Previously... Sarah Fisher Gray climbs the stairs of her parents’ house and moves swiftly toward the door of the bedroom that she and her sister shared for so many years, the same room in which her daughter now resides. She puts an ear to the closed door and listens; upon hearing nothing from within, she knocks. “Tori?”
she calls out when no answer is forthcoming.
A
muffled voice travels through the door. “What?”
“Can
I come in?"
Sarah doesn’t even bother asking what; she already knows the answer. Tori looked as if she were being tortured the entire time Conrad Halston was prepping her as a witness in Molly’s trial. Tori
just grumbles and pulls the pillow closer. Sarah’s heart breaks
as she studies her daughter, lying there so still and scared. So
many times over the last few months, she has looked at Tori and
felt an unbelievable sense of helplessness. All she wants to do
is take away the pain and trauma of what Tori has gone through.
Now
all she can do is seat herself on the edge of the bed. What
happens next causes her stomach to sink: Tori, as if by reflex,
scoots a few inches away, a few inches closer to the wall. As if
the threat of human contact is now terrifying to her on an
instinctual level.
Sarah
draws a deep, labored breath. She has wanted to believe that she
wouldn’t have to press this issue with her daughter — that the
tests done after her attack, showing no physical signs of sexual
assault, should be enough. But she knows that it’s
more complicated than that, especially given the pointedness of
Conrad’s questions about why Tori was in Philip
Ragan’s bedroom on the night that he left her in a coma.
So she pushes past her sticky tongue and dry lips and she asks:
“Did
Philip try to rape you?"
She
hates putting it out there. During her time as a police officer,
she had to mine people’s pain in pursuit of the truth and of
justice, and she was always uneasy about it — but doing it to
her own daughter is even worse.
Tori
winces. Then, incredibly, she actually moves her head just
enough so that Sarah can see one eye, one brown pupil, looking
back at her.
“No.
I swear. He didn’t."
Sarah
wants to let out a sigh of relief. But she still doesn’t know
exactly what happened to Tori that night, and she might never
know. But the hope that that one element might truly be off the
table is all she has right now — that and the fact that her
daughter survived at all.
“We
can do this with Conrad and Molly another time,” Sarah
says. “You just rest now."
“Why
do we have to do it at all? I don’t want to talk about it
anymore."
“Because
the prosecution is going to subpoena you anyway. This is our way
of getting ahead of that. We can prep you and bring you in as
Molly’s witness. That way, we can control what’s presented to
the jury."
“But
they can still ask me anything?"
“That’s
why we need to prep you. So you’re ready, and so you don’t have
to be put on the spot."
Tori
buries her face again. Anger flares inside Sarah. This is all
because of Molly. But then her mind travels that same circuitous
route it has been traveling for months: if Molly hadn’t claimed
responsibility for Philip’s shooting, Paula
would have, and then their mother would be the one preparing for
trial, and Tori would still be in this position.
No,
they need to do this. And Sarah will do whatever it takes to
protect her daughter from being hurt any further.
 Sunlight
pours through the big front window of Thaw Coffee & Tea,
bathing the lacquered white surfaces in its warm glow. Spencer
Ragan enters the shop and removes his sunglasses. When he
learned that Travis
Fisher worked here as a barista, he started avoiding this
place… except when he felt like stirring up a little bit of
trouble. Since Tim
informed him that Travis went to work at Harbor Boulevard,
however, Spencer has begun stopping at Thaw more frequently. As
he steps up to the counter, however, he is surprised to see
another familiar face behind the counter, clothed in the icy
blue t-shirt and black apron that all the staff wears.
“What
are you doing here?” he asks Sabrina
Gage.
She
stiffens at the sight of him. Her large, dark eyes flicker over
him before dropping down to the cash register.
“I
work here now,” she says.
“I
figured. From the get-up. I guess this is why Jason
asked me how to get in touch with you."
She
nods. “It was nice of him to think of me. I wasn’t having much
luck finding work."
“Yeah,
well…” He turns his phone over in his hand as thoughts of Philip
flood his mind. He hates when this happens — when he has to
think about the man he knew for his entire life, who was an
upstanding person and a passionate artist and, as much of a
stick-in-the-mud he could be sometimes, a damn good big brother.
And then he has to remind himself that it was all a fucking lie.
That Philip was crazier and more fucked-up than even their
mother. That he brutally murdered the people whom Spencer
now knows to be his real family.
“Dry
cappuccino,” he says, forcing the thoughts away.
“Okay.”
Sabrina uses a marker to write the order on a cup and looks down
the bar, but none of the other baristas are present. She
hesitates and then says, “Dry. That means…"
“More
foam. Less milk. Have they even trained you yet?"
"Yes.
I’m just double-checking. There’s a lot to learn, and I want to
be sure I get it right."
He
huffs. “We’ll see how you do.”
Sabrina
again averts her gaze and starts for the nearby machines, but
she stops and turns back. “Spencer,” she says, brushing a piece
of her dark hair behind one ear, “I really am sorry about
Philip. It must be hard for you, and I’m… I’m just sorry."
There
is a sincerity in her eyes that he finds as grating as it is
surprising. He hates that she must be able to tell how much the
mere mention of Philip upsets him, even though it has been
months and months.
“Thanks,”
he says. “Now can you make my drink? I’m in kind of a rush."
-----
Even
with the windows rolled down, the small sedan fills with hot,
stagnant air. Yvette Banks doesn’t want to waste the gas on
running the air conditioner, especially not for as long as she’s
been sitting here — not that the AC runs all that well, anyway.
In truth, she wasn’t even sure the old car would survive the
drive from Southern California, but she had to get here, to
King’s Bay, and if a little baking in the sun is the price she
has to pay to get things done, then so be it.
She
wipes sweat from her brow as she watches one of those hybrid
cars that looks like a spaceship pull up in front of the Edge of
Winter Arena. From her vantage point toward the back of the lot,
Yvette mutters a wish that the doors to the arena will soon open
and she’ll be able to get on with her plan.
She
is still surprised by how easy it was to figure out when her
daughter would be here and when she’d be leaving work. All
she had to do was call early this morning and ask if Tempest was
working. When the bored-sounding man who picked up the phone
said no, Yvette asked in her most polite voice when Tempest
would be in today, and the man told her without even thinking
twice. It almost made her snap — You’re gonna give out that
information over the phone after she damn near got killed
working there? — but she held it together. Eye on the
prize.
The
hybrid car lingers in front of the entrance for a while, and
finally, just as the car’s green digital clock suggested,
Tempest walks out of the arena. Instead of walking to her own
car — Yvette passed some of the time scoping out the cars parked
throughout the lot, wondering which one of them belongs to her
daughter — Tempest goes straight for the hybrid and gets
inside.
What
Yvette sees next causes her to forget all about the heat. She
sits up ramrod-straight against the back of her seat as she
watches Tempest greet the driver, another girl, with a kiss. And
not just any kiss. A kiss right on the lips. The kind of kiss
that lasts too long to be just a friendly thing.
“What
the hell is going on with you, girl?” Yvette wonders aloud as
the hybrid starts moving away from the building.
She
waits just long enough so that there’s some space between that
car and hers, and then she starts her engine and follows the two
girls out of the parking lot.
-----
Tori
lies on her bed, scrolling through her Instagram feed. Truth be
told, she barely knows why she even looks at this stuff anymore.
It’s like a window into a life that she used to have: people at
parties, on vacation, with friends, being silly… and she gets to
watch it all from this house, which she barely leaves besides to
go to therapy, physical or otherwise.
She cringes at the sound of the knock on her door. She considers setting down her phone and pretending to be asleep, but at least something she doesn’t want to deal with would be some kind of action. “What?”
she calls out.
“It’s
Spencer,” comes the surprising answer. “May I come in?"
She
does a quick scan of her outfit, which is composed of leggings
and a pair of long, layered t-shirts. She wouldn’t be quite as
concerned if it were Samantha
or Travis visiting — she’s known them since she was born — but
Spencer is a weird hybrid of a family member and a friend.
“Oh,
uh, yeah. Sure,” she says as she sits up straighter against the
headboard.
"Fine.
Getting better, I guess. I just feel like..." She sighs. "Like
some psycho shut-in loser. At least being in a coma wasn't so
boring."
“I’ll make a note of that. You look better — more like yourself, I mean." “I’m
getting there. That’s what the doctors say. I can even walk
okay. I just get tired a lot."
“Do
they think you can go back to school in the fall?"
“Yeah.
Thank god. Missing this whole semester sucked. I never thought
I’d want to go to school so badly, you know?"
Spencer
laughs.
“How
about you?” she asks.
“I’m
good.” There is a tightness to his expression and his words,
however, that says otherwise. Tori is trying to figure out what
to say to crack it when Spencer speaks again: “Sorry I haven’t
come to visit more. It’s been weird—"
“I
know. It’s okay. I thought maybe you hadn’t come because seeing
me would remind you of Philip, and everything that happened."
“I
don’t know. Maybe. But that’s not really right. You didn’t do
anything wrong."
Her
thoughts buzz back to the inquiries about her relationship with
Philip and why she was in his bedroom that night. She still
can’t believe that she was so stupid as to believe something
might happen between them.
“I
should probably tell you something,” she says. “They’re making
me testify in Molly’s trial. Since I was the one who found out
it was Philip. I don’t want you to think it’s something I want to
do."
“No.
You should. It’s bullshit that Molly has to go on trial for
that, anyway. It was basically self-defense."
The
weight of the topic sits over them, with neither knowing what to
say.
“Once
you’re better, I’m going to take you out partying,” Spencer
says, forcefully brightening. “We’ll get you back into the swing
of things."
“Please!
I’m gonna die of boredom. Who let you into the house, anyway? Is
Grandma home?"
“Yeah,
she answered. She said she was making cookies. I’m supposed to
convince you to come down and have some."
“Molly
and the lawyer aren’t here?"
He
shakes his head. “Didn’t see them."
“In
that case, let’s go get some cookies. It’ll make Grandma happy
to have us both there.” She swings her legs off the bed and
leads the way.
-----
The
driver of the hybrid car — whoever she is — seems to take yellow
lights as a command to stop, which would normally drive Yvette
crazy, but it does make it a hell of a lot easier not to lose
them. She follows Tempest and her friend, a heavyset white girl
with black-rimmed glasses, through unfamiliar streets and into
downtown King’s Bay. They park at a meter and go inside a
restaurant labeled 322. Yvette circles the block once and
luckily finds a metered spot just around the corner. It isn’t
ideal, but if she cranes her neck, she can see the front of the
hybrid. So she rolls down her windows and waits for the girls to
come out of the restaurant.
As
she waits, Yvette studies what she can see of downtown King’s
Bay. It looks like the kind of city she’s seen on TV: a little
too clean, a little too fake, mothers with strollers and
expensive leggings walking around with their overpriced coffees.
But nice. She can see why Tempest would want to live here —
though she doesn’t have a damn clue how she found the place to
begin with.
After
forty or so sweaty minutes, the girls exit the restaurant. They
get back into the hybrid and take off again. As they pass
Yvette, she starts her own car and pursues them. After a few
minutes, the hybrid eases to a stop outside a four-story
apartment building that looks like it was built in the last
decade or so; the exterior is covered in gray-blue paneling and
traces of wood. It all looks like exactly what Yvette always
thought of the Northwest.
“Got
yourself a nice little place here,” she mutters as she watches
Tempest get out of the car.
From
her current angle, she can’t really see inside the car, but
Tempest’s movements are enough to tell her that they are kissing
again. Then Tempest closes the car door and heads into the
building.
So
she lives alone. Huh, Yvette thinks. How much can that job
handing out rental skates pay?
Thinking
fast, Yvette gets out of her car and waves her arms just as the
hybrid moves away from the building and toward her. And it
works: the girl driving pulls over.
“Excuse
me,” Yvette says as sweetly as she can manage, “I’m new in town,
and this damn thing—“ She holds up her several-generations-old
iPhone. “—it’s not loading the map right. Can you tell me which
way is downtown?"
"No,
uh, my girlfriend lives in that building." The girl blushes as
she uses the word 'girlfriend,' and Yvette tries not to let her
discomfort show.
“Looks
pricey. She must do well for herself!"
“She
lives with her mom,” the girl says. “Well, foster mom. It’s a
long story. But yeah, it’s a really nice building."
“Interesting.
Interesting.” Yvette purses her lips as she tries to contain her
reactions. “Well, you’ve been a real help. Have a blessed day."
“You
too,” the girl says, and she rolls up her window and drives off,
the car near-silent as it moves.
Yvette
returns to her car and starts the engine, but she sits there and
stares up at the gray-blue building. Foster mom, huh?
“What
have you gotten yourself into, girl?” she asks aloud. Soon
enough, she’ll have the answers.
END
OF EPISODE 830
What
is Yvette up to?
Will
Tori’s testimony go all right?
What
kind of life will Sabrina build in King’s Bay?
Talk
about it all in the Footprints
Forum!
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