The Inmate

In the present, Tim teases Brooke into rating her birthday, insisting it must be in the top five, but she says it’s only in the top 10. The necklace ruined the night. Tim then tells her about a private practice looking for a nurse practitioner and urges her to apply. Tim doesn’t like Brooke working at the prison; he is worried that she might have to treat Shane. Brooke lied and said that she hasn’t seen Shane there yet. Tim reminds her that Shane looked him in the eye when he stabbed him that night and told him Brooke was next. But Brooke has seen the scar Tim has and is surprised it isn’t larger.

At the house, Margie comments on the necklace that Tim left on the kitchen table. After Margie leaves, Brooke picks it up and studies it. She realizes that it is missing a diamond on one point of the snowflake, just like her old one. This might be the same necklace from all those years ago. Shocked, she again remembers Shane’s warning to stay away from Tim.

Tim and Brooke make up, and she schedules an interview at the private practice. One night, Tim tells her he loves her. They kiss but are interrupted by Josh yelling at his video game. Brooke orders Josh to bed.

On the news that night, there is a story about Kelli Underwood. Kelli is missing. Brooke questions Tim about dating Kelli, but Tim denies it. After Tim leaves, Brooke looks at Kelli’s social media. In one post, Kelli comments on the kissing skills of assistant principals, proving that she and Tim went out.

In a flashback, Brooke and Chelsea continue to discuss the killer. Chelsea insists it must be Tim, but Brooke points out that Chelsea also had the opportunity to kill Kayla while Brooke and Tim were in the kitchen. Chelsea also had motive to kill Brandon since he was cheating on her. Chelsea insists that if she killed Brandon and Kayla, she would have a knife, so she wouldn’t need to search for a weapon. But this makes Brooke worry: Why would Chelsea know that there were no knives to be found in the house?

Brooke decides she needs to leave the room. Chelsea argues with her, but Brooke manages to get out and runs to the stairs. She calls for Shane and Tim, but no one answers. Brooke carefully picks her way down the stairs in the dark. At the bottom, she trips over something. She thinks it is a body, especially when she falls into a puddle of blood. Then, someone tackles her and begins twisting the chain of her necklace around her neck.

In the present, Shane shows up at the clinic with bruises all over his face. Marcus brings him into the exam room, and Brooke shuts the door. Shane believes he has a broken rib. She asks who hurt him, but Shane once again refuses to tell. Brooke brings up the bullies who gave Josh a black eye, mistakenly revealing that Josh was in fourth grade when it happened. This causes Shane to do the math and figure out that Josh is his kid. He asks to see pictures, and Brooke agrees, showing him photos from her phone. Marcus grows impatient, so Brooke puts the phone away. She wants to order an x-ray of his chest, but Shane says it isn’t necessary. He then tells her how hard it is to know how many things he has missed out on when he is innocent of the crime.

In a flashback, Brooke cannot see the person choking her with the necklace, but she catches a whiff of the sandalwood aftershave Shane was wearing. She wonders where Chelsea is. Then, the chain on her necklace breaks, causing her assailant to lose his balance. She throws an elbow into his crotch and jumps to her feet, running for the front door. Someone calls after her as she runs toward the road, but she keeps going, convinced he will kill her if she stops. She gets to the road and sees headlights. A pickup truck stops and a man steps out, growing pale at the sight of her. She asks for help and then collapses.

In the present, Brooke recalls how the police arrived at the farmhouse and found both Shane and Tim unconscious in the living room, Tim from a stab wound to his abdomen and Shane from being hit over the head with a baseball bat. Upstairs, they found Chelsea stabbed to death. Tim and Shane told different stories. Tim insisted Shane stabbed him. Shane claimed Tim knocked him out the moment they left the girls, so he was unconscious when someone attacked Brooke. Brooke’s and Tim’s testimonies, plus the fingerprints on the knife, put Shane in jail.

Brooke decides to put Shane and the penitentiary behind her. She got the job at the private practice, so she is going to Tim’s house to celebrate while Margie stays with Josh.

Brooke walks down to Tim’s, her thoughts on Kelli as she rings the bell. Kelli is still missing. Inside, while Tim goes to check on the food, Brooke finds a green scarf shoved into the couch. When she asks Tim about it, he claims it belongs to his mother. Tim asks Brooke to go into the basement to get a bottle of wine. She sees a tarp on the floor; moving closer, she sees a woman’s foot in a high heel shoe sticking out—she is looking at a dead body. She rushes upstairs, but the basement door is locked.

Brooke panics and screams for Tim. He quickly pulls the door open, apologizing that it gets stuck sometimes. Before she can respond, someone rings the doorbell. It’s the police. Someone called in an anonymous tip about seeing Kelli at Tim’s the night of her disappearance. Brooke tells them about the body in the basement. Tim seems panicked as the cop goes to check it out. The police arrest Tim for Kelli’s murder.

The police question Brooke at Tim’s and then allow her to go home.

At home, Josh asks what happened, and Brooke tells him that Tim did something bad to someone and is going to go to jail. Josh cries and points out that Brooke is crying, too.

Two months have gone by. Brooke has quit her job at the penitentiary to work at the private practice. She has also been visiting Shane in prison. After Tim’s arrest, the police looked into the farmhouse killings again. Brooke recanted her previous testimony, and Shane’s lawyer got his original verdict overturned.

When Shane is released from prison, Brooke picks him up and takes him to a fast-food restaurant for his first meal outside. She also gives him a phone with prepaid minutes. Shane is excited to see Josh and wants to buy him a present, but Brooke talks him out of buying an expensive Nintendo game.

Brooke takes Shane to her house, where he will be staying until he figures out what to do next. Shane takes a long shower, his first in 10 years. When Josh arrives home, he is more interested in having a snack than in their house guest. Shane recommends crackers and peanut butter and is excited when Josh agrees. Shane helps Brooke make the snack and is thrilled when she suggests Shane play Nintendo with Josh. Brooke is touched to see her son spending time with his dad for the first time.

While Josh and Shane are playing video games, Brooke receives a phone call from Tim’s mother. Mrs. Reese tries to convince Brooke that Tim couldn’t possibly have committed Kelli’s murder, suggesting that someone else put the body in the basement. Shane comes into the room and takes the phone from Brooke, telling Mrs. Reese not to call her again. Shane is furious at Mrs. Reese, but Brooke gently reminds him that Shane’s mother made the same phone call to Brooke when Shane was about to face trial. In that case, Shane says, Mrs. Reese knows Tim is guilty and is trying to guilt Brooke into lying—a mother always knows, he adds, using Josh as an example.