

“He’s in the shower. We, um…” Diane finds herself at an uncharacteristic loss for words. “We’re going to see Samantha.”

Kelsey swallows. “I’m, um, I’m glad to hear that she’s recovering.”

“Thank you.” All Diane can hear is that word: husband. “I’ll tell Brian–“

“Tell me what?” Brian interrupts as he steps out of the hallway bathroom. He wears a white undershirt and a towel wrapped around his waist.

Diane turns the phone around so that he can see Kelsey onscreen.

“I accidentally answered your wife‘s call,” she says. 

Brian turns ashen. He comes over to the kitchen peninsula and takes the phone from Diane.

“I’ll call you back in a little bit,” he tells Kelsey. Diane stands by as the two trade I love yous before hanging up.

“Wife?” Diane asks as soon as the FaceTime has ended. “You didn’t see a need to mention to me that you and Kelsey were back together, let alone got married?!”

“Diane, I can–” But he stops mid-statement. “What is this?”

Diane freezes as she realizes that the device Sarah gave her — the device intended to unlock Brian’s phone so she could go through it — is still plugged into the phone.

—–

“News?” Travis asks. He sits in the driver’s seat of his car outside Thaw Coffee & Tea, having just left the café when his aunt called. Although he wanted to ignore her call, he knew that it might be an update on Rosie and Gabrielle’s whereabouts, so he forced himself to answer.

“Brent was having Loretta followed,” Molly tells him over the line, “and he realizes that she’s been parking in random garages and then getting into another car–“

“So no one would realize she was going to where Rosie and Gabrielle are,” Travis finishes the thought for her. “Do they know where she went?”

“That’s the craziest part. Maybe.”

“How so?” Travis steps on the brake and presses the ignition button to start his car. 

“Whoever’s driving Loretta just took her to Nick Moriani’s old house.”

“What? How would they even know–“

“It’s the same house your Uncle Ryan lived in until he died,” Molly says. “Brent recognized the address immediately.”

Travis shoves his to-go Americano into the center cup holder. “They must be there.”

“That’s what I think, too.”

“I’m going there right now,” he says, putting the car into reverse. 

“Brent said not to–“

“I don’t care. I’m going.” Before his aunt can protest any more, Travis ends the call and sets his phone on the driver’s seat between his legs. His entire body thrums with anxious energy as he pulls out of the parking lot, desperate to find his wife and daughter.

—–

Once Brent pulls onto the all-too-familiar street, a place he has hardly thought of in years, he barely even allows his car to come to a stop before hopping out. He hurries over to the unmarked vehicle at the opposite curb, inside which he recognizes Officers Rivera and Summers. 

“She’s still inside?” Brent asks as soon as Rivera rolls down the window. 

Both officers nod. 

“I had the station do a little research on this address when I was driving over,” Brent tells them. “This house went on the market after Ryan Moriani was killed and was eventually scooped up by an LLC that has ties to Loretta Ragan. The pieces are all fitting together.”

“We got the plate number of the car she drove here in, too,” Rivera says. He holds up a slip of paper with seven characters on it. 

“No kidding!” Brent exclaims as he takes in the number and realizes that it matches the license plate he and Molly saw on the security footage taken at the ATM where Rosie’s card was used. “This means we’ve got Loretta officially connected to whoever was using Jimenez’s bank card. It’s time to move in.”

Rivera and Summers open the doors and slide out of the vehicle.

—–

“Goddammit,” Natalie Bishop mutters when she sees Brent arrive at the scene. She wasn’t even sure what she was going to do once she followed Loretta to wherever the hell this is, but having the police show up was not on her bingo card.

She slinks down in her driver’s seat and clenches every muscle in her body, hoping that Brent won’t notice her or somehow recognize her car. 

But then she sees Brent go over to another car, and two uniformed officers get out to join him. 

“Shit,” she says under her breath, as her mind races trying to think of how she is going to explain being here.

I’ll just say Loretta was acting shady as hell and I decided to see what she was up to, she thinks. But then, instead of walking toward her, the three approach the house that Loretta went into.

“They’ve got her,” Natalie says, peering over the steering wheel. “They’re going to get Loretta and save Rosie and that little girl, and no one will ever know I was here.”

She watches as Brent pounds on the golden oak front door of the house.

—–

Down in the basement of the former Moriani home, Eric Westin slips the black ski mask over his head. Loretta hands him the paper plate containing several slices of white bread and two bottles of water.

“Give our guests my best,” she says with an evil grin before unlocking the outer door. Eric steps through it, and then Loretta closes it behind him and locks it again.

—–

Inside the small room, with its four uniform walls of grey cinder block, Rosie Jimenez feels ready to crawl out of her skin. Gabrielle has been sobbing on and off all day, and now the little girl sits beside her, her eyes and face red and raw. Until today, Rosie thought she was doing a decent job of maintaining her composure; giving the masked man the PIN for her and Travis’s joint account offered her a sliver of optimism, hope that Travis would recognize the signal and be able to glean something from it. But she truly doesn’t know how much more she can take of being in this horrible room, especially now that she has lost all sense of what time of day it even is.

She startles at the sound of the padlock and chains rattling outside, knowing they mean the arrival of her masked captor. She has spent so much time attempting to devise a way to trick him into helping her, but there is something about pretending that Gabrielle is sick and needs medical attention that feels wrong to her, like it would be inviting bad karma — and she worries that it might only speed up plans to kill them.

She crosses her legs in front of her and pulls Gabrielle to her side as the masked man enters and sets down the bread and water.

“What do you want from me?” she asks in a pleading tone that she wishes were more of a put-on than it is. But she feels desperation in every cell of her body now. 

He regards her, those dark eyes glowering through the holes in the mask, but says nothing.

“Please, I will do whatever you want,” Rosie says. 

She decides to stand up, hoping it might make him see her as more of a person rather than an animal lying on the floor. She struggles to pick up Gabrielle as she does so; the little girl has gotten a lot bigger in the past few months, and Rosie feels so weak from eating only white bread and never having more than the bare minimum to drink, plus not sleeping well for days and days.

“Anything,” she continues. “I need to get out of here. We both do.”

She tries not to react as she sees his hand go to his waist. But she is certain that she sees him fingering the handle of a gun tucked into his pants.

“Why are you doing this to us?” she asks. A plan flashes through her mind: take him out at the knees. Grab the gun. Force him to walk her out of here. But if it were to go awry– if Gabrielle were to be hurt–

The man shakes his head and exits the room. As she always does, Rosie gazes out the door, glimpsing the grey bricks and the second door out there. 

“Please,” she whimpers, but he is already gone, disinterested in her pleas.

—–

Diane’s hand shoots out to pull the device from the bottom of Brian’s phone. 

“It’s nothing,” she says. “Just this portable charger–“

He pulls the phone away before she can grab it. “I watched you plug my phone into the wall two minutes ago. What are you doing, Diane?”

“What am I doing? You got married and you kept it from me!”

“I didn’t keep it from you–“

“Kelsey just called and asked for her husband,” Diane says. “And I did not know that you were her husband. Ergo, you kept it from me.”

“Your daughter was in a coma! What was I supposed to do, call and tell you, ‘Hey, Kelsey and I eloped! Pick up something off our registry while you sit vigil at your daughter’s bedside!’?”

Her index finger, adorned with a long, pink nail, shoots out toward him. “You were on the phone the other night, talking about how you were going to make sure I didn’t find something out–“

“You were eavesdropping on me?” he says.

“I was existing in my own home — where you are a guest — and heard you on the phone when you thought I was already in the shower.”

“And…?” He looks down at the phone in his hand and then yanks the small plug-in device from it. “Were you trying to unlock my phone?”

“I– no!”

He glares at her, not believing her denial, and slams the device down on the countertop. “For your information, Kelsey and I ran into each other in Las Vegas last year.”

“And got married out of the blue?!”

“No! We started talking more, and she came to visit me, and I went to visit her, and… we were in Miami a few months ago and she told me she was pregnant. And I thought, why not just do it? So we did. It was spontaneous, but not, and it was during that trip that you called to tell me about Samantha — but we were so swept up in everything that I didn’t even listen to your voicemail for a few days, and I thought — what an asshole I am, being so wrapped up in my own stuff that I missed this huge, horrible thing happened to my friend. I was planning to tell you when everything had settled.”

“Samantha’s been awake almost since the minute you waltzed back into town,” she retorts. “You could’ve told me–“

“I was waiting for the right moment! Jesus. I’m sorry. Breaking into my phone? That’s a new low.” He shakes his head and then darts back toward the bathroom. “I’ll get dinner on my own, okay? Say hi to Samantha and Tim for me.”

“Brian–“

But his only response is to slam the bathroom door.

—–

After Eric locks up Rosie’s door, he pulls off the ski mask and moves to the outer door. But instead of having to knock to signal to Loretta to let him out, he finds it swinging open. He steps out, confused when he doesn’t see her anywhere.

“Loretta?” he calls out.

That is when he hears rumbling on the stairs leading down to the basement. He knows instinctually that they are not the footsteps of an elderly woman.

“Where is she?” a voice shouts, and a moment later, Brent appears at the foot of the stairs, gun drawn. He stops when he sees Eric standing there.

“Eric Westin?” the police commander says with confusion.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Eric replies. His head swivels in every direction for a sign of Loretta, but she is gone.

Brent holds his gun aloft as he asks Eric, “Where are Rosie and Gabrielle?”

But the former attorney remains stone-faced, betraying nothing.

“Answer me, Westin! Did Loretta put you up to this?”

“I don’t know anything,” Eric says, but his voice is shaking as he realizes how bad this actually looks. 

Brent surveys the space and sees the additional door behind Eric, with chains across it. 

“Show me what’s in that room,” he orders.

Eric shrugs. “I don’t know–“

“Show me now!” Brent roars.

His mind zipping frantically from one idea to the next, Eric turns, as if he is going to unlock the door — but instead pulls out his own gun and turns it on Brent.

—–

Molly is surprised by how easily her mind remembers how to drive to the house where her half-brother once lived. As she settles by the curb, parking a few houses down from the one-time Moriani home, she notices Brent’s empty car parked along the way, as well.

“He must be inside already,” she says as she steps out of her vehicle.

A Honda rounds the corner and pulls up beside her. She recognizes it as Travis’s.

“Are they here?” her nephew asks as he rolls down the window.

“I don’t know. I see Brent’s car–” Molly stops cold when she sees something else.

“What?” Travis asks, his engine still rumbling.

“Is that… Natalie?” she says, pointing to another of the parked cars lining the street.

—–

In the basement, Brent and Eric hold their guns on one another.

“You do not want to shoot a cop right now,” Brent says through gritted teeth. “That’s going to make this a hell of a lot worse.”

“Then let me go, and I won’t,” Eric says. “This is all a misunderstanding–“

“Why were you using Rosie Jimenez’s debit card at that ATM in Bremerton, then? Explain to me how that could be a misunderstanding.”

Eric’s jaw flaps without producing sound. 

“It’s over, Westin,” Brent says. “Take me to my daughter and Rosie now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eric says, and then his panicked finger pulls on the trigger, firing a bullet across the room.

Brent ducks out of reflex and fires his own weapon. But he has barely put pressure on the trigger when he hears a loud blast from behind him, and suddenly the world is absorbed in heat and ash and debris.

—–

Travis leaves his car idling and jumps out to follow Molly over to Natalie’s car. She spots them coming and quickly starts the engine, but before she can put the car into drive, Molly is rapping on the window.

“Natalie!” she cries. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

Natalie thinks of racing away, but some instinct tells her to lower the window. She uses her index finger to press the button on the door.

“Loretta went in there,” she gasps.

“We know,” Travis says. “But what are you–“

Before he can finish the question, however, a loud blast sounds from the Morianis’ old home. Windows shatter instantly, shards of glass blowing outward, as the cacophonous sound overtakes the air all around them.

Molly, Travis, and Natalie stare in horror at the scene, unable to process what is happening.

“No!” Molly screams as she sees flames begin to leap up from the house. “Nooooooo!”

END OF EPISODE 1153

Who will survive the explosion?
Is Loretta’s reign of terror finally over?
Can Diane and Brian reconcile?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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