Previously…
– Tori and Landon slept together for the first time. Shortly afterward, Lucy arrived home and saw Tori in Landon’s shirt, which crushed her.
– Pregnant Rosie traveled to New York to question Gia Vincent and collapsed on the street from abdominal pains. She was hospitalized with high blood pressure.
– Travis was desperate to go to New York to be with Rosie and hoped Conrad could convince the judge to postpone his murder trial.

The courtroom is quiet except for the nasally voice of Melissa Grant, the 30-something stylist with a meticulously kept blunt bob and purple-framed eyeglasses. She sits on the witness stand, composed but uneasy under the weight of the room.

“That was when my phone rang,” Melissa explains. “It was my daughter’s friend’s parent.”

At the defense table, Travis Fisher sits in a dark navy suit, watching the witness but taking care to flicker his eyes around so as not to seem too intense. It is one of the thousand or so tips that Conrad Halston — who is seated beside him — gave him prior to the start of the trial, one of the many things that keeps his brain buzzing throughout these lengthy days in court.

The District Attorney, Audrey Tam, paces in front of the prosecution table as she asks, “And you felt you had to take that call?”

“My daughter is eight. She was at a sleepover. As a parent, you think… well, I thought I should take it. And I’d just finished preparing Ms. Ragan‘s hair. So I answered the call and stepped out of the room to take it.”

A soft murmur of understanding ripples through the jury.

“Where did you go to take that call?” Tam asks.

“One of the other bedrooms upstairs,” Melissa explains. “I think it was a guest room. It didn’t look like a kid’s room or anything.”

“Okay,” the D.A. says, continuing her slow, methodical prowl around the front area of the courtroom. “And Ms. Ragan stayed in the en suite bathroom?”

The witness nods, then catches herself and says, “Yes.”

“She was sitting in the chair at her vanity when you stepped out? She was in front of her mirror, like you described earlier?”

“Yes,” the stylist answers. “I had put one of those cooling eye masks over her face. I find it adds an element of relaxation to my clients’ experience when they have to wait until the next step.”

“It sounds very relaxing,” Tam comments, though her tone suggests that she has never relaxed for a minute in her life. “You went into the other room to take the call from your daughter’s sleepover. Did you close the door?”

Before the stylist even confirms this, Travis closes his eyes and exhales as quietly as he can. He can see exactly what the D.A. is doing here: establishing that there was a window during which Loretta was alone, unable to see, and the stylist was sealed inside another room entirely. He can already hear the rest of the testimony in his head, laid out in Audrey Tam’s sanctimonious voice: Loretta Ragan was in that chair, her eyes covered, for several minutes. Anyone could have come into that room and poisoned the hair dye without her or the stylist knowing.

His chest aches as he thinks of Rosie, still in that hospital in New York. He wants so badly to check his phone, but it is tucked away in the pocket of his jacket, set to Do Not Disturb. Juanita landed in New York and should be at the hospital by now, and he desperately wants an update. Even more desperately, he wants to be there, but since the judge refused a continuance, he is sitting here, watching Audrey Tam lay out a version of reality that he never experienced.

“How long were you on the phone? And in that other bedroom?” Tam asks.

Melissa Grant sighs and drums her pink fingernails against the wooden rail of the witness stand. “A few minutes. Maybe four or five? The other parent put my daughter on the phone.”

“Your phone records confirm that the call lasted six minutes and 28 seconds,” the D.A. says. She addresses the judge as she adds, “The court will note that those records have been submitted as part of Exhibit F.”

“Noted,” the judge replies.

“Six minutes and 28 seconds,” Tam repeats for emphasis, “during which Loretta Ragan was alone at her vanity, her eyes covered, and you were behind another closed door. Did you hear anything of note during that time?”

Melissa scrunches her face as she thinks. Travis notices Conrad scribbling a note on the pad in front of him. In the courtroom’s gallery, Claire Fisher leans over to her partner.

“That doesn’t prove it was Travis who did anything,” she whispers.

Tim nods gently, then responds in an almost-imperceptible voice, “I trust Conrad to run with that later.”

“I thought I might’ve heard footsteps, but I assumed Ms. Ragan had gotten up from the chair,” Melissa says. “I didn’t think much of it.”

The D.A. stops pacing and looks directly at her. “Could you tell where in the house the footsteps were going to or coming from?”

The stylist shakes her head. “My attention was on my phone call. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything, Ms. Grant. The information you’re providing is incredibly helpful.” Tam quickly moves back to the prosecution table and checks her notes, which an assistant has ready to slide across the table toward her. It takes only a few seconds before she turns her attention back to Melissa.

“That call took place between 5:48 p.m. and 5:55 p.m.,” Tam states.

Travis’s stomach drops before she even finishes the thought.

“As the court recalls, the defendant’s own phone records show that he was in the vicinity of the Ragan home from 5:31 p.m. until 6:04 p.m.–“

“Objection,” Conrad says, standing quickly as if he has been preparing for this moment. “Lack of personal knowledge. The witness cannot testify to Mr. Fisher’s phone records.”

“Sustained,” the judge declares with a sharp rap of the gavel. “Ms. Tam, please move on.”

The D.A. nods reverently, but Travis still feels himself sinking. The connection has been made, and he knows Audrey Tam will continue to reinforce it every chance she gets. Now Travis stares straight ahead, at the cherry wood paneling on the wall; he doesn’t have it in him to vary his sight lines, look engaged, or do anything but sit through the horror of this moment.

—–

The door to the hospital room swings open, and Juanita Jimenez — travel-worn from her red-eye flight but moving with brisk maternal purpose — steps into Rosie‘s room. As she enters, however, she stops cold.

The bed is empty.

It takes her eye another split-second to see her daughter in the opposite corner of the room, dressed in the same clothes that she was wearing when she left King’s Bay and zipping up one of her boots. Her hospital ID bracelet is still on her wrist. The monitors beside the bed have been disconnected, their leads gathered in a loose tangle atop the sheets.

“Rocio,” Juanita says, more a breathless gasp than a word.

“Mama.” Rosie looks equal parts startled and relieved. “Good. You’re here.”

“Of course I’m here. I came as fast as I could. The airports — they are crazy now.”

“You have no idea.” Rosie yanks up the zipper and then rises to her full height.

“Why are you dressed?”

Rosie gives her a look that says the answer should be obvious.

“Have they discharged you?”

“They can’t hold me against my will,” Rosie says. “My blood pressure is going down. It’s better than it was last night.”

“Mija. You need to slow down. For yourself and for the baby.”

“I got dressed. I’m not running a marathon.”

Rosie moves back toward the bed and grabs her iPhone from the bedside table. “I’ve been thinking about what Gia Vincent told me and thinking about everything Finn Campbell told me. I’m going to go stir-crazy if I don’t do something.”

Juanita holds her words, already exhausted and growing more so by the minute.

“There’s something there,” Rosie continues. “Finn made a big push to become Gia’s assistant. Like he needed something.”

“A job?” Juanita asks uncertainly. “That isn’t suspicious.”

“He already had the receptionist job. He wanted access. And if he was Loretta’s plant, it all makes sense. As the assistant to the interim COO, he could influence her to get Molly ousted from the company for good. A receptionist doesn’t have an executive’s ear — or access to her calendar, her contacts, all that stuff.”

Juanita nods along, considering this theory that feels so outside the world in which she lives, and then asks gently, “Still. Do you think racing around Manhattan and getting back on an airplane is going to help?”

“I think — actually, I know — that Travis is sitting in that courtroom while Audrey Tam attempts to tear our lives apart. So I don’t have a choice.”

“But… the baby.”

Rosie’s eyes flicker shut. “I know.” Then she squares herself again. “That’s why I can’t waste time. Come on, Mama.”

“Rocio, I don’t know–“

“You can come with me, or you can stay here,” Rosie says, heading for the door. With a sigh, Juanita tails her, desperate to protect her daughter in any way that she can.

—–

The gray Monday sky hangs over the plaza that houses the King’s Bay District Courthouse. Lawyers, reporters, and onlookers weave through the foot traffic, all moving with somewhere to be.

Except Spencer Ragan.

He stands near a coffee cart at the edge of the plaza, untouched to-go coffee cup in hand, his suit jacket unbuttoned and his tie loosened slightly. He stares toward the courthouse doors without ever quite looking at them.

From across the plaza, Elly Vanderbilt approaches the courthouse steps, her pace brisk and purposeful — until she spots Spencer.

She slows. For a long moment, she just watches him. Common sense tells her to continue inside, to avoid getting involved in this. But something about his tense posture and the way he keeps eyeing the courthouse stops her from moving inside. Changing course, she goes toward him.

“Court started half-an-hour ago,” she says.

He glances at her, guarded. “You’re keeping time now?”

Under normal circumstances, the bite in his voice might spark a fight. She was certainly ready to jump down his throat when he came to her and tried to make nice last week in this very building. But today, she decides she needs to let it slide.

“Can’t go in?” she asks.

“I mean, I can,” he says, offering no explanation for the fact that he is instead standing out here.

A beat passes between them. The noise of downtown King’s Bay hums in the background.

“Want to take a walk?” she asks in a softer tone.

“I don’t know what I want,” he admits.

She steps closer, gentle but steady. “Then let’s figure that out somewhere away from… all this.” She gestures at the hoopla by the courthouse entrance for emphasis.

Spencer sighs and gives a tiny nod. Elly begins walking, and he falls into step beside her, the coffee held by his side. Together, they start toward the park across from the plaza.

A pinned concept of a dress in a bold, blue-and-white print hangs on a dress form in the anteroom of the executive suite. When the phone jingles, Tori Gray quickly grabs the receiver and answers, “Molly Taylor’s office.”

She is jotting down a note on the pad on her desk when she looks up to see Lucy Champlain stepping through the entrance with a cardboard drink tray in hand. Tori regards her with surprise, then quickly finishes taking the message.

She hangs up and asks her friend, “What are you doing here?”

“I come bearing sustenance,” Lucy says as she pulls one cup out of the tray. “Matcha with lavender cold foam.”

“You read my mind. Thank you.”

Tori stands and rounds the desk to greet Lucy with a one-armed hug.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you too badly,” Lucy says.

Tori shakes her head. “Nah. It’s actually kind of quiet today. Which is good, because…”

“Because you’re thinking about what’s going on at the courthouse.”

“You got me.”

Tori accepts the drink from Lucy, who then removes her own from the tray and tosses the tray into the nearby waste basket.

“I hate thinking about Travis sitting there with his whole future on the line,” Tori admits before taking a quick sip of the matcha. “And with Rosie pregnant. It’s horrible.”

“He’s always been so nice to me at work,” Lucy replies.

“He is nice. He wouldn’t kill someone.” Tori sighs and walks back around the desk to settle in her chair. She motions for Lucy to pull up one of the other chairs. “Not unless it was self-defense or something. He wouldn’t go there to poison someone.”

Lucy seats herself opposite Tori. “I hope everything works out okay for them.”

“Me, too. Things just seem so… heavy lately.”

After taking a drink from her own cup, Lucy says, “Although it seems like you have some good things going on.”

Tori ducks her head, suddenly shy. “Sorry you had to walk in at such an awkward time.”

“It’s fine.” Lucy sets down her drink and leans against the desk, arms folding. “You’re happy? With Landon?”

A smile spreads over Tori’s face. “I am. I mean, it’s very new — at least this part of it is — but I see a real future here. Something to build on. God, that sounds corny.”

“Tori, I hope I’m not overstepping,” Lucy says. “But after everything you went through with Zane… all that terrible stuff you went through…”

Tori stiffens at the mere mention of Zane, her hand frozen around the matcha cup.

“Just make sure you’re ready to dive into this. Like, really ready. That’s all.”

“I’m ready,” Tori assures her. “I know I am. Because of Landon.”

Lucy’s face barely shifts, but something behind her eyes does.

“Okay,” Lucy manages. “As long as you feel good about everything.”

“I do. I really do.”

Lucy offers her a soft smile and then takes another sip of her drink, thoughts whirring inside her head.

The park is quiet for a Monday morning, with the gray sky casting everything in muted light. Spencer and Elly walk side-by-side on the paved path, the courthouse plaza still partly visible through the trees. The only sounds are the faint rumble of traffic and their soft footsteps.

“I bought this stupid coffee 45 minutes ago.” Spencer lifts the untouched cup slightly. “I didn’t even want a latte. I just…”

“Needed a distraction to keep you from going into the courtroom,” she finishes for him.

He looks over. “Yeah. Like if I picked the right drink, it would tell me what to do.”

Spencer slows by a bench but doesn’t sit. Elly takes the coffee cup from his hand and tries a sip.

“Serviceable,” she says as she hands it back to him.

“I definitely meant to spend $4.75 on something serviceable,” he says, eking out a small laugh. He tries the latte and shrugs, then stares out at the pond beyond the walking path.

When he speaks again, the sarcasm is gone:

“She ruined so many people’s lives.”

Elly remains still, giving him the space to air his thoughts.

“She stole me from my own parents and somehow made me feel like I was the one who owed her something,” he continues. “I hated her for that.”

Though she can feel the but coming, Elly forces herself to stay silent. She senses that he needs to come to this in his own time.

“But now that she’s gone, I feel like there’s… like there’s this hole in my chest.” His voice roughens. “What kind of person misses someone like that?”

Elly takes a step closer. “A human one.”

Spencer looks away, blinking hard. “Part of me is relieved she’s dead. But another part of me… hates myself for even thinking that.”

“Spencer,” she says gently. “She raised you. For all you knew until you were in college, she was your mother. It’s almost impossible to square that with the woman you found out she was.”

“I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel now,” he admits, the words choking him.

“Loving someone and surviving them aren’t the same thing,” she says. “And you’re still sorting that out. It’s okay.”

He looks as though he is going to respond, but instead he lets out a wet sob. Suddenly he is convulsing, his body racked with emotion as he begins to cry in earnest. Elly reaches out, tentatively at first, then more decisively, and pulls him toward her.

Spencer doesn’t resist. He leans his weight against her as he cries, all the tension and confusion and grief and anger pouring out of him as they stand by the park bench under the gray morning sky.

—–

The hallway outside the courtroom is noisier than the trial itself, but in a soothing way: the shuffling of feet, sounds of court officers and spectators making conversation, and opening and closing of doors all land softly — as opposed to inside, where even the sound of a pin dropping could set everyone on-edge.

Travis stands with Conrad, Sarah Fisher Gray, and Landon Esco in a corner at the end of one hallway, a spot as close to private as they can find during this brief recess.

“Well,” Travis states, the word dry in his throat. “That was basically a disaster.”

“No, it wasn’t a disaster,” Conrad states automatically. But the delay before he says anything else tells its own story.

Sarah shifts uncomfortably, arms folded tight across her chest.

“We’ve been over this Juanita angle a thousand times,” she reports in a quiet but serious tone. “We don’t have anything but a few pings that prove that she left her house that night.”

Landon picks up where his boss leaves off: “There’s not enough to put in front of a jury. Not in a way that actually helps you, Trav.”

Conrad steps in, the lawyer in him trying to soften this blow. “If we float Juanita as an alternative suspect with this little to support it, Tam tears it apart during rebuttal, and it makes us look desperate.”

Travis nods, torn. “I don’t want to throw Rosie’s mom under the bus. Like, it’s almost a relief. But now… what else do we have?”

None of them — his attorney, his aunt, or his best friend — have an immediate response.

“They have me at the house,” Travis says, “at the same time that stylist was out of the room, and Loretta was alone with an eye mask on, and they think I had the poison. What the hell are we supposed to do?”

“We keep attacking their timeline,” Conrad says. “It’s still circumstantial.”

“Right. Poke holes,” Sarah adds, but there is something uncharacteristically shaky in her voice.

Travis feels his phone vibrate in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He reaches for it instinctively, having checked for messages from Rosie the minute they stepped out of the courtroom but not having seen any. This time, he sees her name on the display.

“It’s Rosie,” he says, as if he needs to justify checking the phone. The others fall silent  as he unlocks the device.

How’s court? I just checked out.

Travis’s eyes widen as he types back: The doctors said it’s ok?? Is your mom there?

“What’s she saying?” Landon asks.

Travis draws in a sharp breath as he watches the three bubbles appear in the text thread. A moment later, Rosie’s responses pop up in rapid succession:

She’s here, yeah

I’m ok. Chasing a lead

“She’s out of the hospital,” Travis reports, though his tone is restrained.

“That’s great,” Conrad says.

Although Travis manages a nod, all he can think is: The D.A. has me dead to rights. My wife is pregnant and running all over the country trying to save me. And she didn’t say anything about what the doctors think.

His face hardens as his fingers hover over the phone’s keyboard. Something has to give here.

END OF EPISODE 1298

What should Travis and his team do next?
Is Rosie endangering herself and the baby?
Will this breakthrough help Spencer heal?
Discuss it all in the comments below!

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