When a young woman named Katie Davidow is abducted from the same spot her friend Laura Patel was murdered two years ago, Charlie and Rex race against time as they trail the suspects from the original investigation.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: According to Haverman, anyway. When Laura finally met "Romeo" in person and lost all interest in him upon discovering that he was Haverman, she supposedly tried to extort him by threatening to tell anyone who’d listened that he’d assaulted her, which led to Haverman accidentally killing her out of blind anger. Katie and Zack don’t believe a word of it, that he truly loved Laura, or that he regrets what he did, considering he dumped Laura’s body in a field and framed Zack for everything.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Haverman delivers many of these to Katie and Zack for their accusations toward him, such as him stalking women online and not giving a damn about Laura despite his claims of him actually loving her.
- Bittersweet Ending: The true culprit behind Laura’s murder is caught and Zack is cleared of any wrongdoing, but Katie is arrested alongside Haverman for the many crimes she committed throughout the episode’s events trying to get Zack convicted.
- Blatant Lies: Haverman claims that he legitimately loved Laura and that him killing her was an accident he deeply regrets. Katie immediately calls him out on it, pointing out that if any of that were true, he wouldn’t have dumped her body in a field.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Charlie first go to see Michael Haverman at his job at Mount Pearl Imports, one of the items he's seen managing is a crate filled with imported packs of pepperoni sticks, giving a pack to Charlie to give to Rex after they finish talking to him. A wrapper from an eaten pack is found in the dumpster alongside the cleaning supplies Haverman used to cover his tracks in the kidnapping, cementing him as both Katie and Zack's kidnapper and Laura's killer.
- Closed Circle: There were two people who were suspected of involvement in Laura’s murder. The first was Michael Haverman, who owned the house Katie and Laura rented and possessed a DUI charge. Haverman’s alibi about him being home at the time was deemed unconvincing, but the SJPD were unable to break it despite multiple interviews. The second was Zack Richman, a young man with significant tech knowledge, a history of frequenting chat rooms, and a restraining order for stalking a high school girl. His alibi also was that he was at home, with his grandmother having backed him up. Both of them were affected by Laura’s murder in their respective ways, having lost much due to the accusations, and are now being suspected of being behind Katie’s kidnapping. Except Haverman is wheelchair-bound in the present day due to a tumor in his spine, which makes Zack the most likely suspect going by the evidence. He’s not. The kidnapping was all faked by Katie and Haverman to get Zack finally convicted for Laura’s murder.
- Damsel in Distress: The plot revolves around Katie being kidnapped by an unknown assailant while visiting the memorial to Laura, with the SJPD scrambling to find out who’s behind it and why, with the most likely suspect being Zack Richman. However, the more evidence and information that’s collected, the more that the circumstances of the kidnapping don’t add up, such as Katie secretly arriving in St. John’s four months earlier and someone breaking into Zack’s house and stealing things with his DNA on them around the same time. The kidnapping was all faked as part of an elaborate plan created by Katie and Haverman to get Zack finally convicted for Laura’s murder. That is until Haverman turned it into a real one, planning to kill both Katie and Zack to tie up loose ends.
- Dating Service Disaster: Laura’s killer was suspected to be someone going by the alias “Romeo”, whom she met in an online chat room and snuck out to meet in person the night of the murder. However, the SJPD were unable to learn “Romeo’s” real identity due to the latter having used an anonymous web browser to send encrypted messages that were indecipherable. That is until Jesse brings in a special AI capable of decrypting the messages. He also uses it to decipher the encrypted messages sent by “Sleuth” to Katie. They are the same person, Michael Haverman, meaning he’s both Laura’s murderer and Katie and Zack’s kidnapper.
- Dirty Old Man: Katie and Zack accuse Haverman of being this upon finding out he was Laura’s mystery lover “Romeo”; that he was searching for women to do things to and never actually loved Laura, with Zack theorizing that Haverman was likely back online searching for other women shortly after killing her and disposing of her body. Haverman does not take any of it well and almost kills them on the spot if not for Rex stopping him.
- Faked Kidnapping: Katie is revealed to have faked her own kidnapping as part of an elaborate plan to get Zack convicted of Laura’s murder, with her getting help from “Sleuth” in doing so. The plan involved Katie secretly arriving in St. John’s four months before the memorial, breaking into Zack’s house and stealing things with his DNA on it, then rented the van used in the kidnapping two days prior and planted Zack’s stolen things along the designated route to frame him for the crime. What Katie didn’t know however was that the whole thing was actually part of “Sleuth” aka Haverman’s real plan to kill her and Zack, having kidnapped the former for real and then the latter in the alleyway behind Zack’s house.
- False Friend: Katie’s truth-seeking accomplice “Sleuth”. His real identity is Michael Haverman, who’s been helping her try to get Zack convicted when in reality he planned to kill the both of them to tie up loose ends.
- Frame-Up: Katie wanted to get Zack finally convicted for Laura’s murder despite her finding no evidence proving him guilty, having become desperate enough to decide to frame him for a kidnapping faked by her and “Sleuth”. He’s actually innocent in both crimes, having been framed by Haverman for the murder and then kidnapped alongside Katie to be killed.
- From Bad to Worse: The situation worsens when Zack also goes missing shortly after talking with Charlie, which causes the SJPD to suspect that Zack actually is Katie’s kidnapper. He’s not, he was kidnapped by Haverman shortly after the latter kidnapped Katie for real and planned to kill him alongside her.
- The Lost Lenore: A platonic version. Two years prior to the episode, Katie, her mother Leanne, and Laura came to Newfoundland for their annual vacation, only for things to take a turn for the worse when Laura disappeared and was later found strangled to death in the middle of a field. While the SJPD investigated, they were unable to find the place where she was actually killed and the identity of the culprit. Katie was hit hard enough that she became obsessed with finding her friend’s killer, having secretly been talking to someone online going by the name “Sleuth” in order to find answers. She eventually became so obsessed that she faked her own kidnapping with help from "Sleuth" aka Michael Haverman to get Zack convicted despite finding no evidence that he is guilty. However, Haverman is also Laura’s secret lover and killer “Romeo”, who’s real plan was to trick Katie into helping him set things up so he could kill her and Zack when he found Katie online searching for answers about Laura’s murder.
- Missed Him by That Much: Charlie and Rex manage to track Katie to a fish house, but unfortunately arrive too late as the kidnapper drives off with her in a boat. A forensic sweeping reveals Laura’s DNA to be present, proving that the fish house was where she was murdered. It also used to belong to Haverman’s mother before it was sold off years prior.
- My God, What Have I Done?: It doesn’t take long for Katie to realize how badly she screwed up when she learns that Haverman aka “Sleuth” and “Romeo” is Laura’s killer and that Zack really was innocent, with Katie repeatedly apologizing to Zack for trying to get him sent to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Fortunately, Zack is willing to forgive and forget.
- Obfuscating Disability: Haverman doesn’t actually have a tumor in his spine, he was faking it to throw off suspicion from himself as being Katie’s (and later Zack’s) kidnapper and would-be killer.
- Spanner in the Works: Haverman initially planned to kill Katie and Zack in the fish house where he killed Laura, until Charlie and Rex’s arrival forced him to relocate to his place of business at Mount Pearl Imports, buying the SJPD more time to figure out the truth and rescue the victims.
