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EPISODE #774

Previously...
- The Fishers converged upon the hospital to hold vigil after Ryan was found shot in his home.
- Rosie was surprised to run into Sabrina Gage, who said she was back in King's Bay for a job. Rosie noted a suspicious tear in Sabrina's jeans. 
- Ryan made it through surgery and, in his hospital bed, married Danielle. Sadly, he passed away shortly afterward.


FISHER HOME

As he descends the staircase, his hair still damp from the shower, Bill Fisher is met by the unmistakable, tantalizing scents of a full-scale breakfast. When he reaches the kitchen, he finds Billy at the table in a booster seat and a full spread including scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and more laid out.

"I'm making you some egg whites," Paula Fisher says, her back to her husband as she works at the stove. But when she turns over her shoulder, she frowns.

"Am I on a special diet now?" Bill says.

"I thought you were Tori."

"She's still asleep."

Paula's eyes nearly leap out of her head. "Asleep? She has to get ready!"

"The funeral isn't for hours," Bill says. "It's okay. Let her rest." He surveys the bounty on the table. "Are we hosting a block party?"

  Paula Fisher

"I want to be sure everyone has their strength for today."

Regretting his joke, Bill takes a seat at the table.

"Bay-gon!" Billy says, clapping his chubby toddler hands together.

"Here you go." Bill takes a crispy piece of bacon from the platter and hands it to his grandson, who is clearly elated by this gift.

"What happened to all that food the neighbors and the people from the rink sent over?" Bill asks.

"I sent a lot of it to Danielle. I thought she and Molly would appreciate it, especially with the kids there. Watch your arm," Paula says as she swoops in from behind him to scoop scrambled egg whites onto a plate. 

"How early did you get up?" Bill asks.

Paula shakes her head. Standing there in her World's Best Grandma apron, she almost looks like herself on any other normal day--but Bill can see the tightness in her face, the barely perceptible layer riding atop her real emotions, which are not quite being concealed. 

"I don't know," she says, moving quickly back to the stove. "I didn't sleep much."

"You need to get some rest."

"That would be nice, yes. But I can't exactly turn my mind off."

Bill stands and comes up behind her. He rests a hand on her shoulder.

"I just want to be sure you're taking care of yourself," he says. "Running yourself ragged won't bring Ryan back."

Paula is silent, and he worries that he has upset her--but before he can inquire, something on the countertop catches his attention.

"What is this?" he says as his hand shoots out.


MOLLY TAYLOR'S HOME

Steam fills the upstairs bathroom as the shower runs, its warm spray beating down upon Danielle Taylor's flesh. No matter how long she stands there, though, it never relaxes her; it is as if, since Ryan's death, there has been an ice cube around her entire being that refuses to thaw.

"May I have the rings?" the judge asks.

"Rings?" Danielle asks, broken from her reverie.

Brent holds out his hand and gives the judge two pieces of plastic, one of which Danielle recognizes quite well.

"Is that…?"

"The straw I gave you the other night," Ryan says, grinning past his pain.

"He told me it was probably in your purse, so I went digging," Brent says. "Don't be mad."

"I'll make an exception this one time," she says. 

"And I had Brent go down to the cafeteria to get me one," Ryan says, indicating the red coffee stirrer twisted and tied into a hoop.

It is still difficult for her to believe that he is her husband, let alone that he is gone. She isn't sure which fact is stranger. 

She knows that, in a few hours, she will have to face people at the wake and at the burial. Her father, brother, and daughter will all be here soon, and though she is grateful for the mere thought of their presence, the idea of having to do anything more substantial than simply be is so overwhelming.

"Mourning is a part of life, and I'm surviving," she says quietly. Someone at her A.A. meeting yesterday suggested the affirmation, and since she has found them useful in the past, she reasons that it might be helpful now.

  Danielle Taylor

"Mourning is a part of life, and I'm surviving," she repeats in a louder, more assured tone. The shower's water pounds down around her and taps at her skin as she tries her best to summon strength.


MOLLY TAYLOR'S HOME

Downstairs, Travis Fisher heaves the two overstuffed paper bags onto the kitchen island. 

"How many people does your grandmother think live here?" Molly Taylor says incredulously.

"So many people have sent food. Their neighbors, people from the rink, everyone," Travis says. "Grandma wanted to make sure Danielle got some of it."

"Some?!" Molly says as she begins unpacking the trays and plastic containers from the bags. "Well, thank you for bringing it by."

"Yeah. No problem." Travis sticks his hands in his pockets and peeks around the corner, toward the living room.

"And no, Elly isn't here yet."

Travis looks to his aunt and attempts to feign confusion.

"I'm guessing that's at least part of the reason you volunteered for this mission," Molly says. 

The young man slumps his shoulders in resignation. "You got me."

"Her flight should be landing soon, but Josh and Lauren get in a little bit afterward, so Brent is picking them all up at once."

"Oh. Okay." He shrugs. "It'll be good to see her, that's all."

Molly nods with understanding as she opens the freezer and searches for room to store everything Paula sent over.

"How's Danielle doing?" Travis asks.

"She's hanging in there. I think she's still in shock, to some degree."

"I still can't believe Uncle Ryan is dead."

Before Molly can respond, the doorbell rings. Seeing that Molly has her arms full of food, Travis says, "I'll get it."

He hurries into the foyer and opens the door without looking through the small pane of glass to see who it is. The woman who stands before him is not anyone he recognizes; her long, dark hair falls carelessly over the shoulders of her denim jacket, and she appears to be wearing little or no make-up.

"I'm looking for Commander Taylor," she says. 

"He doesn't live here. Sorry."

The woman looks at something on her phone and then glances up at the numbers on the house. "This is the address they gave me at the station…"

"He doesn't live here anymore, I mean. This is--his ex-wife lives here with their kids."

"Oh. I really need to speak to him. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?"

"Umm…" Something about the interaction strikes Travis as very strange. He has no idea who this woman is, and his family's murmurs about this murderer possibly targeting all of them begin ringing in his head.

"I think you'd probably better leave a message for him at the station," Travis tells her.

"It's important. I need to talk to him."

"I can give him a message, if you want."

She takes a step forward, the toes of her Chuck Taylors right on the edge of the doorway. "This is police business."

"Look," Travis says, "I don't know what kind of crackpot you might be or what you want with Brent, but you'd better back up--"

"Officer Rosie Jimenez with the KBPD," she says, whipping out a badge. "Who the hell are you?"

Edge of Winter Arena

As he pulls into his spot in front of the arena, Jason Fisher cannot help but notice that the parking lot is surprisingly empty. When he goes inside, he finds none of the normal trappings of a regular morning at the arena: no program music booming from the speakers, no coaches' voices bouncing off the walls and ceiling, no bodies whirring by on the ice. In fact, the surface is completely empty, the clean white sheet unblemished by blades. He finds Tempest Banks near the rental skate counter, taking old flyers down off the bulletin board.

"Thought you weren't coming in today," she says when she spots him.

"There's a photo of Ryan with Sophie and me up in the office. My mom wants to set out a bunch of photos at the wake, so I thought I'd grab it."

She goes quiet for an uncertain moment. "How're you holding up?"

He shrugs. "It's really weird."

"I know. Seems like something out of a movie. Ryan was always really nice to me."

"He didn't always make things easy for people, but he wound up being a great brother to me." Jason feels his throat tightening up and gazes out over the untouched ice surface. "Has it been this quiet all morning?" 

Tempest grimaces. "Not a damn person's been in."

"That's really weird."

"Yeah…"

He sees the look on her face, like she has something else to say but is holding it back.

"What is it?" he asks.

"Just…" She shakes her head. "I think people are probably freaked out. Sandy got killed here, and now it's all over TV and the radio and stuff that another person who worked here got killed. It sucks."

"Yeah," Jason says glumly, panic rising within him all over again. "It really does."


FISHER HOME

Bill snatches the morning newspaper from the kitchen counter. The headline screams at him from the front page: Footprint Killer Strikes Again. 

"I wanted to see what they were saying," Paula says.

"The Footprint Killer?" he mutters as he scans the article, which all-too-briskly recounts the recent murders of both Sandy and Ryan. 

She sighs. "Brent said it was only a matter of time before details leaked out."

"Hello?" comes a voice from the front of the house. Bill sets down the paper and sees Billy brighten at the sound of his mother's arrival.

"We're in the kitchen!" Bill calls out.

  Bill Fisher

Moments later, Sarah and Matt enter, their exhaustion evident. Sarah immediately hurries over to Billy and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

"Bay-gon!" he exclaims, holding out one of the remaining chunks toward his mother. 

"We decided to come straight from the airport," Matt says. "I'm so sorry about Ryan."

"Thank you," Paula says as she places the spatula on the counter. 

"I still can't believe it," Sarah says as she wraps her mother in an embrace. 

Paula rests her head on Sarah's shoulder. "Neither can I." Quickly she jerks back. "You must be starving. Here, I'll get you some plates."

Sarah and Matt trade a look as Paula buzzes around. 

Sarah's eyes land on the newspaper headline. "They really think this is connected to what happened to Sandy?"

"Yes," Paula says. "Brent seems sure of it."

"I'll tell you what," Sarah says with determination. "Whoever this maniac is, I'm going to make sure he's brought to justice as soon as possible."


MOLLY TAYLOR'S HOME

The gleaming silver of the badge catches Travis off-guard.

"I'm his nephew," he manages to say, looking the woman over again. She looks too young to be a cop. "Or, I was. He used to be married to my aunt."

"Oh. Then you can at least give me his cell phone number, can't you?"

"I--" Travis doesn't want to offend her if she really is an officer, but he also doesn't feel comfortable handing out Brent's private number to someone he doesn't even know, given the circumstances. Then something occurs to him. "Hey, wait. Someone at the station gave you his address--not even the right address--but wouldn't give you his cell number?"

Her eyes narrow, and then she lets out a great exhale.

"Okay, fine. I looked in the computer system, and this was the most I could find."

"I knew it!" he says, holding up his index finger in victory.

"Travis, who is it?" Molly calls out from the kitchen.

He yells back over his shoulder, "No one! I'll be right back." He steps out onto the porch and closes the door behind himself. 

  Rosie Jimenez

"I don't want you bugging my aunt right now," he says. "Her brother just died--"

"That's why I need to talk to Commander Taylor!"

Travis cocks his head. "What does this have to do with my Uncle Ryan?"

"I'm not sure yet," Rosie says, the words rushing out. "There's this woman, Sabrina Gage--"

"Whoa. What do you know about Sabrina Gage?"

Rosie's confusion is visible as she pauses. "Jason's your uncle, too."

"Yeah. Why are you talking about that psycho?"

"He didn't tell you guys," she says, realization coming upon her. "There's someone in King's Bay who says her name is Sabrina Gage. We questioned her, and we thought she was gone, and I ran into her--and I'm worried it has something to do with Ryan Moriani's murder."

It all sounds completely nuts to Travis, but everything that has been happening lately is nuts, too. He finds himself digging his cell phone from his jeans.

"I'll tell you what," he says. "I'll call Brent and let you talk to him. Deal?"

She huffs with annoyance. "Yeah. Fine. Just call him."

Travis dials. When Brent answers, the rush of air around him is a clear sign that he is talking over the Bluetooth in his car.

"Hey, Brent," Travis says. "I'm with some woman who says she's a KBPD officer. Jimenez? She wants to talk to you about Sabrina Gage? If she's some random crazy person, I can tell her--"

Rosie waits, folding her arms and fixing a smug grin on her face as Travis listens to the voice on the other end.

"Yeah. Here she is." He hands over the phone.

"Told you," Rosie says before she turns her attention to the call. "Commander Taylor, hi. Yeah, this is Jimenez. I ran into someone the night Ryan Moriani was killed, and I think you need to know about it…"

Travis leans against the door as he watches her talk to Brent on the phone, annoyed that she gets the satisfaction of being proven right but also hopeful that the answer to what happened to Ryan might be within reach.

END OF EPISODE #774

Could Rosie hold the key to cracking this case?
Will Danielle be able to remain strong in her grief?
What should Jason do about the arena?
Join us in the Footprints Forum to talk about it all!

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Posted:
Tuesday, May 12, 2015

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