Previously…
– Henry Bishop succumbed to his cancer and died.
– Spencer convinced Elly to join his legal team in the custody battle over Spencer.
– Tori and Zane both signed papers relinquishing their unborn child for adoption – unaware of how Matt had secretly manipulated the situation to ensure that Tori would give up the baby.

Inside Cassie’s Coffee House, a Kacey Musgraves tune lilts through the air as customers line up for their late-in-the-day caffeine fixes. The tables and couches are occupied by patrons focused on their laptops and tablets. At one small, round table, Diane Bishop slides her iPhone over toward her best friend.

“I’ll text you these,” Diane explains. “But I thought there might be something in there that you could use.”

“You never know,” Sarah Fisher Gray says as she swipes through the photos. “It was a clever angle. Have you considered becoming a P.I.?”

Diane laughs. “I do like being nosy… but I also hate hearing about strangers’ problems.” 

Sarah quietly examines the photos for a few more seconds.

“Yeah, please send these to me,” she says as she hands Diane the phone back. “Only you would be sneaking photos of the guestbook at your own father’s funeral.”

“I just thought there might be some name in there that could help you find whoever ‘Therese’ is.” Diane tucks the phone back into her purse. “Besides, having a little covert mission helped me get through the whole thing.”

“I really am sorry. I know you and your dad weren’t that close, but he was still your father. Losing a parent is jarring.”

“It’s weird. Yeah.” Diane stares down at her latte for a long moment. “But thanks. I’m happy to be back in town — and to not have my mother and the whole extended family breathing down my neck.”

“I’m sure,” Sarah says sympathetically. “I’ll see if anything in these photos winds up giving me a lead. But you’re holding up okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s sad, and yeah, he was my father, but I had time to make my peace with it, and–”

“I bet you did,” a voice interrupts.

Both women look up to see Natalie Bishop, arms crossed over the front of her Yves St. Laurent leather jacket and an irate glint in her eyes.

—–

Brent Taylor focuses on the electronic red hand on the crosswalk sign as traffic zips through the intersection in downtown King’s Bay. When the hand turns to a white figure, he makes his way across the street, happy to bask in the sunshine that seems to portend the coming of spring after months of gloom and rainfall.

He crosses the street and continues north when he spots a familiar face walking toward him. Elly Vanderbilt waves and quickens her pace.

“Hey, Uncle Brent,” she says, leaning in for a hug. “How are you?”

“Good. Just, uh…” He glances down at the small black shopping bag in his hand. “Running some errands.”

“Same. I have to get a few things finalized for The Wild Lady.”

“Are you guys all set for opening night?”

“I’m learning that it’s normal for these things to go down to the wire, but yeah. Fingers crossed it goes off without a hitch. My dad and Kathleen are really excited.”

“Good.” Brent pauses as his demeanor becomes more serious. “I heard about your other new gig, too.”

“Ugh.” Elly lets out a sigh. “I knew everyone would have an opinion about that.”

“Elly, it was one thing when you were helping Spencer out in a pinch, but to officially be a part of his legal team when Jason is petitioning for custody…”

“You know how complicated this situation is, Uncle Brent. I’m not trying to take sides–”

“You’re representing one of the parties. That’s kind of the definition of taking sides.”

“I know, but…” She tosses her red hair over one shoulder. “It isn’t that I think Jason is a bad father or that I don’t have sympathy for him. But Spencer is desperate to hold onto his son, and given everything that’s happened, I feel like I should help him.” 

They step nearer to the storefront, letting foot traffic pass by.

“Besides, having a case like this under my belt is only going to help me get hired at a firm,” she adds.

“I understand,” Brent says, noticing how her gaze drops down toward the shopping bag. Instinctively, he slips it behind his back.

“Okay, Uncle Brent,” she says with a smirk.

“What?”

“What’s in the bag?”

He tries to hide his gulp. “What do you mean?”

“You’re hiding something. For a cop, you should know better than to show a lawyer your hand like that. Come on — what are you hiding?”

“Some game this is,” Matt Gray remarks as he grabs a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the bar and pushes it back toward his brother.

“It’s funny,” Jake Gray says, though he doesn’t break his gaze upon the television hung over the bar at 322 Bar & Grill. “Any time I make real plans to watch a game, it’s a total blowout.”

Matt cracks a grin and reaches for his beer. “Guess that’s life.”

“Good excuse to hang out, though,” Jake says as he reaches for some peanuts. “You’ve gotta be feeling a little more relaxed lately.”

Matt finally looks away from the Mariners game on television.

“Yeah,” he says in a detached voice. “Good to hang out.”

“I’ve gotta ask.” Jake pushes the peanuts away. “What’s been up with you?”

Matt turns his head toward him. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been weird. Quiet.”

“I’m not the chattiest guy, man.”

“I know. But…” Jake contemplates his next steps as he sips on his beer. “Dude, if this weren’t the most boring game in history, I might not have noticed.”

Now it is Matt’s turn to pick up his own beer.

“But you’ve been weird all day,” Jake continues. “What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up,” Matt says sharply.

“Okay.” Jake hesitates and sips his drink. “You seem kinda distracted, that’s all.”

“I’m fine.”

“Cool.” Jake fishes out another peanut and waits. “You stressed out about Tori giving up the baby? I’m guessing it’s gotta be weird, but–”

“I said I’m fine.” Matt picks up his glass again and takes a more forceful gulp.

“You seem like the opposite of fine.” Jake sets down his own beer and looks over. “You sure you’re okay with Tori doing this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”

“I don’t know, Matt.”

The brothers stew in silence as the color commentator continues chattering on the TV.

“It’s just rough,” Matt sputters. “The whole thing is.”

“No kidding. That’s your grandkid. Of course it is.”

“Tori should give up the baby for adoption,” Matt says tensely. “It’s the right thing for her to do.”

“You just don’t seem totally at ease with it–”

Matt sets down his bottle roughly. “That’s ‘cause I’m not still not sure it’s what Tori wants.”

“She signed those papers, right?”

Matt pauses, but like a covered pot of water hitting a boil, he is unable to contain himself, and his lid blows right off.

“I did something bad,” he says. “Something really bad.”

—–

Sarah and Diane both look up at Natalie — one with surprise and concern, the other with annoyance.

“It’s too bad the rest of us didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to Daddy,” Natalie spits. “All because you were too selfish to tell us he was sick.”

“Selfish?!” Diane says. “He asked me not to tell anyone, over and over. I was respecting his wishes.”

Natalie rolls her eyes at her sister. “First time you’ve ever respected anything.”

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” Sarah cuts in, in a deliberately calmer tone.

It appears to do the trick, or at least part of it; Natalie’s rage visibly defuses as she lowers her arms.

“Thank you,” she tells Sarah.

“And what’s more,” Diane continues, “he was in the hospital for weeks. So don’t act like I somehow sprung this on you.”

“Diane,” Sarah urges her friend.

Diane’s eyes cut across the table toward Sarah. “I’m only saying, Natalie and our mother are so keen to blame me.”

“We’re grieving,” Natalie says defensively.

“Don’t you have a toddler to worry about?” Diane barrels onward.

“He’s at home with Spencer while I catch up on errands. You should know how exhausting it was for us to travel with a kid that age — oh wait. You wouldn’t know, because when your daughter was Peter’s age, the courts wouldn’t let you see her.”

“Let’s see what the judge says about you and Spencer,” Diane fires back.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Sarah says, so authoritatively that she gains glances from the next table over. “Everyone’s in pain right now. No need to make it worse.”

Natalie scoffs and then says, “Whatever. I need to go.”

She does just that, pausing only to find her prepared drink on the bar and take it before sailing out of the coffee house. Only once her sister is gone from the premises does Diane settle back into her chair.

“She is pushing every last button I have,” she says.

“A funeral can be a pressure cooker in the best of situations,” Sarah replies. “Emotions are still running high. But that does make me wonder…”

“What?”

“Are you sure you still want me to push this ‘Therese’ thing? There’s the chance I — we — might find out something that upsets everyone.”

“If that happens, that happens.” Diane reaches for her coffee. “But there’s also the chance that everyone will be grateful to know something they never would have otherwise.”

“That’s… also possible. Sure.”

“I need you to get to the bottom of this, Sarah,” Diane says. “There were so many things that went unspoken in our family for years. If I can take one thing off that last, maybe my father will… I don’t know, maybe he’ll rest easier.”

Sarah contemplates that for a moment.

“Then text me those photos,” she says, “and I’ll get to work.”

—–

Out on the street, Brent hesitates. He allows the small shopping bag to drift out from behind his back, but he knows it is too late to cover – and Elly’s determined gaze tells him that she isn’t going to drop this.

He gives a careful look in both directions.

“There’s something I want to show you, but you have to promise to keep it to yourself,” he finally says. “The only other person who knows is your mother.”

Elly brightens. “Really?”

“I need sworn secrecy.”

“You’ve got my word.”

Brent removes a black box from the bag. As soon as he slips off its lid, his niece gasps.

“Are you going to…?”

He looks up at her and nods before popping open a second, tinier black box, this one covered in velvet. The diamond ring inside of it shimmers beneath the daylight.

“I’m going to ask Claire to marry me,” he says.

“Uncle Brent! That’s awesome. Congratulations!”

“Thanks. Though maybe save that for after she accepts.”

“Of course she’s going to accept.”

Brent gently closes the boxes and stashed them back inside the bag from the jeweler’s.

“Don’t say anything to Spencer,” he tells her quietly. “Or Travis. I want Claire to be surprised.”

“You can trust me not to ruin your proposal. I swear,” Elly says. “You must be really excited.”

“I am.” He gets a wistful look in his eyes but allows his voice to return to a more normal volume. “After Molly and I split up, I really didn’t think I would ever fall in love again. But I did. And now it’s time for this next step. I know it is.”

“Good. I’m really happy for you. And that ring… she’s gonna love it.”

“That’s what your mom said,” Brent replies with a smile. “I still have to figure out the when and how, but with any luck, it won’t be long before Claire and I are engaged.”

—–

The Gray brothers sit in silence at the bar of 322, each pretending to focus on the baseball game playing on the mounted television while actually waiting for the other to speak. Finally Jake breaks the spell.

“What do you mean, something bad?” he asks in a near-whisper.

Matt regards the TV and the TV alone for several more seconds. When he finally turns to Jake, his torture is scrawled all over his face.

“Tori was really dragging her feet on agreeing to the adoption,” he explains. “And I saw her phone — she got a text from Zane, trying to her get to back together, raise the kid together.”

“Okay…”

“I erased the text before she saw it,” Matt says through gritted teeth and a tight jaw. “Tried to make her think there was no chance of her being with Zane so that she’d sign the papers. And then I told her I’d bring him the papers to sign, so I could make sure he thought they didn’t have a chance, either.”

“Matt,” Jake says, eyes widening as he reflexively reaches for his beer again. “That’s…”

“Really sketchy. I know. You can’t tell anyone. Not Mia, not anyone. Sarah doesn’t know. She never can.”

“I’m not gonna rat you out,” Jake tells him.

“Good. If Tori ever found out…” Matt rests his elbows on the bar, allowing his sweatshirt-covered forearms to obscure his face. “That’s her kid. And I know I’ve gotten mad at Sarah for, y’know, playing God with people’s lives. My life, even.”

Jake nods along, listening.

“But I couldn’t sit back and watch my little girl throw away her life to be with a loser like Zane,” Matt says. “Not after what he already did to her, and to Sarah and Molly and Paula.”

“I get it. If it were Marcus in that kinda position, I’d want to protect him, too. I just don’t know if I’d be able to do something like what you did.”

“I’m still kinda shocked I did. My instincts just took over. I dunno.” Matt sips his beer as thoughts cascade through his head. “You’ve gotta promise me no one ever hears about this, though.”

“I told you, I’m not gonna say anything,” Jake replies. “Wouldn’t do anyone any good. Tori’s gonna have that baby soon, and it’ll go to a good home, with people who are equipped to give it a good life.”

“Exactly,” Matt says. “And Tori can move on with her life, start a career, find things that make her happy — and Zane Tanaka will be nothing but a bad memory.” Even as he declares this, though, the guilt continues to chew away at him from the inside, and all he can do is hope that seeing his daughter live a happy, fulfilled life — free of Zane — will be enough to help him live with the way he has deceived her.

END OF EPISODE #969

Will Matt be able to live with what he has done?
Do Brent and Claire deserve a happily-ever-after?
Will Sarah find the answers that Diane is craving?
Talk about all this and more in the comments below!

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