By Lady Lola
While Richmond and the Larsens are conspicuously absent this week, Holder is on fire as he tags along with Linden after Jack goes missing. He sacrifices time with his family as we learn of his half-baked spirituality, half-baked vegetarianism, and fully baked days as a tweaker. The pair hits a few bumpy patches when Linden learns that Jack called Holder a few days before and takes her residual guilt and parental paranoia out on Holder. Likewise, when a 13-year-old boy turns up dead at an address Linden finds in Jack's phone, Linden's stoicism finally gives way to a full-on freak-out. The teen in question is not Jack, however, and Linden eventually finds her truant son after the harrowing day. When pressed, Jack admits he's been spending time with his father. In news actually relevant to the rapidly approaching finale, Rosie's presence at the casino is confirmed when Linden gets a warrant for the ATM security footage. That said, it's still unclear how this revelation will affect the remaining two days of the investigation.
Previously: Linden got too attached to another case to the detriment of her own family. Reggie brought up Jack's teenage rebelliousness, and Linden moved herself and her son out of the houseboat. Linden learned that the Adela Rosie was scheduled to meet on Saturday night wasn't a person but a boat that she took to a local Native American casino.
We join Linden at the casino, where a woman is smoking like it's her last day and she's right to a guy who is hooked up to an oxygen tank, and it might truly be his last day. As she walks through, Linden spots the casino's emblem -- the very same emblem that Rosie had on a key chain she was carrying. She makes her way back to the administrative office, where the casino owner and chief of security give her the cold shoulder. When the chief of security says she was on the floor all Friday night and didn't see Rosie, Linden notes that she never mentioned Friday specifically. The owner says they follow the news. Linden asks to view the security camera footage and is told the tapes are erased every 24 hours. Linden keeps pressing, saying she wants to speak with the customers. This does not sit well with the owner, especially when Linden threatens to haul everyone in to the SPD. The owner takes the game of hardball to the level, reminding Linden that the casino sits on Native American land and is, therefore, not under the SPD's jurisdiction. Linden will need a federal warrant to get any access whatsoever. With that, Linden is brusquely escorted out of the casino by both the chief of security and one of her goons. She calls the ADA to find out how long it will take to get a warrant for the casino. He tells her a week, but she stumbles on a way to circumvent the red tape: There's an ATM outside the casino. Since the bank owns its ATMs, Linden can survey that footage to confirm Rosie's comings and goings. Credits.
Holder arrives. Linden updates him that she found at least four more ATMs in the casino. Holder remains skeptical that Rosie was even at the casino, but Linden tells him she took the last ferry out on Friday night and would have had no way to return home that night. It's possible she could have returned to Seattle by ferry the day -- or she could have met her killer at the casino on Friday night. Since some of Rosie's belongings were never recovered, it's entirely possible the perp has them and is still out there, or even in the casino itself. Linden is convinced Rosie's disappearance and death had something to do with the casino.
Her phone rings, and as she holds, she briefs him on the weeklong wait for the federal warrant. She tells him it could be 24 hours or less for the ATM search warrant, however. Holder looks antsy, so she tells him curtly that she can handle things if he has somewhere he has to be. "Damn!" he says, "Is there one or two days a month you're not PMS-ing?" She walks off, and he gets in the car and makes a call. He gets an answering machine with his sister, niece, and nephew's voice on it. The first genuine smile we've seen crosses Holder's face. He leaves a heartwarming message, noting how grown-up his nephew sounds, then promising to be at their school parade that afternoon. He also mentions to Davy that he's got a belated birthday present for him. to him sits a flower arrangement with a teddy bear that he quickly shoves into the back of the car when Linden returns as she wraps up her phone call. Turns it out, it wasn't the ADA's office on the other line. It was Jack's school. Her son has not shown up to class for the last three days.
With that, we're in full swing on Day 11. Holder drives Linden back to her motel. She tells him to go to the courthouse while she gives Jack a serious talking-to, but Holder tells her to go easy on him considering how chaotic their lives have been. She calls Jack's phone as she walks down the hall, and his ring tone sounds through the door of their room. She walks in, saying, "Nice try, Jack," only to find that he is not there and has left his phone behind. She heads outside, where she finds Holder parked. He offers her a ride to the marina to see if Jack is staying with Reggie.
On the way, she leaves a strained message for Reggie to check on Jack. After that, she tries to crack into Jack's phone, but it's password-protected. Holder asks why they're staying at a motel, saying, "Reggie finally boot you out?" Linden answers impassively, "Looks like it, doesn't it?" She tells him that Reggie is a woman, so he assumes Reggie is Linden's mom and wonders why she calls her mom by her first name. Linden distracts him by sniping at his driving skills, and they squabble for a minute. Holder shares that he didn't get along well with his sister and that his sister was the one who really raised him. Linden calls one of Jack's best friend's mother to see if Jack has been hanging out there and gets her voicemail. Other than that, Linden remains tight-lipped until they reach the marina.
Linden quickly discovers that Reggie and her boat are gone for the week. She's certain that Reggie wouldn't have taken Jack without telling her. Her phone rings, and it's Jack's friend's mom. She says that she hasn't seen Jack, though she's been meaning to call Linden. She caught Jack and his friend cutting school recently and hanging out at a place near the water called The Tunnel. Sarah says it's not all Jack's fault, but the mother doesn't want to fight. She says she doesn't want Jack hanging out with her son anymore and hangs up. Linden hangs up wordlessly, then asks Holder if he's heard of the tunnel. He offers to drive her, but she snaps that he drives to slow and snatches the keys from him. He finishes up his cigarette, snarking, "Hey, thanks for staying, Stephen. You know, that's what friends are for!"
They reach the tunnel as Holder futilely attempts to console her, saying he skipped school all the time at Jack's age. I'm sure that's really comforting considering how well Holder turned out, sheesh. In any case, he tells her that this place is just a small-time hangout for middle school kids, where smoking and making out goes on -- nothing major. He tries to help, suggesting other possibilities like Rick or Jack's real dad, but Linden too wound up to appreciate his ideas and basically tells him to shove it. She chomps compulsively on her gum before softening. She asks why Holder ran off when he was a kid. "Sometimes I think you end up running just so somebody will come looking for you," he says. Then he tells her, "Staying put... it's a kind of running away. Know what I'm saying?" She pretends she doesn't and snarks that he's "a real sage, a real astute observer of humanity" and should write a book. He claims he has, and it's called How To Be Me. She says she's sure it'll give Deepak Chopra a run for his money. "Oh snap!" says Holder. "Linden's makin' a joke!" He lights up a cigarette in the car, which rankles her.
As he goes outside to smoke and check his phone, she notices the flower and teddy bear in the backseat. She tells him she can get a cab back to the station if he has somewhere to be, but he insists he's fine. She asks about the "Get Better" balloon on the floral arrangement. He says it's for a date, and he was going to take out the balloon. He's all, "What? It cost, like, 20 dollars." She snarks, "I never would have guessed." She tells him to go get laid, and she'll find a ride. He tells her, "She can wait. I mean, who wouldn't wait for this slice of heaven?" Linden unsurprisingly doesn't laugh, but it's mainly because she sees a group of kids heading into The Tunnel. She approaches to find that none of them are Jack. They give her lip, so she nearly goes off on one of them. Holder plays good cop for once as the kid stupidly threatens to call the cops. "We are the cops, asswipe," he informs them. As Linden walks off in a tizzy, Holder suggests they go back to the motel, but she knows Jack isn't there because she already called. He goes back to the idea that Reggie might have taken him, so Linden has to reveal that Reggie is not her mother but her social worker.
They make their way around town with no luck at local cafes and skating parks. Linden is now pinning her hopes on the fact that Jack will call at 3:15 after school. They head to lunch where Holder gets a hamburger, hold the patty. He says he's a vegetarian, but she notes that he eats pork rinds. He says they don't count because they're junk food. They sit down and Holder lays down his philosophy, meandering through his logic of how his body is his temple, his head is the control tower, and he prefers to see the grays in life rather than focus on black and white. She asks about this cross tattoo. He says that he takes wisdom from all around -- "It's just like air, you gotta breathe it." She wonders if he got the tat when he cleaned up. He tells her he got hooked on the job, which she pawns off to being undercover, but he takes full responsibility for being a methhead. He says he loved the stuff and only quit because his job was on the line. He says he finally realized that he wasn't in charge and some force more powerful than him must be. Linden commends him for keeping clean and fixing his life, regardless of how he got there. He notes that there are "some things you can't fix. Maybe they just stay broke?" She says glibly that the bad guys are going to exist no matter what, so they might as well take their pension and run with it. He asks about her last job, the kid who drew the painting in her office. She tells him that the crackhead mother got killed and the father was the doer, which sent the kid to the system where he currently resides and most likely will until he turns 18. With that bright and sunny anecdote, she tells him to wrap up and excuses herself to the bathroom.
When she comes out, Holder tells her he figured out Jack's password: Funyuns. Linden notices some texts sent from a restricted number with whom Jack planned to meet up near his school. She calls the phone company to get the phone number unblocked, but of course they don't oblige her, and she flips out on them. Then she falls off the anti-smoking wagon. As she takes desperate drags, Linden goes through all the worst-case scenarios in her minds. She finally steps out of the car and calls the SPD to put an APB out on Jack.
Around 3 PM, Holder drives Linden back to the hotel. Jack is still not there. She stares around the room silently, then returns to the car. Holder excuses himself to call his sister and tell her he won't be making it to the parade that afternoon. He says it's not like old times and that he has to help a friend in an emergency. "She needs me, you know?" He gets sadder and more helpless sounding as he leaves the message, knowing the possible consequences it'll have for his relationship with his sister and her children. He promises to come by and deliver Davy's birthday present, though he asks her to call him to confirm that it's okay for him to visit. He hangs up, not knowing how far this has set him back. He heads back to car, where Linden asks if everything's okay. He puts on a decidedly feebler version of his swagger, telling her, "It ain't no thang." She thanks him earnestly. And the rain continues to pour all around them.
A bit later, Holder wakes up from having dozed off outside the hotel. He finds Linden smoking another cigarette outside the hotel. She tells him it's 5:10 PM and Jack still hasn't appeared. They get back in the car to search some more. As they drive, Linden tells Holder about growing up in several foster homes around the city. She says the worst part was not knowing where basic things like windows and doors were when you moved from place to place. She reveals that her mother left when she was five years old, and Linden was a ward of the state until she graduated high school. Holder says it's no wonder she "ain't a pro" at being a mom. Naturally it doesn't come out as conciliatory as he means it, and they get into another squabble. Linden brings up that Jack called Holder two days before and takes issue that Holder didn't tell her. Holder tells her it was about something trivial -- boiling hot dogs versus frying them -- so he didn't think it was worth mentioning. She calls him a "vegetarian Jesus freak," and he says, "Whatever, I picked up my phone." She tells him to stop the car so she can get out. She starts walking angrily, chewing her gum fiercely. Holder follows, begging her to get in the car. He apologizes and admits to being an asshole, so she gets in, and they both have a cigarette in silence.
Night falls as they head to a local park. There's not a kid in sight. Linden reminisces about an evening she spent with Jack there when he was younger. The two of them danced to a radio someone had brought to the park, happy and uncaring what anyone thought. She wonders when things changed -- when Jack became unhappy. She has that memory to hold fast to, that night when her son was happy.
A little later, they hear an announcement over the radio that a body has been found matching Jack's description. Holder insists it's not Jack, but Linden tells him to drive to the scene of the crime. They get there, and the body is covered with a blanket. Linden charges through the police tape and stops, afraid that her worst fears might be confirmed. She screams out for her son, and Holder grabs her. He tells her it's not Jack, but she's already convinced herself that this has happened, and it's all her fault. She wails to the night -- just as Stan Larsen did 11 nights ago -- as Holder clasps onto her. Finally, a radio pipes up over the noise identifying the boy as Daniel McClintock. Linden walks to the nearest wall and crumbles, dissolving into tears of relief, guilt, exhaustion.
Holder takes her back to the motel, where they find Jack listening to music absent-mindedly outside the room. Holder tells Linden, "Kick his ass." Instead, she goes and hugs him fiercely. Holder heads back out to the car. His phone rings. It's the ADA telling him the warrant went through for the ATM security footage. He heads back to the office.
Inside the motel, Linden's voice cracks as she tells Jack he has no idea what she's been through. She asks why he's been lying. He asks her to promise not to get mad, then tells her he was with his father.
SPD. Holder eats his decidedly non-vegetarian pork rinds while he looks over the ATM footage. Of four screens, the bottom left corner shows Rosie wearing the pink sweater and looking blankly into the camera.
Only two episodes left: Rosie may be behind the Larsens' financial problems, or at least she had some secret source of money she was depositing every two weeks. Mitch questions Stan and Belko after the assault. Gwen's father gives her some damning evidence. And how on earth will we find Rosie's killer in the two days?