Previously…
– Alex was surprised when he saw Finn receiving a phone call from Katherine Fitch.
– Molly informed Brent, Elly, and Conrad that she had been told, by Natalie, that Loretta Ragan was inside the Moriani house on the night it exploded.
– Just as Jason invited Sabrina to spend Christmas with his family, Sophie walked in on the couple celebrating.

“What the heck?” Sophie Fisher exclaims. She stands in the entrance to the home she shares with her father, a gray beanie pulled down over her dark hair and her arms by her side, as she stares at said father and his girlfriend, who are frozen in a clinch.

Jason’s heart thumps inside his chest, albeit for an entirely different reason than it was a few moments ago. He hastily straightens his clothing as he takes a step back from Sabrina Gage, whose cheeks have already become infused with a hot rush of redness.

“I– I thought you were going Christmas shopping with the Hunts girls,” Jason stammers.

“Their mom’s stupid van got a flat tire, so I took an Uber home,” Sophie says. “But I’m gonna go–“

As she breaks for the front door, Jason calls out:

“Sophie. No.”

Although she stops, hand raised toward the door handle, she does not look back at him.

Sabrina swallows hard, producing an audible gulp.

“Let’s discuss this,” Jason says.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” Sophie snipes back. “Is this what you do every time I go out? Sick.”

Jason’s tone hardens. “Be respectful, Sophie.”

The teenager whips around. “Then you be respectful and stop making out with a lady who has the same name as the crazy bitch who murdered my mom!”

Sabrina lifts a hand to cover her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jason–“

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “And Sophie — that’s enough of this.”

“We agree on that,” Sophie says, yanking open the door.

“Stop right there,” Jason says firmly. For a split-second, he expects her to ignore him and keep going, but she again pauses in the open doorway. A cold gust of December air blows into the house.

“I can leave,” Sabrina says.

“No.” Jason walks toward the entry and closes the door. Sophie lowers her arm but simply stands against the wall, her gaze upon the dark-stained hardwood flooring.

“No one is going anywhere,” he says. “Not until the three of us resolve this. Okay?”

—–

Brent Taylor roughly closes the door of his SUV as he climbs out of the vehicle. The winter air bites at his exposed nose and ears, but he does his best to ignore it. He presses a button on the key fob, and the SUV chirps to announce that it has been locked. By the time it does so, Brent has already reached the driveway of the large white house, with its black roof and board-and-batten siding. A seemingly endless string of golden lights climbs the house on both sides, following the roofline with impressive precision. Two tall hedges that flank the front porch have nets of matching lights draped elegantly over them.

He pokes the doorbell with his index finger. A shade is drawn over the windows that comprise the upper half of the front door, restricting his ability to peer inside. Nevertheless, it is only a few seconds before he hears footsteps from within the house, and then the lock is being undone and the door opened.

Natalie Bishop, wearing a black turtleneck and high-waisted red wool trousers, cocks her head in surprise at the sight of him.

“Commander Taylor,” she says, her voice rising at the end of his name as if being pulled upward by the hook of a question mark. “What can I do for you?”

Instinctively Brent surveys the interior of the house, or what he can see of it from his post at the front door. His eye lands on the white marble fireplace, above which hang five stockings in a red-and-green tartan that seem too ornate for Natalie and Spencer‘s general taste. 

“You… Spencer… Peter… Bree… and…?” he asks.

She turns to look over her shoulder and realizes what he is evaluating.

“And Loretta,” she says. “She insisted that we all have stockings.”

“Ah. Is she home?”

“No, thank god,” the auburn-haired woman replies. “I can tell her you came by.”

“It’s actually you I need to talk to.”

“Me?” Natalie narrows her eyes — in a way that seems performative, Brent thinks. 

“Yeah. I wanted to follow up on something I heard earlier today.”

“Okay…”

“I hear that you were there when the old Moriani house exploded,” he tells her, allowing the statement to hang in the air in hopes that Natalie will feel compelled to blurt out more. 

But her expression remains stoic. “Where’d you hear that?” she simply asks.

“From Molly. And Travis confirmed that they both saw and spoke with you at the scene.”

“Oh.” Her hand goes to the door, as if ready to slam it in his face. “If you’re accusing me of something–“

“I’m not,” Brent says, jutting out his foot to block the door just in case she does close it on him. “But I need you to give an official statement right away.”

“Official statement? Commander–“

“Both Molly and Travis claim that you said you saw Loretta going into that house with Eric Westin,” Brent says. “And if that’s true, it could finally be what we need to toss her back behind bars for the rest of her miserable life.”

—–

An inflatable snowman with a top hat and a carrot nose stands on the lawn outside the yellow bungalow. Alex Marshall chuckles to himself as he walks from the driveway to the front door of the home; he never thought he would be the sort of person to have oversized inflatable Christmas decorations, but Chase insisted upon it, and Alex couldn’t deny his son the joy, no matter how silly the item looks in front of their house.

He lets himself into the house and finds his husband picking up Legos off the living room floor.

“Already had time to get into the Legos, huh?” Alex asks as he hangs his coat.

Trevor, who is on his hands and knees on the damask rug, looks up. “Oh, it was a whirlwind. We went to Christmas concert rehearsal, got some lunch, came home and took out all the Legos, and then passed out before we could pick up said Legos.”

“Where is he now?”

“Napping. In our bed, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Alex lowers himself to the floor, wincing at the way his knees crack slightly, and begins helping Trevor clean up. “How did the concert rehearsal go?”

Trevor pauses mid-movement and raises one eyebrow. “How do you think thirty first-graders who don’t know the lyrics and had cupcakes before rehearsal did?”

“Yikes. Okay, I’ll brace myself for the main event.”

“I’m gonna strongly suggest we pre-game with some wine and/or an edible,” Trevor says with a laugh. 

They continue picking up Legos and placing them in the nearby plastic bin for a few moments. 

“I dropped off the key to the shed, by the way,” Alex says.

“Oh, cool. Thank you. I was gonna do that tomorrow.”

“I had time and I was going over by the house, so it was no trouble.” Alex pauses, the heels of his hands pressing into the rug, as he contemplates how to speak the next part of this. “And I noticed something kind of weird while I was there.”

He watches as Trevor processes this, finally sitting with his legs tucked under him and his palms on his thighs.

“What sort of weird…?” he finally asks.

“Finn‘s phone rang while we were talking,” Alex explains, “and the person who was calling him…”

Trevor narrows his eyes. “What? Who was it?”

“Katherine Fitch.”

“What? The Katherine Fitch who was married to Nick Moriani?” As soon as Alex nods, Trevor adds, “It could’ve been a different person. It’s not like it’s such a unique name.”

“But Katherine Fitch is still a major shareholder in Objection, right? And I remember that she had settled in Seattle, or at least, that’s what Jason said when she came to the fundraiser he threw for Courtney. You mentioned that you thought Gia was up to something, because she took Finn to Seattle…”

Trevor screws up his face as he turns all of this over in his mind. “Then why would Katherine be calling Finn? It’s the weekend, and he isn’t at the office.”

“Because he’s helping Gia,” Alex says. “Wouldn’t that make sense? He’s helping her convince board members to, I don’t know, put Gia in Molly’s seat permanently.” 

“That’s a big reach.”

“Is it? There was something about seeing Katherine’s name on his phone–“

“That made you want to accuse Finn of stabbing Molly in the back?” Trevor rises to his feet, shaking his head. 

“I’m not accusing him of anything.”

“Yes, you are. I thought we worked through this, Alex. Are you still mad because you think I was giving Finn special treatment?”

“No,” Alex says, standing up as well, “but the fact that you’re so quick to defend him based on nothing is very telling.”

“Because you’re implicating him in this whole conspiracy based on the fact that someone with a super-common name happened to call him!”

Alex draws in a sharp breath through his nostrils. His pulse is pounding, and he has to remind himself to disengage before this gets worse.

“I’m not going to fight with you over this,” he says. “I noticed something and thought it might be of interest to you, but apparently, I’ve overstepped. So forget it.”

“It’s forgotten,” Trevor says.

“Good. I’m going to go check on Chase.” 

Alex exits the room, but a cloud of tension lingers, making it clear that their disagreement is anything but forgotten.

—–

Arms folded, Jason stands with his back to the front door. Sophie refuses to make eye contact with him, and Sabrina lingers behind Sophie, looking as if she wants to melt into the floor.

“I know this is uncomfortable for all of us in different ways,” he begins, “but Sophie, I promise you that no one is trying to take your mother’s place.”

“Good,” the teenager mutters.

“Sabrina, I’m sorry I’ve treated you like a secret for all these months,” Jason says. “You deserve better than that.”

“I understand,” Sabrina says. “You’re a father first and foremost.”

“True. But I’m also my own person, and I care about you. Like, a lot.”

“Ugh,” Sophie scoffs.

“Sophie,” Jason says firmly. “Enough. Sabrina has done nothing to hurt or offend you, has she?”

With pieces of black hair hanging over her face, Sophie glances up. It appears as if she is searching the room for something to latch onto. “Her name, for starters,” she says at last. 

“Shannon Parish took Sabrina’s name while Sabrina was in the hospital,” Jason counters. “Sabrina had nothing to do with it. I get that it might be weird for you to have that association, but if I can get past it, so can you.”

Sophie’s only response is to glare back at her father.

“How about we all sit down and try to have lunch and a conversation?” Jason says. “It can be a fresh start.”

“Dad,” Sophie whines.

He is about to respond when Sabrina steps forward.

“I’m going to go,” she says.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jason tells her.

“I really think I should. I have a cruise to pack for, apparently.”

“Sabrina–“

“It’s okay,” she says as she opens the door. “It’s clear this isn’t a good time, that’s all.”

Jason wants to protest more, but he can feel Sophie’s eyes boring into him, and if he’s being honest with himself, he isn’t sure that he has control over the situation right now.

“I’ll call you later,” he says to Sabrina.

“Okay. Thanks for the eggnog,” she says, and then she is gone, the door closing behind her and trapping father and daughter alone in the silent house.

“Sophie,” Jason says, as gently as he can manage given what just occurred. “Maybe we can–“

“I’m going to my room,” she says, and before she is even done speaking the words, she is halfway up the stairs.

Jason gazes over at the Christmas tree, still twinkling brightly, and then drops his head into his hands in frustration.

—–

As Natalie looks at Brent across the threshold of her home, she feels a surge of optimism within her. Loretta could finally go back to jail. This could all be over. 

Except it wouldn’t. Loretta’s sneering face and voice fill Natalie’s mind as she recalls their private confrontation the night of the explosion, after she came home to find Loretta untouched and alive: 

“I don’t have to admit anything, Natalie. And if you have any sense, you’ll stop peddling this idea that I was somehow involved in what happened tonight–“

“You were!” Natalie fires back.

“And that will stay between you and me,” Loretta says. “Otherwise—“

“—everyone will find out I hired Sonja, blah blah.” Natalie sighs with frustration.

“What do you say we go down to the station and you give that statement?” Brent suggests.

“I can’t,” Natalie replies, her head spinning at a dizzying clip.

“You can’t? Or won’t?”

“I– I don’t have anything useful to tell you, that’s all.”

“Natalie, if you saw Loretta going into that house, you have something incredibly useful to tell me.”

“I didn’t,” she says, as panic floods her body. 

“Then both Molly and Travis are lying?” he asks dubiously. 

“No. No. They must have– It was crazy that night. They must have misunderstood what I said.”

“Molly said that you told them that you’d watched Loretta go into the house.”

Natalie begins shaking her head before she has any idea what she is going to say next. “I– No. I meant that– I heard those cops saying she had gone into the house. I never saw anything.”

Brent regards her with an intense, searching look, one that Natalie feels might be designed to crack her. She uses every ounce of willpower that she can muster not to show her terror on the outside. 

“I never saw Loretta there,” she says again.

“Then what were you doing at that house in the first place?” he asks.

“It was– Actually, I’m not going to answer any more questions without an attorney.”

The creases in Brent’s forehead deepen as he widens his eyes. “What would you need an attorney for in this situation, Natalie?”

“I was married to one for years,” she says. “I don’t want to get sucked any further into my mother-in-law’s craziness than I already am. If you’re going to insist on dragging me into this based on some throwaway comment, I’m going to cover my bases.”

“Natalie, come on–“

“I’m not under arrest, am I, Commander?” 

Now she waits, staring him down.

“No, you aren’t,” he finally admits. 

“Great. Then I’m under no obligation to answer questions right now. Let me call Conrad–“

“Conrad is representing Molly and me.”

“Great. Then let me find someone else, and I’ll be happy to give a statement with that person present.” She sees him preparing a response and quickly grabs onto the door. “Merry Christmas, Commander.”

With that, she closes the door in his face.

“Dammit,” she says to herself, as the rush of adrenaline causes her body to vibrate. 

Outside, Brent cranes his neck to look up at the second story of the house and at the surprisingly blue sky above.

“What are you hiding?” he half-whispers before giving up and returning to his SUV.

END OF EPISODE 1163

Will Brent be able to get the truth out of Natalie?
Was it wrong of Sabrina to leave so abruptly?
Should Alex back off his suspicions about Finn?
Discuss all this and more in the comments below!

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