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This week's Number is a sexy woman about JC's age named Zoe. She's also in a similar occupation, as it turns out. She doesn't reveal her methods or sources, but she gets things done. For a fee. First, JC -- posing as her driver -- watches her give a misplaced gun back to a cop (which somehow saves another cop's career). Then she recovers some audio about an affair the CFO of a pharmaceutical company had a couple years back. But when she returns the audio to the pharmaceutical guys, they try to kill her instead of paying her. Lucky for her, JC's on it and he helps her escape. She hides out for a few days while Bench works to figure out the audio recording. They eventually find, it's not an affair at all but information about a migraine drug they're about to put on the market, which happens to kill three percent of people. When Zoe turns back up, she and JC decided to work together to take down the pharmaceutical company. They end up caught when they break in to get information, and she throws JC under the bus to get herself out. Really, though, she slips him a paperclip, which he uses to make his own escape. Then she leads him right to where she's taking the philandering pharmaceutical rep. JC gets there just in time, as Bench meets with the other head of the company and tells him they've been had. They all end up arrested. JC drives Zoe one last time, and then they bid their flirty farewells. I'm thinking this may not be the last we see of Zoe.
Meanwhile, a Fusco-less Carter works a homicide case that just happens to be the lead suspect in the 1973 murder of Marlene Elias. He also happened to have been killed with the old knife that killed Marlene (and that was stolen from lockup by JC and his gang. Since this could lead Carter to JC, she's obviously quite interested. She calls in the old cop who worked the case, but when he gets the information she needs (about Marlene's child, who ended up in the foster care system and only has one person in the world he cares about), he ends up murdered before he can share it. Lucky for Carter, she's at his apartment right after the murder, and manages to shoot at the guy who killed him. He gets away, but not before she gets him with at least one bullet, leaving some blood for her to run DNA testing on in a future episode.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"You are being watched." And, judging by the ratings, you're kind of into that. This week, our Number is in the opening, though, right at the end where Bench says, "... if your number's up, we'll find you." Is that always the case, and I just don't pay enough attention to the opening each week? Or has Paige Turco been in the opening from the get-go? I hope someone on the forums will be able to answer my question. (Actually, I just watched the opening of last week's episode online and see that it showed the judge at the end. So, okay. I'm just not very observant.)
It's another surveillancey voiceover opening. This one is a woman who says, "You know why I'm here. You know how I feel. I can't hide it anymore. What we're doing is wrong." Then Paige Turco's coming out of a New York townhouse to her car. JC's waiting to be her driver, which doesn't make her happy. She calls her car company, and Bench answers and explains her regular driver's laryngitis. He says they sent their best driver in his place, but she's going to be the judge of that. And she's also not going to pay him until the job's over, judging by the fact that she gives him a bill -- only after tearing it in half. JC drives her away, and Bench comes out of hiding. He breaks into the place, narrating for JC the whole time about her nondescript apartment with nothing she cares about in it. He asks where JC keeps the things he cares about, but JC says he doesn't have any. Bench also fills us in that she dropped out of law school, then bought a $2 million place in the city with cash.
JC stops the car and watches as Paige Turco gets out, and exchanges a package with a guy named Slip (who calls her "Zoe") for a lot of cash. He tells Bench, then tells him that if he wants to know where to hide things, it's "underneath." She changes in the car while JC drives, then gets out looking much more sexy. JC has discovered the package she bought was a gun, but Bench says that's what he found under her couch, too. JC realizes she bought an untraceable gun because she plans to kill someone, and follows her inside her destination. He follows her into a dark hall where she pulls the gun on a cop. Then she addresses him by name -- "Lieutenant Gilmore" -- and hands him the gun. Apparently this cop's nephew, also a cop, left his sidearm in a public bathroom and she's returning it and saving the cop's career. She tells him to stop some investigation into Councilman Rush, and he asks if that makes them square. She says it doesn't, but it's a start.
JC drives her home, and she gets out of the car barefoot and asks him if he saw anything interesting tonight. When he says nothing worth mentioning, she pays him and tells him to be back tomorrow. As she goes inside, Bench comes out of hiding again and asks JC if he's figured out what she does yet. He says she's a fixer, and who wouldn't want to have her killed?
Carter shows up at a murder scene and a generic cop fills her in that the victim is 71-year-old Vincent DeLuca, who was an enforcer for La Costa Nostra in Brighton Beach. Generic cop says it was a public service, if you ask him. Carter says the stabbing was personal, and they discuss the knife, which isn't from the kitchen. This knife is old, dull, and painful. Carter reads the guy's rap sheet and sees he was charged (and skated) with murdering Marlene Elias in the '70s. She tells the generic cop that the evidence and murder weapon -- a kitchen knife -- were stolen from lockup a few weeks ago.
Zoe Morgan meets with a guy Bench and JC quickly figure out is Samuel Douglas, head of crisis management at Vertanen Pharmaceuticals. Do companies really have heads of crisis management? I'm not saying it's a bad idea; just surprising they'd actually title someone as such. Anyway, Douglas tells Zoe about a corrupt blogger named Talbot who would do anything to get a scoop, including violating Vertanen employees' right to privacy. Zoe asks what the blogger has on Douglas's boss. Bench tells us that's Mark Lawson, and he's waiting in the car for Douglas. Douglas says he has a recording between Lawson and a young lady that could be misconstrued. Zoe wonders who really cares if his boss has an affair, and Douglas says his boss's wife does. And her daddy owns the company. Douglas tells Zoe to get the recording, and she says she doesn't need to know what's on it. Douglas says they appreciate her discretion. "As always." So they've worked together before, I gather. JC and Zoe pass flirtatious glances at each other as she gets back in the car.
In the park, Zoe successfully gets the recording from Talbot in exchange for $40,000. JC tells Bench Talbot's a blackmailing scumbag, but hardly a threat. Bench says JC needs to get Zoe talking about her clients. JC realizes how similar he and Zoe are, apparently, and says that's much easier said than done.
NYPD. A retired cop named Sully shows up to discuss the Marlene Elias case with Carter. Apparently Sully worked the case back in the day. She tells him that the stolen murder weapon turned up plunged into the chest of the chief suspect. Sully says that's divine retribution, because he had the guy dead to rights (he left a partial print on the knife), but the D.A. was bought and sold. Sully says the city was different back then. Marlene was a cocktail waitress who had an affair with the club owner, a mobster. He got tired of her wanting to be with him, so he sent DeLuca to kill her. The only problem was her kid. Apparently she had a kid with the mob boss, but he didn't want to admit the affair so the kid went into the system. Sully asks Carter if she thinks the kid's the killer, and she says she doesn't know who else would go to so much trouble.
In the car, JC and Zoe discuss the merits of jazz (his attempt to get her talking, which doesn't work since she says she hates jazz -- interesting since her apartment was filled with jazz records). They show up at the meet with Douglas, and JC notices Douglas isn't alone. He asks her if she was supposed to be meeting with two people or one, and asks her to let him take care of it. She snots at him to get back in the car. Instead, he stands outside and watches as she hands over the recording. Then a third guy gets out of the car, and they insist she get in the car. Douglas tells one of his guys to "get the driver," but the driver happens to be a major badass, and he's already there and taking out all three guys long enough to grab Zoe and make their escape.
Back in the car, Zoe tells him she guesses she's paying him to do more than just drive. He tells Bench the handoff was an ambush, and Douglas tried to kill them both. Zoe's like, "Yeah, thanks. I was there, remember?" Bench asks if she's safe, and JC says she's a little shaken up. Then he asks for Talbot's address. Zoe asks who the hell he is, and she says they're in the same business -- fixing problems -- and he had information she was in danger. She asks from who, and he says she has her people, he has his. They're heading to Talbot's to get the recording and find out what's on it, but she made a copy. "I'm discreet, not stupid." They unload it to Bench, I guess, and when they arrive at Talbot's, he's already dead. Zoe makes her break when JC gets out for two seconds to see what's going on. Since she's obviously in serious danger, this puts a bit of a kink in our stars' plans to keep her safe.
At the Library, Bench listens to the recording (which is the one from the opening of the episode, of course). So far he can't hear much because of interference. But the vintage of the static does tell him what type of network it's from, so he knows it's at least two years old. And he has enough of the woman's voice to narrow down her voice match to a woman named Dana Miller, who worked at Vertanen. JC congratulates Bench on the nice work figuring out Dana Miller was Lawson's office romance. Bench isn't exactly glowing. Because Dana's number came up back before he'd found JC. She was 27 and died of an aneurysm. JC says it wouldn't be so difficult for someone at a pharmaceutical company to make murder look like natural causes. Bench tells JC to get out there and find Zoe before Vertanen does. When JC asks what Bench is going to do, he says he has an important business meeting.
Cut to Vertanen, where Lawson's annoyed that Douglas has cleared his schedule for an appointment with a shareholder. So, shareholder meetings are handled by crisis management? Fascinating. Douglas says this guy isn't just any shareholder; he bought 87 million shares in the past forty-eight hours and owns eight percent of Vertanen stock. No one's heard of him before, so Douglas thinks he might be interested in a hostile takeover. He tells Lawson to handle him with kid gloves, and maybe they should "wheel the old man in." Is that any way to talk about the owner of your company? In walks, of course, Bench. Lawson greets him as "Mr. Partridge." (Not a finch, but a partridge, huh?) Then he takes him on a tour of the facilities. He tells him about the new product line they're launching, anchored by a just-approved revolutionary migraine drug called Sylocet. When Bench meets Lawson's father-in-law, Mr. Keller, he seems like a friendly enough old man. Keller tells him he's retiring spring and Lawson's going to take over. He can't praise Lawson enough.
After their meeting is over, Bench gets a phone call, though it's not really a call but a cloned phone conversation between Lawson and Douglas. Douglas says the drive's recovered and Talbot won't be a problem, though he admits Zoe and the driver/bodyguard are loose ends. Lawson says that's not a loose end; it's the whole damn thing falling apart. Ah, foreshadowing. Douglas says he'll handle the driver and Zoe so nothing can connect them to this thing.
Sully gives Carter a call to tell her what he's uncovered on Carl Elias. He was a professional runaway who no one really got to know. Except, as Sully tells it, "some tough old bird named Gloria Recinto." He'd send her a Christmas card and money every year. Carter says she'll swing by and pick up the cards, which he says read like the guy was going to be president or Attila the Hun.
Back at the Library, JC can't find Zoe, which he thinks means Vertanen won't be able to either. Bench is engrossed in trying to get a clearer recording. He manages to do that by stripping the fountain sound he recorded in Lawson's office out of the recording (so that's where it was made). All of a sudden, they get another chunk of the recording. After "What we're doing is wrong," she says, "I wanna tell someone. It keeps me up at night knowing what our drug has done." A male voice tells her to be careful, then the rest of the recording is still a mess. But it's enough for them to know it wasn't an affair; she was threatening to be a whistleblower. Bench gets up and looks at his board of Numbers, and almost gets teary as he tells JC how much the Numbers haunted him before JC came along. This possibility of getting justice for just one of the people he couldn't save is huge.
Zoe's cell phone pops up on Bench's computer, and Bench tells JC not to lose her this time. He finds her in a fancy restaurant, where she's waiting for him. She realizes he was tracking her cell phone, then tells him she doesn't understand him and she doesn't like things she doesn't understand. He asks why she wanted him to come, then, and she says she can get some use out of him. She starts to fill him in on Dana Miller, but he already knows it wasn't an affair. She knows a little bit more, though: Dana Miller was transferred out of her job in clinical trials, and her access was suspended, five days before she was killed. When JC asks how she cam by that, she quotes himself back to him: "You have your people. I have mine." He guesses Zoe's going to try to cut a deal with Vertanen, but she says not this time. Because she knew this girl once who got a tough lesson in the way the world works. That kind of reminds Zoe of Dana. JC cuts to the chase: "Also, they tried to kill you." She asks him rather sexily if he wants to get out of here to do something illegal. Which are exactly the words a woman needs to utter to hook JC. He's in, obviously.
JC and Zoe meet with Lieutenant Gilmore. She tells him to make sure the police don't respond to a break-in later tonight at Vertanen Pharmaceuticals. He agrees, but says they're done after this. At Vertanen, JC's set up cameras so Bench can monitor everything and let them know when and where to go to avoid security guards. Bench tells them they're safe to go in, and Zoe asks JC if she'll ever get to meet his imaginary friend. JC tells her he's a very private person. Bench, in the Library, doesn't crack a smile. He just fills them in on a guard they must dodge. They clomp up the stairs and through the hallways and I have to wonder what kind of crack security Vertanen has.
As JC busts into Lawson's office, Zoe says he's probably one of those guys who can bust out of (in this case, into, actually, but since that lines foreshadowing more than anything pertaining to this moment, I guess we aren't supposed to notice) anything with a paperclip. She asks where he learned this stuff, and JC cracks his lovely smile (!!!). So soon? He tells her it's a long story. Inside the office, they see find Dana's history's all been deleted, but Bench tells him nothing's ever really deleted and he should use the recovery software. He does, and they find a file she accessed a dozen times in the days before she was killed. It's the clinical trial sheet for Sylocet. But one file is slightly larger. Six names are missing from the data they submitted to the FDA. JC sends the names to Bench, who finds they all died of heart failure within a year of taking the drug. Six people out of 300 is a two percent mortality rate. If a million people take it, math whiz Zoe fills us in, 30,000 people could die. Bench hears air conditioning in the room, and realizes that's what he's been missing on his recording. He leaves them alone so he can go figure out what the rest of the recording says.
Just then, Douglas busts in with a gun, and Lieutenant Gilmore. Zoe tells the Lieutenant that if she can't trust him, she'll have to kill him. But he's pretty sure she won't get the chance. He says he held up his end, because the cops will not be responding. He turns and walks away. Douglas smirks. Bench plugs in the air conditioning data, and can suddenly hear a bit more of the recording. Dana tells Lawson she's going to go to Mr. Keller. Bench tries to tell JC, but gets no response -- and sees the office is empty. Surveillance recording of Douglas calling Lawson and telling him he's got them both. Lawson's on his way.
Zoe and JC are in a pharmaceutical laboratory somewhere, tied up. Alone. She says he never told her his name, and he says, "My name's John." Zoe laughs. Because, there are only four million Johns in this country. He sort of smiles back at her. They're adorable. She asks how he knew she'd be in trouble, but he's not really telling much. He just tells her to consider a new line of work. She tells him he's one to judge. Plus he doesn't know anything about her. He tells her he knows almost everything about her. Which would be creepy if JC weren't a somehow charming stalker. He knows she grew up in a nice house in Yonkers, that her dad was snared in a corruption case and then she lived in a tiny apartment with her mom in Queens. The only thing he doesn't know is why she started doing whatever it is she does. She looks away, and talks about her dad's life as a politician. He did what he was told right up until he was arrested. She says the local press was camped out for weeks, until a guy showed up and got them to leave. She wanted to be that guy. The person who knows what to say, and always has something to trade. He asks what she's going to trade now.
Douglas interrupts before she gets to answer, though. Bench, meanwhile, is calling urgently for Mr. Keller. He tells the secretary it's urgent; a matter of life and death. Zoe tells Lawson and Douglas she emailed a copy of the Sylocet report to a friend, and that if anything happens to them, it goes public. Lawson offers them a deal: The first one of JC and Zoe who gives up the report gets to live. Back at the Library, the secretary finally puts Bench through to Keller. Just then, his recording clears up, and is back to Dana threatening to go to Mr. Keller. Lawson tells him this is his chance to tell the old man, and Keller comes in and asks how stupid she thinks he is that anything in his company could happen without him knowing it. Bench hangs up before Keller gets on the phone.
Keller also enters the room where JC and Zoe are tied up. He's not happy they're alive, but finds out she's emailed a copy to a friend. Keller tells her to be reasonable and make the smart play, like the Zoe Morgan he knows. She tells him she'll take him to the report, and JC look disappointed in her. She tells him that she told him to always have something to trade, then leans in and kisses him. While the men are all distracted by this, I guess, she slips a paperclip into JC's hands. Everyone leaves with Zoe except Douglas, who stays behind to kill JC. But his paperclip's already hard at work. Douglas tells JC not to be surprised, because Zoe's always looking for an angle. He fills up a syringe with potassium chloride, which stops the heart in minutes. "Quite humane, really." JC says that's Lucky for Douglas. He jumps up and uses the syringe in Douglas's own hand to kill Douglas. (Is this only JC's second actual kill, after Stills? Or have I missed someone?)
In the car, Zoe makes a phone call to tell someone she's on her way to the naval yard. She knows Bench is monitoring, so he will get there, too. Lawson takes her phone away. JC calls Bench, who fills him in on Keller, but JC already knows. He says Keller blindsided them, and so did Zoe, who's about to hand over the copy of that trial data to Lawson. Bench tells JC to be more trusting, since Zoe just sent her location. JC's on his way. And Bench is on his way... to lunch with Keller.
At the naval yard, Zoe points out Slip and tells Lawson he can go get it, or she can. But Lawson suddenly doesn't believe she's emailed that report to anyone at all. He thinks it's just on her phone. He looks through her email, and sees she sent it to and undisclosed recipient. He says that now she'll take it to the grave. JC busts in then, and knocks Lawson out. Then he snarks, "Migraine, huh? I hear they've got a pill for that now." I'm so glad he has a sense of humor. Zoe tells him he took his time, and he asks when she knew she would do the right thing. She says it was right before she slipped him the paperclip.
At their fancy lunch, Keller's blathering on about how great it is to have "Mr. Partridge" with so many shares, blah blah blah. But Bench gets a text from JC that says they got the FDA report, so Bench comes clean. He says he's actually sold all his shares, after getting a tip that the shares were about to take a nosedive. Keller's indignant, but Bench goes on: He, in fact, shorted the company to the tune of a half-billion shares. (If you, like me, have no idea what this means, this explanation might help -- although even that is complicated. But thanks to forum poster tgrfan23 for the link.) Keller's pissed that Bench would bet against him, saying he clearly doesn't know who he's dealing with. Bench says he knows exactly what kind of man he's dealing with, and he pulls out a picture of Dana Miller. He says he knows the only thing he cares about is money, so that's what he's going to take from him: all of it. He tells Keller he was right about one thing, though: Bench will never have to invest in another company again. Well, if anyone was wondering how Bench can keep them both in fancy suits forever, this is a nice supplement to his Daddy Warbucks fortunes.
Carter finally shows up Sully's, but she finds him dead on his kitchen floor. Freshly dead, though, so that she manages to chase the shooter outside, while they're both shooting at each other. But he gets away before she makes it to the street. Fortunately, though, she hit him and he left a little blood in the doorway. We've got some DNA results, folks. Let's hope it's someone good.
JC's still driving Zoe, who still doesn't like what he's listening to. This time it's the news about Vertanen, and a competitor getting an inside tip. JC wonders if someone got a big payday, but she says it's not as big as you'd think, but Dana Miller's family got a healthy donation. JC exposits that he also heard Lieutenant Gilmore is facing corruption charges, so he must have crossed the wrong person. She tells him to keep his eyes on the road. They both sort of smirk. It's very cute. He lets her out somewhere in the city, and tells her to stay out of trouble. She says it's not going to happen, but he's got her number. He's got all your numbers, lady. They have excellent chemistry. I do hope we see her again.
week: Carter has a witness to something (Sully's murder? Vincent DeLuca's? Marlene Elias's?), and it's my forum moderating namesake, Enrico Colantoni. JC and Bench take him into their own version of witness protection -- which we all know is the best kind.
DeAnn, a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon, like that most single-episode guest stars on this show are characters she'd like to see again. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.