Previously…
– Tim and Sonja received test results confirming that TJ has aplastic anemia.
– Natalie took part in a police line-up regarding the night of Loretta’s murder, but the witness failed to identify her as having been at the crime scene.
– Spencer was shocked to learn from Natalie that the witness had identified someone else: Elly!

“Have a good practice! I love you!” Natalie Bishop calls after her son as he races across the grass to the park’s baseball diamond. Peter glances back at her, waves, and continues to run, bat in hand.

“I love you, too,” she mutters as she watches him run the rest of the way to join his team, including the two coaches. She folds her arms, realizing that she dressed a little too lightly for the bright but crisp spring day.

As she turns toward the playground, where small children are playing and yelling while parents observe them, something catches her attention before her eyes even fully recognize it — or her, rather. But when they do, she nearly jumps out of her skin.

Sitting on a bench, hands folded in her lap, is Sonja Kahele.

Afternoon light slants through the tall windows of Tim Fisher‘s office, casting golden  beams across his polished wood desk and the carefully placed books on his shelves. Tim stands by the window with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, his gaze fixed on the modest skyline of King’s Bay. The weight of something solemn blankets the office.

Spencer Ragan, seated in a leather chair, gulps as he processes what his father has just told him.

“Aplastic anemia? What can they do for that?” he asks.

Tim turns, and the gravity of what their family is facing is etched into his face. “They think TJ’s going to need a bone marrow transplant.”

“Jeez. I’m sorry. He’s such a little kid.”

“I know. I’m trying not to let my mind go to the worst possible scenario.”

“Yeah. Don’t let it.”

Slowly Tim walks back behind the desk. “We’re hoping everyone will get tested. Biological relatives have a stronger chance of being a match, obviously. Will you and Peter come in and do that?”

There’s a pause, long enough to be noticeable. Spencer’s brows knit slightly. Finally he says, “Yeah. Of course.”

“Thanks,” Tim says. “I know you and TJ haven’t had much of a chance to bond.”

“Bond? I think I’ve met the kid twice.”

“But he’s your brother. And Peter’s uncle, which is strange. This could save his life.”

“We’ll get tested. I promise,” Spencer replies, a little testily. “I’m just… distracted. Overwhelmed.”

A few silent seconds pass as Tim attempts to read his son’s face. Although he did not raise Spencer, they have gotten to know one another through years of working together here at Vision — as much as Spencer sometimes attempts to shut him out.

Then Tim ventures a guess: “Have there been any developments in Loretta‘s murder case? The media has been awfully quiet.”

“You got it,” Spencer says. “Not just developments. It’s kind of crazy.”

“Crazy how?”

“You are never going to guess who the new suspect is,” Spencer tells him, and Tim waits, a knot of dread coiling in his stomach, for the explanation.

The kitchen of Bill’s on the Pier whirrs with late lunch activity: clanging pans, hissing steam, and the sharp ring of the service bell. Travis Fisher is wiping his hands on a towel when he notices the swinging doors fly open — but the person who steps through them is not wearing one of the standard-issue white coats that all the staff sport, but rather an off-the-shoulder orange sweater with dark-wash jeans and high-heeled boots.

“What are you doing here?” he nervously asks Elly Vanderbilt.

She stands in the doorway, framed by the bustle of the restaurant beyond, her red hair falling loosely over her shoulders. Her expression is taut.

“Elly,” he says.

Before she can respond, a server comes through with a full tray of meals. Travis yanks Elly out of the way, closing the gap between them.

“I need to talk to you. Alone.” She glances around warily, taking note of a sous chef plating halibut nearby, seemingly oblivious to their conversation.

Travis hesitates, jaw tightening. “This isn’t really a good time.”

“No, it’s not. But that doesn’t change what’s going on.”

With a burdened sigh, Travis leads back through the narrow hallway, past stacks of paper towels and crates of produce. The door to the compact locker room groans as he pushes it open. He waits for her to step through, then joins her and hastily yanks the door closed. Thankfully, there is no one else in here.

“What’s going on?” he presses, his breath labored all of a sudden.

“It’s about that night,” Elly says. “The night Loretta died.”

—–

Cautiously, Natalie approaches the playground and the bench where Sonja is seated. Her mind cannot help but draw parallels to the time, perhaps a year and a half ago, when she tracked Sonja and TJ to a park outside King’s Bay and slipped onto a bench beside Sonja to warn her that Loretta was coming after her and could find her at any moment. Terrified, Sonja soon skipped town with her little boy, giving Natalie a little breathing room — with her gone, it was much less likely that anyone would ever find out that it was Natalie, not Loretta, who’d paid Sonja to make sure Spencer’s memory didn’t return after his fall down the stairs. Not even Sonja herself knows the truth to this day. And now that Loretta is dead and gone, Natalie feels confident that her secret is safe.

Just like that day, she slides onto the bench again. Sonja barely even glances over, certainly not enough to register the identity of the woman who has just joined her. Her focus is fixed on the children playing on the swings. It takes Natalie a moment, but she manages to identify one of them as TJ, who appears so much older than he did the last time she saw him. He has his mother’s dark hair but some of Tim in his face.

“Not too high!” Sonja yells, stress apparent in her voice. “Easy, TJ!”

“It’s been a while,” Natalie comments, and only now does Sonja look over and really, truly process who is sitting beside her.

“Natalie,” she says, bringing a hand to her chest in alarm. “What are you–“

“I was dropping off Peter for baseball practice and saw you sitting here. I’d heard you were back in town.”

“Yes. We’re back.” Sonja fidgets with the ends of her sleeves as she continues watching TJ like a hawk.

“You can relax, you know. That miserable old witch is gone. There’s no threat to you and TJ now.”

Sonja turns to her again, with heavy eyes that look on the verge of tears. “I assume you haven’t heard.”

“Haven’t heard what?”

“TJ is sick,” Sonja says. “He has aplastic anemia. We think he might need a bone marrow transplant.”

Natalie sucks in a sharp inhale. “What? No, I hadn’t–” She cuts herself off and again looks at the boy, playing on the swings with some other kids he presumably just met. “He looks all right.”

“For now. And he deserves to play a little. But I’m worried about him wearing himself out. He can do this for about 10 more minutes. And if he doesn’t get that transplant… it’s only going to get worse.”

“I’m so sorry, Sonja,” Natalie tells her, and she is even surprised at how much she means it. The thought of facing something like that with Peter or Bree absolutely terrifies her.

“Thank you. I’m just beside myself.”

“We’ll have Peter tested. There’s a chance he’d be a match.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Sonja says. “Tim is talking to the whole family, too. I don’t have much of a family left, but if I did…”

“He’s going to be okay,” Natalie says. “It’s really good you were able to come back to King’s Bay in time to deal with this.”

“I know. I still find myself looking over my shoulder, and I have to remind myself that the threat is gone. I know this isn’t how it works, but sometimes I wonder if God…”

“Took care of Loretta so you could take care of your son?”

Sonja doesn’t quite smile, but the hints of it are on her face.

“TJ will be okay,” Natalie repeats, surprised by the compassion she feels for this other woman, this mother facing one of the worst things a parent can face.

Sonja sighs and, after a long moment of observing TJ again, says, “Maybe when things settle… we could even have lunch or something. I could use a friend, and you understand what that woman put me through more than most people do.”

Natalie has to stop her eyes from bugging out at the proposition. Never in a million years did she imagine a world in which Sonja would be asking for her friendship — but then again, Sonja has no idea that Natalie is the one who was secretly paying her all those years ago.

“That could be nice. I could use a friend myself,” Natalie says, even more surprised that she means it.

—–

“Elly?” Tim asks in shock. Spencer has just finished telling him what Natalie reported after the police line-up: that the witness wound up identifying Elly as the redheaded woman whom she saw near the crime scene on the day that Loretta was murdered.

“That’s what I said,” Spencer replies.

“But she’s– well, she’s a lawyer, for starters.”

“That’s not all she is.”

Tim regards him curiously. The chime of an incoming e-mail momentarily steals Tim’s attention, but he quickly returns it to his son, who has sunk even deeper into the leather chair.

“It has to be kind of a relief that your wife isn’t the one who killed Loretta,” Tim says at last.

“I guess.” Spencer holds up his fingers and make air-quotes. “‘Wife.’ I can’t believe this marriage has gone on as long as it has.”

“Well, it’s for Peter, isn’t it?”

Spencer shrugs. “It was so I didn’t lose Peter completely. But we’re way past that. And…”

Tim waits patiently, sensing that there is something Spencer wants to add.

Finally more comes: “It blows my mind that she could do something like that and yet look me in the eyes and…” But again he trails off.

The pieces aren’t too difficult for Tim to put together, but he doesn’t want to push too hard. He knows how Spencer can get when he feels cornered or put on the spot.

“I know you and Elly have gotten close,” Tim offers. “You helped her with that attorney in California–“

“Because Loretta was blackmailing her about their relationship. And this is the thanks I get. She makes a fool out of me.”

“Have you two gotten to be… more than friends?” Tim asks.

“I think ‘friends’ would be pushing it at this point,” Spencer says, sharper than he probably intends. “But yeah. Briefly. Somehow she neglected to mention that she killed my mother while we were, uh, getting closer.”

“Just because a witness can place her at the house on that night doesn’t mean she killed anyone. The blackmail hasn’t been an issue in a long time, right?”

“No, but Anatoli — the guy she’d been involved with — he called Loretta earlier that day. I don’t even know what it was about, but that’s how she pieced together that I’d helped Elly.”

Tim touches his fingers to his chin as he thinks. “So your theory is that this Anatoli went after Elly again, and she snapped and went after Loretta for revenge.”

“That’s as much sense as I can make of it, yeah,” Spencer says with a bitter laugh. “Once again I’m just being jerked around by people who think I’m a complete idiot. First James and Loretta let me think I was actually their kid… then my big brother went on some psycho serial-killing spree even though he seemed completely normal… and I’ve got Natalie constantly playing me, plus Elly now.”

“About you and Elly,” Tim says, lowering himself into his desk chair, “was this something you saw, you know, progressing?”

Spencer rakes his hand over his dark hair. “If I did, it was because I was blind to who she actually is.”

Tim looks back at him over the desk, his heart aching for the son he never knew as a boy — a man who has been put through an endless parade of trauma beyond his control.

—–

The staff locker room feels warm and stuffy, almost suffocatingly so, but Travis can’t tell if that is because of the temperature or because of what Elly has just told him.

“Well… it doesn’t mean anything that you were there,” he says. “You know Spencer. You were his lawyer! You could’ve been going to see him–“

“That’s what I told my Uncle Brent,” Elly explains. “But it doesn’t automatically get me off the hook.”

Travis folds his arms, feeling the rough material of the white chef’s coat crinkle as he does so. “But they have nothing except that this witness saw you outside the house?”

“So far, no. But I’m worried, Travis.”

Her eyes lock with his, transmitting a wordless message that he receives loud and clear.

“They’re going to keep digging,” she continues. “And there might come a point where I can’t lie.”

“I’m not asking you to lie, but–“

“Good. Because I’ll do my best, but if there’s any other evidence we don’t know about…” She exhales loudly and pushes a few strands of crimson hair out of her face.

Travis pinches the bridge of his nose in despair. “This can’t be happening.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Elly says, “but it’s possible this is all going to out. That you were–“

“That I was there that night, too,” he says, as a chill courses through his body.

END OF EPISODE 1258

Did you expect Travis and Elly’s secret?
Could Natalie and Sonja become friends?
Will one of the Fishers be a match for Peter?
Talk about it all in the comments below!