Ready for a new one?

The same way she had felt she wasn't going to see much lies in the Reeds while approaching from a distance, Gillian had a strong feeling they were going to find what they were looking for the moment the Lewton residence came within her sight. Far from being a 'judge a book by the cover' kind of person, she tried to look past the isolated house - perfect to hold a child captive, by the way - the overall dishevelled look of it and the beat up hillbilly truck parked in front and covered in dust and dents. But what did get her attention were three of the objects scattered around the clearly unattended yard: a child's bicycle with training wheels, a swing set and a football.

The objects weren't strange per se, but when she glanced at Deputy Larry and he nodded back at her Gillian knew he was thinking the same: they all looked brand new.

When she stopped the car Deputy Larry got out first, holding his hat in his hands to make sure someone from inside the house could take a good look and recognise him. They were banking on that for the approach, along with the excuse they had worked out during the short drive there. They needed something to get Tamara to answer the door, and hopefully to let them in. With only a few minutes to come up with something, they had decided to go with a missing dog scenario: Gillian and Emily were to pose as mother and daughter passing through Sedley, and whose dog had run away around the area. For good measure, Emily downloaded a random picture of a dog to show around and give some weight to the story. It wasn't ideal, but it was a way to get in the door and, hopefully, do so without raising premature suspicions

They all got out of the car and Emily quickly walked up to Gillian and took her hand, playing into the role of the daughter desperate about the missing pup. Gillian looked down at her contrite face and thought about what Cal had said, that he wasn't really that happy about how good she was becoming at that sort of stuff, and she understood exactly what he meant. On the other hand, she had to admit it was rather impressive and she had a very clear idea as to where Emily was getting that ability from.

They walked up to the door following the Deputy's lead and he was the one who knocked, calling out Tamara's name as he did so. There were noises coming from behind the door immediately after he knocked, muffled bumps and thuds and whispering voices, which was at once a confirmation they were in the right place and a reason for concern.

The woman who came to open the door looked like she had just woken up despite it being just about lunch time, and she looked nervous from the get go; not because there was a deputy at her door, but just because there was someone at all.

"What is it?" She barked at them, even more suspicious when she noticed the unknown women.

"Hi Tamara, it's John Larry, De-"

"I know who you are," she cut him off in a way that Gillian knew all too well: the resentment of someone who knew her mind could trick her sometimes but also knew when it was working just fine. "What do you want? I've done nothing wrong."

Gillian squeezed Emily's hand on instinct, registering the prehemptive negation in the woman's statement, but kept up the act and continued looking innocently sorrowful.

"Of course not, Tam. I'm just trying to help out these ladies here," he reassured her, waving his hands and the women behind him. "They were driving by and stopped at the picnic area by Groover's point, just east of your property, and their dog ran away to chase after a squirrel-"

"So?"

It was only a syllable, but it sounded so incredibly defensive that Gillian nearly scoffed. Not to mention that Tamara still had the door half closed, standing in the opening blocking their view of the inside and overall behaving like someone ready to flee.

"Well, the dog was last seen around here so I was wondering if maybe you've seen him?"

"That's him, that's Flash." Emily jumped in, a trembling voice sounding a lot younger than her actual age, and she shoved the phone with the fake picture close to Tamara's face. "He's only two years old, he's never been alone."

"We're just trying everything we can to find him," Gillian carried on, feeling the pressure to deliver following up on Emily's act. "It's the first dog she ever had…we adopted him just before my husband passed away in an accident."

"I haven't seen it," Tamara dismissed them quickly, barely glancing at the picture.

"Ok, thanks," Deputy Larry sighed and put his hat back on, then leaned a little closer as if he didn't want the women behind him to hear him. "Do you think maybe we could get out back and take the path from here to Groover's Point? I really want to help them find their dog."

Tamara thought about it for what was a long time, the parade of expressions on her face telling Gillian pretty much everything that was going in her mind. She wanted them gone, and fast, but she was pondering whether it would look better for her to play along as long as she felt it safe. They weren't there for her, the ploy was working, and as much as that was comforting for her she didn't feel comfortable having strangers around. On the other hand, leading them out back and letting them wander down the path was a way of getting rid of them and she didn't even have to come up with one of her own.

"Fine," the woman grumbled eventually, stepping away to create just about enough room for them to enter in a single file. "Right through the back door," she instructed them, pointing at the open door on the other side.

"Thank you, thank you very much!" Emily said as she was the first one to move

Deputy Larry was just behind her, followed by Gillian, and they exchanged a quick look. Ideally, they wanted to find a way to actually stay in the house and look around, but it was clear by the woman's behaviour that she was hardly going to offer them a fresh beverage. Gillian's mind was scrambling, her eyes nervously darting around as they walked across the living room and the kitchen to get to the other door, desperately looking for a clue or a sign that would give her a way in to-

"What's with the bicycle outside, Tam?"

Deputy Larry's question, deceivingly innocent, caught Gillian by surprise as much as Miss Lewton. She looked at him in contained shock, which grew when she realised it hadn't been just a casual slip, a desperate move to achieve what she was also trying to but utterly botched: no, judging by the look on the deputy's face he had been waiting for right moment to ask what was a very wrong question. Perhaps he had been thinking about it since the day before when they had rescued all those kids, bottling it all up in a very human way, and now that he felt they were about to close the circle and find Tody Reed he couldn't take it anymore.

Either way, he had just made a mistake.

And it all became painfully clear when Tamara LetwoN grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter and charged at him.

Cal hadn't liked arriving at Trepkos' farm the day before and finding the array of emergency vehicles there, even knowing already that Gillian was ok. A day later, as the Sheriff's car stopped next to the one Gillian had been driving and they got out in the eerie silence, he liked that scenario far less.

He knew time might have been of the essence if they were right about Lewton, but why hadn't she waited? Why hadn't Deputy Larry advised her that they should wait, or liaised with Sheriff Talbot on how to approach together? Cal looked over at the Sheriff, who was clearly thinking the same and was probably going to have a word with her Deputy first chance she got, but at that point they both knew they had no other choice but to go up to the house and find out what was going on.

The Sheriff led the way without looking much around, same as Cal who could only think about where his daughter and his partner where, and neither of them really registered all the little red flags Gillian and the deputy had previously noticed. Not that there was much need for it: Cal might have told Emily not to jump to conclusions, but during the drive there they had received a few more intel on Letwon and if she had nothing to do with Toby Reed's kidnapping than it was all one hell of a coincidence.

As they approached the door, the silence around them started to be disturbed by weak noises coming from inside. Voices, first too muffled to understand and then louder, going up and down really. A TV would have sounded like that, but the Sheriff must have thought otherwise because her hand went for the gun on her hip and she motioned Cal to stay behind her.

And he might have done just that, maybe, if the noises from inside hadn't suddenly turned into screams, followed by the sound of something crashing and then another, much louder, noise. When he realised that the voice screaming was Emily's and that the last noise was a gunshot, Cal rushed to the door with such impetus that the Sheriff had to throw caution to the wind and barge in herself.

"John!" She called out immediately, gun now drawn.

Cal told his brain to do something, to shout out for Emily and Gillian too but nothing worked, but it was all blocked when he took in the scene they stepped in. There was a bloodied knife on the floor by the kitchen, the air smelled like gunpowder and the furniture in the living room area had been tossed all over the place. The TV screen had been blown up by one of the gunshot, the electrical components behind it still sizzling, and his heart stopped when he saw the top of a familiar curly head behind the couch.

"Emily? Emily!"

He moved before he even had the chance to make sure of what he had seen, even before his mind could process what it might have been and shut down his entire system with shock. Deaf to the Sheriff calling out to him to be careful and then shouting again for Deputy Larry, Cal lunged forward still calling his daughter's name and jumped over the couch. In doing so he nearly crushed into her, hearing her father's voice Emily had felt safe to come out and was standing up just as he came over her, ready to latch her into a tight embrace.

But before he could do that or say anything Emily pulled back, frantically mumbling something about Gillian and the deputy, words like 'stabbed', 'Toby' and 'run away' all bumbling up together. It was only then, as he tried to make sense of that verbal puzzle, that Cal realised Emily's arms were already wrapped around something she seemed to have intention not to let go. Someone actually, because when she calmed down for a moment and let him take a look he saw that Toby Reed was clinging to her for dear life. He was shocked, somewhat relieved but mostly utterly confused and he mumbled something, to which Emily responded by pointing at an open door to their left. The Sheriff was already on the way to that, having noticed two gunshot holes in it, furiously barking on her radio for backup to get in, and Cal asked Emily if she was ok. She just about had the time to nod and say yes that they heard another scream, once again from a woman, and panic rose inside him again when he realised two things: that it was a scream of pain, and it was Gillian who let it out. Torn between leaving Emily there and going after Gillian, Cal took one moment to look at his daughter's wide open eyes and by then he heard the other police cars pulling in front of the house ready to storm in.

That, combined with the fact that more yelling came from the basement along with what sounded like another gunshot, was the decisive factor. The second the first officer came through the door Cal was on his feet and after the Sheriff, careless and with no regards to his own safety, practically running down the stairs of the basement which, he soon found out, looked more like a dungeon of passages and unfinished rooms. It almost looked like a construction site, although not one any professional might be running, but more as if someone had been trying to build something without any real knowledge or appropriate materials. They were going in blind, the flashlight Sheriff Talbot had pulled out might ease the darkness but they had no real clue as to where they were going or even what they were looking for, at least until they heard another female muffled cry, then Deputy Larry's voice and another gunshot.

Cal couldn't take it anymore. Within the space of a few minutes he had heard his daughter and the woman he loved scream inside a house where guns kept firing in close quarters and he was just about losing his mind. He ran past the Sheriff calling for Gillian, barely aware of Talbot now behind him yelling at their backups and giving directions, and with all the noise and multiplying voices he nearly missed Deputy Larry's voice calling back at them.

"Over here!" There was urgency in the deputy's voice, panic even, and Cal felt cold sweat all over his skin as he wondered why. "We need help!" That much was clear, but Cal kept asking himself why 'we' and why only one person was calling if that was the case. His heart was racing, half of his brain browsing tragic scenarios while the other half was trying to navigate the unknown place through the auditory cues. "I need an ambulance. Now!"

And with that, even before getting to the deputy, Cal knew he'd better ready himself for the worst of those aforementioned scenarios. Then he cut a corner and nearly stumbled on something, stopping abruptly and looking down to find out that what had nearly tripped him was the body of a woman he recognised from the CPS file as Tamara Lewton. He stopped, frozen on the spot, catching his breath and staring at the large pool of blood under the woman's body, probably coming from the gaping gunshot wound in her chest, and thought that getting medical attention for her down there would have been a useless hassle.

But when he looked a little to his right and saw Deputy Larry putting pressure on Gillian's bleeding side, a seemingly out of it Gillian, he was just about ready to run back and drag the EMTs down there on his own.