No One is Coming

Murder Girls is created, written and produced by Eternal Teenager. Content warning. This episode contains life-threatening situations involving water and confinement, references to death, vehicular assault and road danger, emotional distress, panic response, and acute trauma reactions, references to murder and an ongoing criminal investigation, discussions of environmental contamination and corporate cover-up, references to historical institutional abuse, unethical medical practices, and child welfare misconduct, themes of generational trauma and family loss, references to cancer and terminal illness, mentions of prescription medication and seizure disorder, references to police corruption and intimidation, a missing-person situation, and profanity throughout. Listener discretion is advised.

Previously on Murder Girls, I'm being pressured to make another arrest.

Nora Chen.

She agreed to come in for an interview.

Then she disappeared.

And the Holtz want you to arrest her.

They want the case closed, not necessarily solved.

I haven't decided anything. If I did sell, I assumed we would just take the money and do something together.

But what do you want to do?

I don't know. I really don't. There hasn't been time to think. Med school didn't work. Loose ends was an asset. I told myself coming back here was research. Like I was evaluating whether this place still fit.

Okay. So what happened?

You, Amethyst, Emily O'Connell. You fucking happened. Hello?

She's already in danger.

Who is?

Nora Chen. If they get to her first, you lose everything.

Lose her? We can't even find her.

She moved. That was a mistake.

Moved? Moved where?

If she's running, like actually running, why is she still in the county and not like anywhere else on the planet?

Unless there's a reason to stay here. We need to find her. Okay. Let's look at the other secure store locations.

She knows to keep moving or she felt watched. If we're just going to drop in somewhere, Holloway feels right. Victor Holt offered Omnia more land for the same price to close the deal.

Land he knew was contaminated.

And Dylan figured it out.

And Dylan tried to be careful about saying so.

Right up until the last email. I'd like to resolve this before it resolves itself.

And then someone resolved it.

Okay. Yeah. Another safe house.

Smaller than the other one.

Nora was here. Definitely looks a bit cleared out recently too. Whoa. Look at this. An envelope with Marion Caldwell written on it in red ink. Mags, look at this note Dylan wrote.

Marion, Dee Dee suggested I bring this to you. Dee Dee sent him to Marion.

Looks like old hospital records.

Intake form, October 26, 1972.

Foundling. No guardian present. Date of birth unknown. Estimated October 16th.

Intake coordinator, M. Beals.

Mavis Beals. Holy shit. And here she is again. That car has been behind us for a bit.

Could be nothing. Holloway to Avalon Falls is the county road. Everyone uses it. Amy.

I see it. They're speeding up.

They're gonna try to cut us off from the turnoff. Hang on. They're coming up beside us.

Okay. Hold on.

Whoa, look out.

I see it.

They're gonna run us off the road.

Murder Girls, episode 27. No one is coming.

Well, that settles it. I guess we're locked in this cistern.

Huh.

Okay. Okay. So, so we are not trapped.

Right, no, not trapped.

We are temporarily.

Contained.

Contained, yes, that's the word.

Hey.

What is it, buddy? Is it supposed to be doing that? The cistern?

Define that.

The whole filling rapidly thing.

All right, quick update.

Okay.

We are temporarily contained in a structure that is currently.

Filling.

Yes, filling.

And so, the door, that's still locked?

Yeah, Hockey Mask Murder Bro was very thorough.

Now, do we think he's coming back?

Oh, man, I hope not.

Because if he does, we're either.

Drowned.

Or murdered.

Yeah.

Or both. Love the options.

Technically, they're both murders, though.

Okay, okay. Sometimes no choice is good, right? Sure. It's hard to choose things.

Especially, you know, when it's how you die.

Okay, okay, okay.

It's us, right? We've definitely been in worse.

Uh...

I mean, right?

Have we?

For sure.

Name one, please.

Oh, right!

Trapped on the runaway hot air balloon from the carnival blowing out over the ocean? Mmm... Maybe.

Yeah, that wasn't great either.

See?

I knew it!

Ugh, okay. But no, this is...

yeah.

This is right up there, isn't it? Yikes on bikes.

It just keeps flooding in here.

Okay, look, we just need a way out. I think the locked door is the only way out. There's always a way out.

Amy, it's filling up really fast.

Okay. Okay.

This might be...

Bad?

Yeah. Bad.

Wait, what's that?

No way!

Cheese?

What the? Oh my god! I can't believe it!

Oh my god!

Hi! Hi! Hi!

You absolute legend!

Cheese!

Amy! I got it!

I got it! Hang on!

Look out!

Hang on!

Okay. You all right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're... They're not stopping.

The car's still running, which at the moment, is the only way to stop them.

The car's still running, which at the moment, feels like a win.

You good? You're not hurt?

Yeah.

I'm okay. You?

Yeah. I'm okay. Let's... Let's get back on the road.

Only if you're ready.

I can... I can drive. Let's go. Steering's a little off.

That sounds bad.

It's not great. There's a rest stop in a bit. I'll take a look there.

She says it like it's a loose screw, a weird noise, something fixable. Like this is still in the category of things you can pull over and deal with. That wasn't random.

Nope.

There's a version of this where we turn around, where we go back to the shop, lock the door, pretend this is something we can opt out of. This isn't that version.

Okay. Here it is.

The rest stop is empty, thankfully. Amy pulls in and the Yaris lurches to a slightly clumsy stop. We don't say anything for a minute. Because saying something would make it real in a different way. So instead, we just get out of the car, letting the wide space outside help things dissipate.

Just gonna take a quick look. Yeah. Okay.

Good news or bad news?

We're fine. I mean, not fine fine, but drivable fine.

Okay. Well, that's good.

Yeah.

Yep.

My hands won't stop shaking, which is inconvenient because I'd really like them to.

That was, that was a little, uh, hey, look at me.

I'm, yeah, I'm good. I just, sorry. I just need a second. I know, I know this is.

Hey, hey, come here.

I'm, I'm sorry. I just, I know this is, not, like, I know.

We're okay. I know. I know.

I just, I thought, I thought I had more time.

For what?

Before it got like this. I just got back, and it's already, they just, they just, that's not, and I'm, I'm doing this right now, which is, I know what you went through, and I'm just, this is stupid.

No, it's not. This is what your body does when something tries to kill you. It's doing its job.

Okay. Okay.

You want a minute?

No.

If we stay here any longer, I'm not starting again.

Okay, we should move.

Yeah, the coast is clear for now. The road looks the same, which feels suspicious now.

You good?

Yeah, I'm good. Oh, it's the weirdos.

Put them on.

Hello?

Hey, okay, so we found something.

We're not sure it's big. We're not sure it's anything.

But it's definitely weird.

Sounds promising.

So we looked into the owners of the various secure store locations in the county.

And?

They're all owned by the same person, Dylan Hope.

What? Yeah, he bought them all up about a year and a half ago.

Quietly. Like even more quietly than boring franchise sales usually go.

Huh.

I guess it makes sense how he used them for his sad boy safe houses.

When you're a hult, your contingencies can get pretty grand.

Okay, well, I guess that's definitely not nothing.

But not sure if it's something. Agreed. I assume you didn't find Nora?

The Holloway space was burnt. Nora had been there, but not for a few days now.

And she didn't leave much behind. Just some photocopies for Mary and Caldwell.

Whoa. Really?

Yeah.

Dylan meant to get those to Mary and to look into on the legal side of things.

What sort of photocopies?

Old hospital records. We'll send you pics.

And, like, if you see any way into those, give it a go. We're gonna take them to Mary and later.

Copy that.

Oh, and hey, quick side note. Just watch yourselves out there.

Why?

We just had a car try to run us off the road.

What?

Like how?

Yeah, so a car, well, it was technically a two-car job.

Right, yeah, a decoy was involved, but one ran us off the road.

So, wait, you actually got run off the road? You said someone tried to run you off the road.

Uh, yeah, no, they succeeded in the running off the road aspect.

Are you okay?

Yes, yeah, we're fine.

You don't sound fine, Ms. Park.

I'm...

We're fine. Car's fine. Just...

I'm fine. We're fine. You know, other than saying fine way too many times.

Right, yeah, it gets suspicious that way.

That's not random.

No, that's coordinated.

Shit.

Did you get a plate? Anything?

No, they didn't stick around.

That's not, that's not okay. You need to be careful. Please.

Yeah, we know.

This changes things.

Yeah, yeah, it does.

They're not just...

No.

Okay, then we don't split up unless we have to.

We keep comms open, and we move faster.

And smarter.

We're heading to the Stillwater Institute.

The five-star spa? Seriously?

Yeah, checking on a Richard Holt lead.

Be careful. Spas can be very dangerous places. You think I'm talking about bacteria and mold, but I'm only mostly talking about bacteria and mold.

We'll watch out for that.

We'll keep digging on our end. Anything else tied to Dylan, Nora, anything.

Plus all the other stuff.

If there's a pattern, we'll find it.

Just text when you get there, please.

We will. Promise.

Hey, I know I'm the funny one who uses humor to keep everyone's spirits up and morale at an all-time high, but I'm being seriously serious right now. Watch yourselves, okay?

Yeah, you too.

We lost time. We don't say it, but it's there. No way to get it back. No way to go but forward.

The Stillwater Institute sits on a hillside about 30 minutes northeast of Avalon Falls, like it was placed there on purpose. Which, of course, it was. Wood and glass and straight lines. Pacific Northwest meets Danish minimalism, meets the quiet architectural language of money doesn't need to announce itself. It still does though, stylishly but still quite loudly. The kind of place where the menu doesn't have prices, where the staff are warm without being familiar, where even the silence feels managed, where a man can book the entire place for a week and no one asks why. Which is what Richard Holt did. Which is why we're standing at the front desk telling the receptionist we're his interns.

I'm so sorry, Mr. Holt didn't mention expecting anyone today.

He doesn't always loop us in in advance. That's kind of because we're, as we mentioned earlier, and perhaps you didn't hear it, interns.

We have some time-sensitive documents for him to review from the threshold office. Um, I'd need to call up to the suite.

Of course, and I'm sure he'll be completely understanding about the delay. He usually is.

Sign in and you can go up. It's the penthouse suite. You'll need this key card to use the elevator.

Perfect. Thank you so much. We sign in and head to the elevator. Mags is doing that thing that she does every time we run one of these plays, breathing like it's optional. That was too easy, huh?

I hate you.

How would you have ever seen this place, let alone the penthouse of this place without me?

I hate you more now.

So much hatred.

Just knock.

A woman answers the door, young, like not more than three or four years older than me or Mags, not startled, just present, comfortable, composed, and pregnant, quite very pregnant.

Oh, hi.

We're interns.

Hello, I am Margaret Park, Parker.

Richard knows who we are, dude.

Okay, then.

Sure. Come on in.

The suite has floor-to-ceiling windows facing the valley. You can see most of the county from up here, like standing at the top of everything and looking down at people who don't know you're watching.

Richard, you have visitors.

Who the hell?

Your interns, apparently.

You two. How did you get up here?

Front desk was super helpful.

Sloan, would you mind?

I'll go down to the terrace. Take your time.

I'm going to call Sheriff Carter, and the two of you are going to be in lockup by end of business.

You could do that.

You'd probably want to hear what we have to say first.

I really don't think I would.

Dylan's emails.

Sit down. You have no idea what you're walking into.

I mean, we have some idea.

What do you want?

We want to know what happened to Dylan.

So do I.

Do you?

He was my son.

We know.

We're not here because we think you killed him. We're here because we think someone did. And we think the investigation isn't going where it needs to go, and we think you know why.

I'm only talking to you because I know what you know already, and that you can't do a thing with it. Not even Dylan could. Victor expanded the deal. That's how this all started.

We know.

My proposal was different, smaller, competitive. Everyone would come out ahead.

But Victor wanted more.

A larger footprint, more money up front. Get the agreement signed before anyone looked too closely at anything.

And Dylan looked.

He came to me with it all, quietly at first. He wanted it fixed before it became public. He thought there was a way to do that.

Was there?

Dylan thought so.

What about Victor?

My father doesn't operate in a world where you clean up that kind of mess. You work around it. It's the cost of doing business.

Was Dylan a mess Victor believed in cleaning up?

Are you accusing Victor Holt of murdering his grandson?

Easy, Dick. We're just talking here.

Does it seem so strange to ask given what was at stake?

There was a meeting at Victor's cabin. I wasn't there. I wasn't invited. Only the heads of the families.

So just the old ghouls, then?

What do you think they discussed?

I think they discussed Dylan. Victor was concerned, not just about what Dylan found, about what he was going to do with it.

What was Victor like after the meeting?

Different. Colder. Resolved. The way he gets when a decision's been made.

Did you ask him what the decision was?

No, he wouldn't have told me. Plausible deniability.

Richard, Dylan was trying to stop it and fix it, not blow it up. He thought it could be right.

I know.

He was trying to protect you too. The emails.

I know what the email said. He was careful, more careful than he needed to be. He gave us a chance, every chance, but Dylan was going too far. Cleaning up a dirty deal is one thing, but the places he was digging, the wrongs he was unearthing, some things don't get fixed. They get buried, or they take everything down with them.

You're saying Victor knew what Dylan was digging into.

Yes, of course. He gave him a chance to stop.

What kind of chance?

The kind he didn't take. And then it stopped being a conversation he was a part of.

Dylan didn't stop.

No.

We're not going to either.

No, I don't think you are. Whatever you think this is, it's bigger. But more importantly, it's older. You should leave.

Congratulations, Amy. On the baby, I mean.

I can see why Eleanor liked you. One more thing. They're meeting again.

Who?

You know who. Tuesday.

About Dylan?

About everything Dylan touched, and everything that's touched it since.

Including us.

Good. We'll be ready.

You won't. Not for that.

We leave, and I remember what Andre said about Richard. Pressure without self-determination. A man who knows where the edge of the darkness is, and has spent his whole life standing just close enough to benefit, and just far enough not to see. It's not innocence, but it's not Victor either. It's something sadder. Man, I worked up an appetite in there.

So, what did you think of Sloane?

I can tell you I'm not a fan of how young she is, that's for sure.

Seems less dramatic than Amber.

And way more pregnant. That's some deeply cursed timing. Feels on brand though.

Oh, that's Marion. She can see us tonight.

Sweet. The Otter, Kenzie, groceries, I cook, we do a little machine dive, and then we go see our fellow history club bestie Marion.

Amazing.

Richard Holt isn't a good man, but he's not the worst thing in the room either. He's what happens when you grow up close enough to the dark to learn how to live with it, and far enough away to pretend you never touched it. There's a word for that. It's not innocence.

The sloppy otter in the afternoon looks like a place that forgot to go home. All that neon trying to mean something in the gray light, the gravel lot with its hierarchy of tire tracks, the hand-painted sign that someone touched up once, badly, and never touched again.

Mags.

I see it.

Jimmy Rivers.

On a wall across the street, spray paint. Quick job. Someone who wanted it seen but didn't want to be seen doing it.

Jimmy Flies. Jake Floats.

Jesus.

That's just fucking trash. Dylan Holt gets a royal funeral. Half the town in black. The paper runs three pieces. The other half of the county sends flowers.

And Jake gets a graffiti joke. Fuck. Hey, look up there. Roof line across the street.

A camera?

Yeah. Points in the direction of where the camera that got cut is.

Okay. Okay. We can maybe see who cut the camera. Nice. All right. Let's head in.

You always narrate what we're doing.

It's not narration.

It's not?

Not in this case.

What is it then?

Expository dialogue.

Ah, got it. Carry on then, love.

Oh, British accent. So, so fancy.

According to Amy, Jake Mitchell ran this place for seven years. He was charming and occasionally catastrophic. He poured a generous drink and he knew everyone's name. This town liked him, most of it anyway, the parts that mattered. In the few days, hours really that I knew him, I would say all of that is true, for myself included.

We're closed.

It's us.

I know who it is.

Kenzie looks like someone who has been very still for several days, not grief still exactly. More like the stillness of a person who has been listening to something the rest of us can't hear and is trying not to lose the threat of it.

You want something to drink?

Whatever's easy.

Nothing's easy, but ginger beer's cold.

I love that.

You two look different.

We haven't slept much.

Not that kind of different. Jake talks about you, you know.

What does he say?

He says, you're the ones who are going to figure it out. Said it before, too. Just says it different now.

I don't know what to do with that. I want to be the person who files it neatly under Kenzie being Kenzie and moves on, but it sits somewhere I wasn't expecting it to sit, somewhere genuine, and I can't quite get it to move.

We miss him, too.

I know.

Are things, you know, becoming clearer with the otter, with Jake's estate?

Not yet.

I just open and close the place. Same as always until someone stops me. So, what do you need, bunnies?

We just wanted to check in and ask a few things if that's okay.

Fill your boots.

The Holtz. Did any of them come in much?

Victor never came in. Not once. Not since I've been working here. Place like this ain't a place for Victor Holt. And Victor Holt ain't a person for this place.

What about Richard?

Never neither. Same reason, different rapper.

Thomas?

Handful of times. Only when he wanted something. Or someone.

How do you mean?

Came in for Dylan a couple of times. Dragged him out of here once. Not ugly about it, but firm. Like an older brother. Other time he stayed. Drank with Dylan until close. That was like an older brother too. Which surprised me.

Surprised you how?

Thomas Holt don't do things without a reason. If he stayed, he had a reason to stay.

Did he come in for anything or anyone else?

Met people here sometimes. Three, four times over the years. Business types, but not the kind with business cards. The kind with very quiet voices and very good shoes.

What kind of business?

The kind I made sure I was busy at the other end of the bar for, sugar.

Fair.

Haven't seen him in months, though. Last time was spring, maybe?

Jake, the texts he was getting, the ones that were stressing him out, know anything about those?

Thought it was Amber at first. That kind of demanding, that kind of relentless. But? But Amber's demanding, like someone who thinks they're owed. This was different. This was needling, like someone picking out a thread, real slow, real deliberate. Like they weren't trying to get something from him right then. They were just reminding him they could. Sometimes it made him angry. Sometimes it made him...

Made him what?

Wild-eyed. Like a horse that's figured out the fence ain't keeping the coyotes out. It's keeping him in.

The night he closed the otter early Thursday, that had never happened before, right?

Never. Not once in seven years.

What happened?

He'd been acting off for a day or so before that. You saw him. Amber had stopped answering. He was worried she was missing, actually missing, not just icing him out, which I thought was...

Go on.

I thought...

I thought a woman like that don't go missing when there's someone like Jake she can throw to the wolves. She goes missing when she doesn't need to throw anyone anymore, when she's already safe.

There it is, the version of Amber's disappearance that makes the most sense if you've been watching her long enough.

But that Thursday, in the morning when we do prep, Jake was fine. Off, but fine. Just that sane, worried about Amber thing.

And then...

It was like someone pulled a plug. I looked up and he was just standing there, behind the bar, not doing anything. Not looking at his phone, not looking at the room. Just standing there.

Did something happen, a call, a text?

Don't know the clear of it. Didn't see anything. I just saw the after. Listen, Jake was dumb, but not dumb like he would forget to breathe dumb. He just had more blind spots than most, but we all got those, don't we? Jake, that boy's blind spots, they mostly had to do with Amber. Thursday, Jake looked like he'd seen a ghost, but not scared. You know how scared looks, eyes wide, pale as a lily. This wasn't that. This was like, this was like the fear had just drained out. Like there was nothing left that fear could take from him. He, he made me leave. Wouldn't hear anything about it. Just go, Kins. Go home.

He didn't even swear at me. I should have stayed.

Oh, hey, no.

No, Kenzie, you couldn't have known.

I know that. Don't help none.

Uh, so, with Amber, beyond the obvious, like, affair-related stuff, what do you think she wanted from Jake?

I've been thinking about that a lot. Cause she came in too much. Not the right amount for someone trying to be secret. Too much. Struttin around like the pastor's wife on Potluck Sunday.

Like she wanted to be seen?

Like she wanted him to be seen, with her. Like she was making sure everyone knew he was hers. But not because she wanted him.

Because she wanted cover.

That woman is sharper than she wants anyone to know. Sad part is, Jake didn't think he was important enough to kill. Said that to me once. Not like he was sad about it. Just knew his place. In town, with Amber. Thought being small kept him safe. Blind spots.

Yeah, it didn't keep him safe.

No. Suppose it didn't. I worry about you too. I see things around you.

Kenzie.

I'm not saying don't do whatever you're going to do. Because I know y'all are going to do it anyhow. I'm saying I see things around you, and I want you to know about it.

So what kind of things?

Danger that don't announce itself. Kind that's already in the room before you open the door.

We'll be careful.

Y'all be reckless, girl. We all know that. Still, there's some good things moving around you, too. Folks and softer shadows wanting you pointed the right direction. That's the town, you know. Shadows of different shades. What they did to Jake's memory. What they're doing. Dylan is a saint, and Jake is a dirty joke everyone loves to tell. And I... I like Dylan. He was a good kid, underneath everything they did to him. He came in here and left the name at the door, mostly. Maybe he could have made it so his name meant something more than what it does, if he had time. He deserves what people are giving him. But so does Jake. Jake was a person. He was funny, and he was ornery as an old boot. And he was peach pie sweet when he thought nobody was looking. And he ran this bar like it was the only honest place in Avalon Falls. And maybe it was, in its own way. Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, not now. Oh, oh my Lord.

Something shifts in her face, not panic, not pain, just gone somewhere else for a second. Hey, Kenzie, are you?

Ruins.

Kenzie?

The flames are buried. The earth is on fire.

Are you all right?

Oh, yeah, darlin. Just had one of my spells. I'll be all right.

You sure?

Yeah, happens all the time. Did I say something?

You did, yeah.

Ruins, the flames are buried. The earth is on fire. I think that was it. Also, and I don't want to be insensitive, but that was so fucking rad. Oh my God.

What do you think it means, Kenzie?

Honey, I don't even know how to mix half the drinks folks in here pay me to mix for them. You think I'm gonna know what that's all about?

Fair enough.

We should get going, huh?

Yeah. Hey, Kenzie, can I give you a hug?

Honey, I would have said yes from the moment I met you. Come here.

Yeah, that's the good stuff.

And you, pretty pretty.

Oh, uh.

Don't you worry, you're pretty pink hair. I'm saving our hug for later. There's gonna be a better time for it. I've seen it.

Oh, huh, okay.

You girls go do what you need to do, and y'all come on back when it's done.

Bye, Kenzie.

For the record, I genuinely cannot tell if she was fucking with me. About the hug thing, about seeing the better time, about any of it. Kenzie exists in a register that I don't have a calibration tool for. She might be the most intuitive person in Avalon Falls, or she might be doing an extremely committed bit. And the terrifying thing is, I'm not sure those are different things. Ruins, the flames are buried, the earth is on fire. I'm gonna be thinking about that for a while. In Avalon Falls, when someone tells you the earth is on fire, you don't argue. You go find out where it's burning.

Mags offered to cook. I told her I had it. She said she didn't mind. I said I had offered before, and that I actually wanted to. She looked at me for a second. The particular look she does where she's deciding whether to push. And then she said, okay, and went to pour us both a drink. That's the thing about actually wanting to do something. It looks different from everything else. Even Mags can tell. I said I'd cook, so I cook.

Okay, what am I looking at? What am I smelling?

You're looking at prep work.

For what?

For dinner, which I promised you.

You promised me pasta. That doesn't look or smell like pasta.

I said I'd make dinner. I said I can cook pasta, but I called an audible.

You revised the menu without informing the other party.

I revised it in your favor. That's all you need to know.

You're being very intense about this.

Sit.

Yes, chef.

Please don't call me that.

Noted. So what are you making?

Food.

Okay, I walked into that one.

Why can't you just relax and be surprised? Just once.

For me? Wow. Emotional manipulation.

Yeah, well... Eat it while it's hot.

Oh, oh, wow.

Sheila Keyless. Jonathan's recipe. More or less, I've messed with it over the years. Added some things. Changed a couple of steps. But the bones are his. Delicious. Hopefully. And fun. You eat them with your hands.

Oh my god. From the first time I came over to your place, when we were nine, I was ten.

You'd never had them before.

I ate four servings.

You ate four servings, and then you asked Jonathan if you could have the recipe, and he pretended to think about it for like 30 seconds.

Dunno, Mags. Gonna have to talk to management about that one.

And then he just wrote it out for you on a post-it note.

That was the first time anyone called me Mags.

He started it. But it stuck because it fit. That's how the good ones work.

I still have that post-it note.

Oh, yeah?

In a box, at my parents, not in a weird way.

In a completely normal way.

In an extremely normal, I've kept a post-it note for 12 years way.

It's not weird. He was good at being worth keeping things from. But enough about him. Just try them.

These are not your dad's chilaquiles.

I mean, we know that. He's dead. You saw me make them. It's pretty obvious, detective.

Not what I meant, Jerky. These are so much better than Jonathan's.

Okay, first of all, rude. Second, yeah, no, his were kind of a mess.

They were incredible.

Yummy? Yes. Comforting? Absolutely. But incredible? They were soggy tortilla chips with attitude.

Hey, I love them.

Yeah, me too.

You learned this.

I mean, it's not that complicated. Yeah, I did.

This is really good.

Thank you.

Like, really good.

Okay, don't make it weird.

I'm not making it weird.

You're absolutely making it weird.

I'm appreciating your food.

You're overappreciating my food.

I regret nothing.

Keep eating. Keep enjoying. Keep praising me, especially that last one.

Huh.

And I do just really have to go run and skip this next one song quick.

Oh, yeah? Why?

Don't worry about it.

I recognize that first piano note, dude. Uh, I know.

Of course you do. How could you not? It's iconic. It's eternal. It's perfection itself.

That was Welcome to the Black Parade.

I know what it was.

You have a playlist that contains Welcome to the Black Parade.

Everyone has a playlist that contains Welcome to the Black Parade. It's a foundational text.

You made me listen to this on repeat for, I want to say, six days?

Okay, it was three days. Calm down. And you were into it by the end of day one, Don't Rewrite History.

I was being polite.

Oh, please. You were air drumming on the bus home.

That was a one-time thing.

You did it for a week.

I mean, it's a really great song.

Yeah, it is.

Like, I have absolutely no fucking idea what it's about. It's an allegory, I guess. I have many questions about why this guy's dad took him to see a marching band and then asked him if he would be the savior of the broken and the damned. Hey, son, let me drop this serious talk about your future on you in the middle of a kaleidoscopic cacophony. Like, probably one of the worst places for a serious talk ever. But yeah, it's a really great song.

Great album. Paramore was next on the rotation, if you recall.

Riot. I can get behind any time of the week. Haley in general, actually.

Agreed.

The only exception is on my wedding playlist. 100%.

Oh, yeah? That's revealing, Chica.

So, yeah, for the record, I don't have a wedding playlist, not for real. Just in my head, which, yeah. So that is worse, that is worse, that is worse, Mags. This smells exactly like it. Yeah. Yes. Like, that specific combination. I can't...

The guajillo and the tomatillo, that's the base, that's where it lives.

It smells like your house.

Yeah, it kind of does.

Do you think about that house a lot?

Less than I used to. I used to think about it every day after it sold, every single day for like a year, and then it got to every week, and then just sometimes when I hear a specific song or smell something specific or whatever.

I thought about it too.

Yeah?

The kitchen table, that wobbly chair that was always on Jonathan's side, and he just never fixed it.

He was so stubborn about that chair. He said it gave it character.

The chair with character, you had to kind of...

Brace yourself when you sat down?

Or you'd just slide sideways.

Toward him.

I always took that seat.

I know. So...

So...

What do people do after something like this?

Like after chilaquiles? Pass out.

Dude.

Like after solving a murder?

Or not solving it. Just after.

I don't know. I guess... go back to normal?

Is that a thing for you?

Probably not.

Yeah, same. I mean, obviously. You could sell the shop?

I could.

You don't sound excited about that.

I'm not... not excited. I just don't know what that looks like.

I know we're both thinking of what's next. With where to live, with the machine. But...

But?

I love this town and the way you love a thing that hurt you, but it's not... I don't know if Avalon Falls is the destination. It's more like the place where the next thing starts.

Yeah.

Where do you want to go?

I've been trying to answer that question for about a year. Before Dee Dee died, before all of this, I was... I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know where I was going. I just kept moving.

And now?

Now, I think I just needed to be in the same place as the answer before I could figure out what it was.

We could still do it. California? Not forever. Not like running away just after this is done. After we've done whatever we need to do here, and the case is closed, and Marion settles the estate, and the weirdos have the basement. I want to drive to California. I want to see the ocean from a different direction. I want to eat sushi that isn't from a gas station. I want to...

Yes. Yes? Yeah, yes.

You didn't even think about it.

I didn't need to.

We'd be terrible at it.

We'd be amazing at it.

We'd get lost immediately.

We'd thrive.

We'd get scammed.

We'd scam back.

We'd absolutely not scam back.

Okay, fair. Dude, you eat sushi from a gas station? Why? There is tons of good sushi around here. We can walk to the ocean.

It's not a plan.

Not yet.

But it's something.

Yes, something for after.

Yeah, for after.

These are really good.

You said that.

I'm saying it again.

Ugh, fine. Here's what I didn't say. The first time I had an idea of what my life could look like, really look like, past the next week, past the next thing to survive, I was 10 years old. Sitting in a kitchen in Avalon Falls, eating chilequiles, listening to my dad and Mags argue about whether four servings was impressive or concerning. And for the first time in a very long time, I can see it again. And she's there. Not as a ghost, not as the person I lost. Just there. That's enough. Right now, that's more than enough. Okay, a quick pass.

That's what we always say.

It'll be quick, you'll see. Okay, documents first.

Intake form, October 26th, 1972, Tlaqua Regional Medical Center. Foundling, no guardian present, DOB unknown, estimated October 16th.

Healthy, no complications, transferred after one day.

Per request, no destination, no follow-up, no names on the transfer. And Mavis Beals signs the intake.

Just gone. An infant goes in, an infant goes out, and the only record of any of it is this form someone very carefully didn't finish filling out.

Dylan wasn't just interested in Mavis Beals because of who she was.

The Calhoun connection, Bella Harper's cousin.

That's part of it. But this is about where she worked, what she had access to. We're going to need Marion for this. A lot of this is technically gated. Medical records, transfer protocols, what the legal framework even was for infant placements in 1972. We can't untangle it without someone who knows what she's looking at.

Dee Dee knew that too. That's why she told Dylan to take it to her.

Okay, so we put a pin in the documents, bring everything to Marion later, and see what she makes of it.

So Victor.

Richard didn't exactly jump to his father's defense in there.

He gave him a chance to stop. That's not ambiguity. That's a man telling us something he can't quite say out loud.

And it stopped being a conversation he was a part of. That's the most careful version of someone else handled it I've ever heard.

Okay, so what do we actually know about Victor concretely?

The apartment on Aldrich. The portrait of him painted by Bella Harper, who he had committed to Pine Ridge eventually. The skulls.

The alias.

Right. Crocker told us that someone visited Bella at Pine Ridge under the name Wynne or Will. Someone who said to Crocker, among other weird stuff, I'll tell you that for free.

Same distinct phrase Victor said to Andre Whitaker. On tape.

So the alias visitor and Victor are almost certainly the same person.

Almost certainly.

Why don't we see if anything comes up with the apartment? Start there. Okay. Property records for the Aldrich Street building. The apartment we were in. Lease records archived through the county assessor's office going back to 1968. The building is privately owned. Original purchase. Hmm.

What is it?

The building was purchased in 1972 by a Wynwoods LLC.

Wyn.

Wyn. Registered in Talauqua County, no listed directors, standard shell. He bought the building under the same name he used to visit Bella Harper.

And he kept it.

He keeps a lot of things.

The skulls.

We still don't know what they are.

We might not want to.

Richard. The meeting. He said the heads convened at Victor's cabin about a week before Dylan's murder.

And they're meeting again. Tuesday. About everything Dylan was digging into. Everyone who he radicalized.

Including us, presumably.

Presumably. Let's check out this cabin. Think there's a camera out there somewhere?

Probably not on the property. But Google Maps says there's only one access road up in that part of things. Looks like there's a road that breaks off and heads into a section there.

I'm assuming that's where the cabin is?

Seems right. Okay, looks like yes, there's a highway camera, transport department, covers that junction where the access road and car path meet.

Can we?

Already checking the archive, going back 10 days. Okay, here. The access road junction, Sunday, September 28th, around 6 p.m. That's like just over a week before the murder? There. One SUV turning onto the access road.

That's James Warren.

Four minutes later, another.

Handler.

And there.

That's the Bergmans.

All three. Within 12 minutes, that's all of them.

It happened.

It happened. Richard wasn't speculating. The meeting was real, it was organized, and it included every original family head. All deliberate, all coordinated, all within a week of Dylan's murder.

Pull up the cabin on Google Maps.

The property itself isn't labeled, but based on what Richard said, past the Holtwood end of the access road.

There. That clearing with the structure.

Yeah, that'll be it. Satellite's not great out here, but you can see the footprints larger than one building. Um, like there are remains of other structures around it.

Old walls, maybe?

Hey, hold on, let me check something.

What's that? The photo of the map from Victor's apartment you took?

The map, yeah. 19th century Avalon Falls and environs. Look at the property boundaries. This area here, north of the Holtwood.

Holy shit.

Victor Holt's cabin is built on Calhoun Manor.

Or what's left of it?

The image resolution is rough out here, but, um, look, those aren't just natural features around the cabin. That's a wall. And there, that's another one. Old stone. Could be foundations.

The ruins that Anson Calhoun's father took him to see as a kid. The chimney and the pines.

He said he always thought that was what remained of Calhoun Manor. He didn't know exactly where. Now we do.

Victor Holt built his cabin on the ruins of the family his family destroyed.

The family that owned that land before the Holt's took it.

That's not just power.

I don't know what to call it.

Possession. Not haunting. Not obsession. Just the need to own something completely.

Even after it's gone.

Even after you're the reason it's gone. The Tuesday meeting. What do we do?

We can't stop it. Not before Tuesday. Not with what we have.

But Marion might find a way if we tell her everything.

The documents, the emails, the land.

The intake records.

She'll know what this means. Okay.

Let's go. Marion opens the door before we finish knocking.

There you are, come in, come in. You both look like you've been somewhere interesting.

Three somewheres, actually.

Well, I've just made tea. Best way to feel like you've come home.

Oh, you didn't have to-

I've already made it, dear.

Oh, and I'll just, you know, just like-

Please, Amy, the cookies are all yours.

And I thank you. She takes us somewhere different tonight. Not the den with the view of the town, a smaller room off the back, an office sort of, a nook, really, packed with books and files and one framed photograph on the desk that I noticed before anything else. The man, probably in his early forties, smiling like someone who meant it.

Is that-

My husband, yes, Robert. He died 12 years ago. Pancreatic cancer.

I'm sorry.

It's a war, not a journey. I've always hated that word when talking about cancer. A journey. Like it's a choice you're making at your own pace that will end up somewhere positive. When Dee Dee got sick, I made sure she knew that someone understood the difference.

She didn't want us to know.

No, she didn't want to be handled. Just know she had someone. And even though you didn't know what she was going through, she had you, even from a distance.

Thank you for seeing us.

Of course. Now, what have you found?

Okay, so big picture.

There are multiple threads.

And they all connect, but they connect in like different...

It's not one set of scandals or crimes.

It's more like layers basically, or maybe strata.

Let's start with what you can prove.

Right. Okay. Omnia.

The development deal. It has land that Victor Holt added to the original proposal, the South parcels.

Those parcels have been contaminated for decades. Medical waste going back to the 50s, maybe earlier. Threshold has been trying to clean it up before the deal closes. Dylan found the site histories, the remediation records that were missing or incomplete. He was pushing back carefully in writing.

The emails are careful in the way you're careful when you know what you're writing could become evidence.

He was trying to slow the deal down without blowing it up. He thought there was a way to fix it quietly.

Eventually, he got fed up and looked into drastic measures.

And that ended him.

We also think, and this is less provable, but Amy's dad, Jonathan O'Connell's accident.

My dad was looking into the same contamination. Well, like, a different era of it. I mean, as you know, he was looking into the same contamination just under a different deal.

He was drumming up a class-action lawsuit in Avalon Heights to trigger discovery.

And then the accident.

The timing is not a coincidence.

So this isn't new. It's just exposed now.

That's what we keep coming back to.

That's not a scandal. That's a system failing in public. That's when things get dangerous.

There's more. The other stuff is harder to connect right now, but...

There's a data system, the CIS, the Continuity Identifier System, that appears to have been used to track people of Calhoun descent through welfare programs, social services, hospital intake systems.

To what end?

Unclear. But it seems that the Calhouns were an original family before the 1930s, and that they were massacred by the other families in a hostile takeover. Maybe it's somehow related to that, keeping them under surveillance?

Interesting. What else?

The Driftwood School. There's evidence that the originals helped facilitate the federal crackdown on them. They also stole and stockpiled the art, sitting on it and eventually selling it at considerable profit.

And the Osprey Island drug operation from our original case. We think the infrastructure there may have had originals' involvement.

How much of this can you support with documentation?

The contamination? Solid. Daniel Siaya also has continuity with Jonathan's investigation, as well as his own and with us.

The CIS system. We have records and pattern evidence. Driftwood? Circumstantial but directional.

Osprey Island? Speculative. But there is an illegal threshold facility on the island as we speak. It looks like they're centralizing the contamination cleanup there.

It's a lot of threads, and not all of them are the same weight.

Then you don't need all of them. You need one thing they can't explain. One thing that holds in the light. The rest follows if the first one is airtight.

Dylan was trying to bring you something. He didn't get the chance. We found it.

Take a look.

Where did you get these?

Dylan had them. In a storage unit outside Holloway. The envelope had your name on it. Just your name. No address. He meant to deliver them in person.

There's a note in there from him. He says Dee Dee told him to bring them to you. That he was trying to find a legal path to follow the transfer. The destination is blank on the discharge form.

I'll look into what can be done. Records from that era, they leave gaps on purpose, which makes them harder to follow.

We noticed that the transfer happened in one day.

Yes, that's fast.

That's arranged.

Indeed. I'll contact Daniels CIA's office. If there's a way to bring this forward, he'll know it. It keeps the initial pressure off you and puts it where it will hold more weight legally. He'll want to move.

We want to move too, which brings us to the other thing.

The original families are meeting. Tuesday, at Victor Holt's cabin.

Richard Holt told us he's not going to be there. It's Victor and the other family heads.

They're meeting about everything Dylan touched and who picked it up after him.

Then they've already decided. Tuesday is just where they confirm it.

So we need to move before Tuesday.

We need to move carefully before Tuesday. There's a difference. If you show your hand too early and they have time to respond, to clean it up, to call in favors, to make the evidence disappear, then you fired your one shot and missed. This can't be something they can shake off. It needs to land once. You two brought this to me at the right time. That helps.

Marion, are you safe if they know you're connected to this?

I've been a lawyer in this county for 30 years, dear. I know how to appear connected to nothing. But thank you for asking. Go home, lock your doors. Not because something is going to happen tonight, but because you've been driving county roads and running around spas and storage units all day and you need to sleep.

That's excellent advice.

What can I say? I'm surprisingly good at advice. Oh, one more thing. If you're right about all of this, and I think you are, this doesn't end quietly. And the people who expect it to usually don't survive it.

We're not expecting it to end quietly.

Good. Stay safe, girls. And stay in touch.

Marion walks us out and closes the door, and the warm light of her house goes back to being a warm light in the dark. We didn't just find something tonight. We started something. And for the first time, it feels like we might get to finish it.

Huh, looks like I left the lamp on.

The one by the fish wall?

Yup.

Good, I hate coming back to a dark shop, honestly. I mean, there are three ventriloquist dummies in there.

That we're aware of.

Right, the fucking lights should never be off.

Yes, new rule.

Hey, uh.

Yeah?

We did a lot today.

Yeah, we did.

And so, actually, I wanted to say something.

Of course.

Yeah. So, whoa.

Holy shit. Nora?

Hi. Are you, are you okay?

No.

No, I am not okay. But I made it here.

Why here?

Because Dylan told me to find you.

What?

When it was safe enough. If, if, if it happened. If he couldn't finish it, you would.

Hello, everyone, Mags Park here. Just wanted to let you all know, we're getting close.

Close? Close to what?

Close to the part where everything we thought we knew stops making sense.

Dude, weren't we, like, weren't we just at that part, you know, like, two episodes ago or whatever?

Well, yeah, but this time, it's, you know, it's just really gonna stop making sense, you'll see.

Unsettling. Not gonna lie, I kinda like it. But also, I am just so tired right now. Oh, my lord.

Murder Girls, catch up now.

Yeah, before it just stops making fucking sense altogether. Hey, y'all, Avalon Falls has a soundtrack.

Yeah, we just keep finding pieces of it. You can listen to all the music from the show on the Music from Murder Girls playlist on Spotify.

Headphones recommended.

Emotional preparedness optional.