Previously…
– Molly and Conrad’s friendship turned to romance.
– After a conversation with Travis, Jesse — the busboy who knows Rosie from her past — placed a secret phone call to alert someone that Rosie might be digging into something dangerous.
– A mysterious figure tailed Rosie to Paula’s house, where she and Travis were supposed to have dinner. Travis answered the door to find a masked man wielding a gun.

“Is Rosie here?” the man in the mask repeats as he stops Travis Fisher from slamming the door closed.

“W– what do you want?” Travis asks, his mind a scramble of panic and wild thoughts. His hand goes to his jeans, only to realize that his phone is still on the kitchen counter.

He cannot believe what he is seeing as the man reaches into his jacket and pulls out a gun. Travis’s heart thumps so hard that he can feel it in his throat.

“It’s time we all had a serious talk,” the man says menacingly. “Now where the hell is Rosie?”

“She’s, uh–” Travis’s brain feels like it has turned to mush, like it is now a sludge that he must wade through to find even the most familiar concepts. But he manages to unearth one that makes sense in the moment. “Rosie! You need to come out here!”

—–

In the kitchen, Rosie Jimenez and Paula Fisher freeze mid-conversation.

“Why?” Rosie calls back. “What is it?”

“It’s important! There’s someone here to see you!” Something about Travis’s voice sounds weird — desperate, nervous, something simply off. “Get yourself out here, now!”

Paula opens her mouth to respond. Rosie isn’t exactly certain why, but she holds up a hand to stop the older woman. Paula stops, lips parted, confusion all over her face.

“Stay here,” Rosie says quietly as she slides toward the doorway. “Do not come out.”

“What’s going on?” Paula whispers nervously.

“I don’t know. Just stay.” Rosie passes into the dining room and calls back, “Coming!”

Paula remains in the kitchen, without a clue as to what is happening in her home — but a growing sense of dread in her stomach.

At the end of Pier 22 along King’s Bay’s waterfront, Bill’s on the Pier bustles with activity. The warm, wood-paneled dining room is filled with diners enjoying seafood dishes and other locally sourced delicacies. Claire Fisher and Brent Taylor sit at one of the copper-topped tables, eating bowls of the restaurant’s hearty clam chowder.

“It’s great that he’s getting back to his old self,” Brent says.

“Yeah,” Claire agrees, but hesitation causes her to stop with her spoon poised over the soup bowl. “Although… this might be selfish, but I don’t know if I’m ready for Spencer’s ‘old self’ to be back just yet. My visits with this new Spencer have been so nice.”

“It sounds like he took the news from Tim about why he’d been so angry at you guys very well.”

“He did. Which is great. But there’s always the chance that, once his memory comes back, that’ll change.”

“True,” Brent says sympathetically, “but try not to let yourself think like that. It really sounds like both you and Tim have made major inroads with Spencer while he’s been recovering.”

“I guess I just have to have faith that it’ll carry over.”

He smiles at her over the table. “It will.”

Claire is about to say something else when she notices Brent’s gaze fluttering toward the restaurant’s entrance with interest. Instinctively, she turns her own head and spots Molly Taylor and Conrad Halston standing at the host’s stand; Molly has her arm threaded through Conrad’s, holding onto him.

“Speaking of recoveries,” Claire says, feeling a sudden need to fill the empty air, “it looks like Conrad is doing well.”

Brent’s head jerks back toward her abruptly. “Right? Yeah. Seems–”

But before he can complete the thought, his eyes jump back to his ex and her companion — who are now sharing a kiss while they wait to be helped. Claire cannot help but study Brent’s face as a shadow passes over it, his attention rapt upon the couple.

—–

Rosie feels her adrenaline surging as she walks through the dining room, into the living room, and realizes that Travis must still be in the small entry room by the front door. She would love to find out that she has misread this whole thing, that someone has come to see her about something completely minor like a scrape to her car or a credit card she dropped, but she heard something in Travis’s tone that told her that this is much more serious.

“What’s up?” she asks, attempting to play dumb as she reaches the entryway. Her fears are confirmed when she sees the man in the black ski mask and the metal object in his hand.

“There she is,” the man says slowly, as he performs an up-and-down physical appraisal of her. Rosie takes in the sound of his voice and the movement of his head, trying to place them. It isn’t Jesse; the figure is too big, too imposing. And it isn’t Diego, either. The energy is all wrong. She has imagined so many times what it would be like to come face-to-face with Diego again, so she knows all too well that this isn’t him.

Although it shouldn’t surprise her that he has people working for him whom she’s never encountered before.

“What’s this about?” she asks, instinctively grabbing for Travis’s arm even as she keeps a steady gaze on the masked man. She can’t believe that she doesn’t have her service weapon on her — but dinner with her boyfriend’s grandmother seemed like a pretty safe bet for remaining unarmed.

“I think you already know,” the man says. “The two of you need to stop asking questions, okay?”

Travis’s eyes are afire with terror as he looks to Rosie. “What is he…?”

The man pokes the gun’s barrel against Travis’s chest, a move that causes Travis to flinch and jump backward as he lets out an unnatural noise.

“Heard you’ve been sticking your nose places it doesn’t belong,” the man says. “Did your girlfriend here put you up to that?”

“I haven’t– No. What is this even about?”

Immediately it clicks inside Rosie’s head. “Jesse. Did you talk to Jesse?”

“I’ve talked to him,” Travis says shakily. “We work together. But I never–”

“Stop playing dumb.” The man’s voice comes out louder and more threatening than before. “Let’s all just get on the same page here, okay?”

“What does Jesse have to do with this?” Travis asks. His head swivels back and forth between the two of them. “This has to be a misunderstanding. I’m a chef. I work with Jesse. That’s it.”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Rosie says. “I swear. Anything Jesse thought Travis was asking — it was an accident. Coincidence. Whatever. He doesn’t know anything.”

Through the holes in the mask, the man locks eyes with Rosie. “You wanna tell him? Or should I?”

—–

Paula stands at the kitchen counter, trembling with fear. All she knows for certain is that something bad must be going on — especially once she hears Travis let out a frightened noise. Her first instinct is to rush in there and help him somehow, rescue him from whatever is going on. Could he have gotten himself into trouble somehow? Could it be someone wanting revenge on Rosie for arresting him or her? All sorts of ideas shoot through her head, but none of it is any help at making sense of what is happening in her home.

Knowing that it would be foolish to disobey Rosie’s warning, as badly as she wants to, Paula instead reaches for the house phone. But she finds the dock empty and realizes that she must have left the handset in the living room, as is her purse, which has her cell phone in it.

Then she spots a different cell phone on the counter. It must be Travis’s. Quickly she grabs it and attempts to unlock the screen, only to find that it is asks for some kind of facial recognition. When that fails, the phone gives an admonishing buzz in her hand and pulls up a screen requesting that she type in a passcode. She has heard there is a way to call 911 even if a phone is locked, but she feels hopelessly out of her league in figuring that out right now, especially in her panicked state.

She can faintly hear voices from the entry of the house, but it is several rooms away, and she cannot make out what is being said. There is definitely a man present whose voice she cannot place, though.

I have to do something, she thinks. I have to help them.

Then the answer hits her. Of course. There is one surefire way to make sure that the police come rushing to her home.

—–

Molly and Conrad’s kiss only lasts for two or three seconds, but it seems to Claire like an eternity — or, at least, the way Brent watches them seems that way. The hostess returns to the stand, and, after conferring with her for a moment, they step back to wait.

“Should we go say hi?” Claire asks uneasily.

Brent doesn’t have to answer the query, because Molly and Conrad catch sight of them and hurry over.

“Good evening to both of you,” Conrad says, Molly’s hand in his.

“Hi,” Brent and Claire say, just out-of-step.

“How’s your dinner?” Molly asks. Claire is uncomfortably aware of an awkward tension humming all around the table.

“It’s good. Just thought we would try to have a nice out,” Brent says. “Save ourselves the trouble of cooking.”

“That sounds nice. We were thinking the same,” Molly responds. “The boys both had to go to friends’ for school projects.”

“That’s good,” Brent responds.

Claire and Conrad share the briefest moment of eye contact.

“We’ll let you get back to your dinner,” Conrad then says. “They said our table would be ready in a minute, anyway. Enjoy.”

All four of them issue standard well-wishes and goodbyes as Molly and Conrad return to the front of the restaurant. Claire notices Brent watching them as they go — which he stops as soon as he becomes aware of her attention.

“Seems like they’ve gotten much closer,” she says, as casually as she can, as she picks up her spoon again.

“Yeah.” Brent reaches for his beer and takes a drink, his distraction still evident.

Claire tries to let the moment pass as she eats her soup, but she hates leaving things like this unaddressed. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine. Totally fine.” He takes another sip of beer. “I worry, that’s all. About the twins. The last new man Molly brought into their lives was– well–”

“Philip. Conrad is not going to turn out to be like him.”

“I know that. I do. It’s just tough not to worry.”

“Yeah,” she says, nodding as she returns to her soup. “It is.”

—–

Rosie stares into the masked man’s dark eyes. She swears that she has never met him before, but there is such a sparkle of glee in there at putting her on the spot like this. He must be close with Diego, that much she knows now.

“Tell me what?” Travis asks. The fear in his voice is plain to Rosie’s ears, and it kills her to hear.

“I am so sorry,” she tells them. “This is all my fault.”

“What is? Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know him,” she says. “This is about… it’s something that… it happened when I was younger.”

The man pokes the gun into her arm. “Go on. Tell him.”

Rosie attempts to summon the strength to come clean with Travis — finally — as she looks into his face. He has been so sweet and so trusting, and she has been so guarded, and now it’s all about to blow up on her.

You never deserved this anyway, she thinks as she begins to form the words.

But before she can spit them out, a noise from the back of the house catches all three of their attention.

“What was that?” the man demands. “Is someone else here?”

“No, I…” Travis answers weakly. But the man is already nudging them with the gun.

“Go on,” he says. “Show me who’s back there. Quick!”

Rosie gulps, attempting to formulate a plan as she and Travis walk with the gun to their backs.

—–

Paula’s nervous fingers fumble with the lock on the glass door that connects the kitchen to the back deck. Her heart pounds, and she clutches Travis’s cell phone in one hand. She manages to yank the door open and steps through it.

As she does, she hears a man’s voice from inside the house bark, “Hold it!”

She turns back and sees Travis and Rosie being pushed into the kitchen by a man in a mask.

“Go!” Rosie shouts out.

The man hits her in the back of the head with the butt of the gun. Rosie lets out a tortured yelp and crumbles to the kitchen floor.

“Rosie!” Travis screams, kneeling down.

Paula’s legs feel like they have bricks strapped to them as she forces them over the deck and down the steps. She scrambles over the grass, only to have to contend with the lock on the gate. But she gets it undone and runs down the driveway. As soon as she passes the property line, she hears the monitor on her ankle begin to emit a series of warning beeps. But she continues running into the street.

Somewhere behind herself, she hears a gunshot go off.

END OF EPISODE 917

Who is the target of the masked man’s shot?
Will Travis even want to know the truth from Rosie?
Is Claire right to worry about Brent’s concern over Molly?
Talk about it all in the comments below!

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