If Something Happens to Me

by Alex Finlay

A pastor or priest isn’t likely to lie to Ryan.

Lol omg the absurdity of this statement.

At the Palazzo, Pinky Man seemed genuinely scared of someone other than the police, but who?

Uh the mob?

But it’s the photo in the bottom row that grabs Ryan’s attention. It’s of the church’s groundskeeper. The man wears coveralls and gloves. But there’s no mistaking it: It’s Pinky Man.

What are the odds that he finds out where Pinky Man is so quickly?

Leslie Pendleton, caught fire,

“Dylan’s gone. So is Gabrielle.” She sobs uncontrollably. Gabrielle is Dylan’s girlfriend, another one of Taylor’s friend group. Another from the Anthony O’Leary video.

Translation: O’Leary thinks there’s a rat—someone talking to the Feds. He wants to hide his money somewhere else.

Michael recognizes them as Swiss bank configurations.

Hmm the Swiss are mentioned again

That means he has someone else helping him manage his funds. Someone to maintain the accounts in the event something happens to Michael …

Poppy unfolds one of the notes and apprehension spreads through every part of her: 4–4–9; 44–7–2; 73–8–12.

But what causes bile to run up her throat is the shirt. She doesn’t want to look, but she has to. She slowly unrolls the black fabric. It says: BON JOVI on the front. The shirt Alison was wearing the night she was abducted.

What if Dash can help decipher the note?

A woman is on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood. Her throat’s been slit. The man—The Monster—is slumped on a chair. He’s covered in blood. And not only his pinky fingers are missing. So are the rest of his fingers.

Gotta be a mob hit or something

She must see the peephole darken because she holds up an ID. He can see “FBI” prominently displayed on it.

Jane Fincher?

The agent’s smile bleeds away. She says, “You ever heard of John Favara?”

Who is that?

“I’m telling you because the kid on the minibike was the son of a man named John Gotti. Have you heard of him?” “You mean the mobster? Yeah, I’ve heard of him.

“If you want to save your daughter’s life, sit.”

Then Dash says it, words that hit Poppy like a two-by-four: “I did. I called Dad.”

Jesus

“I just found them,” Ryan says. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

Damn he has bad luck

Ryan doesn’t want to think about that. But the answer comes to him readily: They were torturing him for likely one of two reasons. To take revenge. Or to get information.

“Alison’s father was in Dad’s bomb squad?” she says in disbelief. Her father, the sheriff, and Alison’s dad served together?

Hmm some kind of conspiracy

“The two guys who showed up, they walked over to Ali’s car, looked inside. And her father sneaks up behind them and shoots both of them in the head.” Dash’s breaths are uneven now. “Dad and the sheriff came back. They caught the guy who took Ali from Lovers’ Lane. I thought they were going to kill him too, but they let him go. Then they helped Alison’s father put the dead guys in the BMW and roll the car into the lake.”

But why would someone be after Alison or her father? Was it a mob family? Shane's? Or their rival?

“Alison’s alive.”

The fire, the overdoses, the car accident, none of them were accidental. The FBI agent said Michael could save his family if he turned on O’Leary.

Easy-peasy. Changing their identities. Taylor leaving behind everything she’s ever known. Never being able to visit her mother’s grave again.

Okay but wait... what if Taylor and all this stuff that happened in Pennsylvania was Alison from when she was a kid? And the O'Leary's are looking for her and her father? And the guys who abducted Taylor/Alison were from the O'Learys

Michael isn’t going anywhere until he finds Taylor. Then he sees a familiar face inside the SUV. It takes him a second to register, but he thinks he’s seen the man at O’Leary’s Tavern.

Yikes

But most accountants didn’t do a tour in Iraq.

Yup

once at a Starbucks for Wi-Fi so Michael can transfer O’Leary’s money to Michael’s own Swiss accounts.

“We’ll be safe here. My military buddies live here. One of them’s the sheriff. He’s already got new papers for us.” Taylor is silent. She’s not crying anymore. She’s shell-shocked. “Your name is Alison Lane now…” He pauses. “I’m so sorry.”

Oh I was right!

Beyond that godforsaken desert, Ken Walton saved Michael and his daughter two times: first helping them escape Philadelphia and start anew in Kansas, then four years later when O’Leary’s goons found them. No amount of money in the world could repay that.

a book called The Little Prince.

“When you’re done with your call, you’re free to go.”

The final piece of footage shows the figure with the axe heading back down the path. Head down, baseball cap pulled low.

What if that is Ali?

Davie

Patrick's Son, Chaz's grandson

Chaz dreads the day when they identify Patrick as one of the bodies in the car in that lake.

Davie’s mom, Sylvia,

The other man—his name is O (yes, the guy’s full name is the letter O)—shakes his head. O is what, back in Chaz’s day, they’d call a mute. Chaz suspects there are more politically correct terms now. Before Chaz retired, O’Leary had him train the guy.

The guy gets off an international flight from the UK, grabs up this guy in Kansas, and drives all night to bring him to Philly.

Wait did they get the sheriff?

Poppy finishes decoding the note and she’s even more confused. The message has only five words: “Find me in the clouds.”

O’Leary’s crew would then use her as leverage to draw out the accountant, secure the return of O’Leary’s stolen money.

So they were just trying to get the $$$

Chaz doesn’t say so, but he doesn’t have vengeance in him anymore. He loved Patrick, but his son was a ruthless killer. A cruel husband. And a callous father. Chaz blames himself. His son was trying to live up to his dad’s reputation.

Davie is the only thing Chaz is leaving good and pure in this world.

Chaz gives him a skeptical look. He wants to say, Isn’t this the same screwed-up plan that failed last time? But he doesn’t.

“Custom-made, basically.” On her phone, Chantelle displays a blown-up image of a small label. It has a MARINANI BESPOKE, PHILADELPHIA, and a seven-digit number.

“Your father is Patrick Donnelly?”

Ali’s family descends from a small town in the south of France that, when she was little, she called the Place in the Clouds. Its real name is Cordes-sur-Ciel—which means “Cordes in the sky”—named because on a misty day the hilltop town looks like it’s floating under a pillow of clouds.

Was her father, the mysterious man who scared the crap out of Ryan back then, involved in something that made them targets? They were affluent, Ryan knew.

God yes he was lol

Her thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of being watched. Of being followed.

Then he sees it. A bicycle leaning against a lamppost. It’s in front of a business. That’s when adrenaline—God knows how he has any left after this week—rushes through him.

Jesus, it's a little annoying how Ryan manages tol find things really quickly. It's slightly unbelievable

It’s of a couple, young lovers, running to a parked car on a secluded knoll, laughing to escape a heavy rain.

Ryan and Alison

“My name’s Brian O’Leary,” he says calmly. “May I?” He gestures to his pocket.

Or maybe this is actually Chaz?

“You weren’t listening.” Poppy waits. “Someone in my office, and at WITSEC, is dirty.”

Chantelle?!