A woman is chiseling away at a wall. She kicks down a door and escapes into a basement. She makes her way upstairs and finds a man, dead. She flees out the door.
Wallace enters the CIU office and meets up with Hayes. They talk about the woman that went missing ten years prior that escaped that morning. Turns out another man is in prison for her kidnapping and murder. He confessed but Hayes suggests a prosecutor railroaded him. The prosecutor on that case? Sam.
Tess starts explaining the case of Sierra Macy (Allie MacDonald). She was a bit of a rebel in school and the cool young teacher befriended her. Josh Fleck (Sean Kleier) is now serving a life sentence because he lied about picking Sierra up on the night she went missing. Her blood was also found in his truck. Sam wants to be involved, the team thinks he should recuse himself but Hayes is all for him facing his mistakes, literally.
Sam and Maxine head to the prison to interview Josh. He’s angry with Sam and wants to get out. Maxine gets him to talk about the night in question.
Hayes talks to Wallace about Sam’s involvement and then Naomi and the investigation into all of his cases. Then she and Sam head to Sierra’s house. There are cameras following Sam’s every move. At the house Hayes heads in to talk to Sierra while Sam lingers and asks her mother Carla (Kathryn Erbe) how she’s doing. She smacks him. She blames him for destroying her hope.
Sierra and Hayes talk about her time in captivity. She doesn’t remember her life before. It was so different. She is fuzzy on the details of her abduction. They know that Gunther, the dead man, didn’t do it. Sam is adamant that it was Josh but Hayes finds another explanation for her blood being in his truck. She was a cutter and had done so earlier that evening.
Frankie is presenting about the blood and Sam gets even more defensive. Someone has to go reinterview the witness and he volunteers but Hayes says no and sends Tess and Maxine instead. Also, Maxine is still taking prescription pills.
They head to diner and talk to the waitress that saw Josh and Sierra together. She keeps telling them that something wasn’t right about their relationship and that she saw them leave together. Tess calls her on that because it would’ve been impossible for her to see. She admits that she didn’t, that the detective said that they needed someone to confirm it so she just said it.
Naomi comes by the office to talk to Hayes about Wallace. He is facing charges of leaking the name of a confidential witness to Hayes. She says that he didn’t and that she’s willing to take the stand and testify to that. Naomi tells her that that could get her in trouble but she says she’ll do it anyway.
Sam goes to talk to the detective that he worked with on Sierra’s case. They argue about Josh and Vince (Michael Brown) gives Sam new information. He had been accused of sexually assaulting a student at a different school. He had pleaded guilty before it was mentioned in Sierra’s case though so it was never brought to light.
Maxine and Sam are talking to Josh. They bring up the other girl and Josh admits that it was consensual. He says that she told him she was 20 and that’s why he did it. Sam goes off the deep and Josh says that Sam is just looking to keep him in jail. He leaves and Maxine says that Josh is right. In her car she takes more pills.
Frankie talks to Hayes about a memory retrieval treatment that involves drugging Sierra. She agrees to it but wants to be careful with Sierra.
Wallace has summoned Hayes to talk about her testimony. She says she stole the name and he says he left it for her to find. He wants to take the deal to help her, and the CIU. She says that he will lose his political career and he says its okay with it.
Frankie and Sam meet Dr. Lorraine Maltin (Ellora Patnaik), Sierra and her mother to do the drug treatment. They walk through the night of her abduction. She pieces it together and remembers being put in a trunk and then kept at a house for a few days before ending up at Gunther’s.
Sam is at a bar drunk texting Hayes. She shows up and they talk about him thinking of himself as too good. She tells him to get with it. The next morning he goes to Sierra’s and talks to her mother about her boyfriend Liam. He seems to be a suspect now.
Jackson is in Hayes’ office. They talk about her helping Wallace. He thinks she’s trying to win him back. She says she wants him to owe her.
The team is meeting to talk about the case. Sam presents about Liam and has new information on him. He might have sold Sierra to Gunther. Hayes says to bring him in.
Liam (Trent McMullen) talks about his time living with Sierra. He calls her a mess makes it pretty clear that he thought she got what was coming to her. Sam accuses him of selling Sierra. He lawyers up. Tess asks how the interview went and then she and Sam talk about facing mistakes and making them right.
Wallace is talking to someone from the state’s attorney’s office about taking the deal. Hayes interrupts and says that she got the name from an anonymous letter that she traced back to a paralegal that is now dead. How convenient. She’ll have to take the stand.
Sam goes to see the waitress at home. She invites him in.
Maxine talks to Tess about Liam. He looks less like a suspect, especially when Frankie brings in evidence pointing at someone new. The waitress.
Sam is starting to talk to the waitress when he hears chimes, much like the ones Sierra remembered hearing when she was first kidnapped. The waitress is involved. And when Sam realizes that and turns around she has a gun pointed at him. She confesses and seems about ready to pull the trigger when the police, including Maxine come in and arrest her.
At the prison, Sam tells Josh what happened. Josh is still upset though. People will still think he was involved and he blames Sam for stealing ten years of his life. He gets out and the media is waiting, as is Sierra. She hugs him.
Maxine is in her office when Sam comes in to thank her for saving his life. He admits he needed a wake-up call. He offers to listen if she ever wants to talk. After he leaves, she takes another pill.
Hayes goes to visit Wallace. She realized he was manipulating her all along. He was promised something else and she presses until he admits it was a federal judge position. Naomi interrupts. The state’s attorney is dropping the case. Cause for celebration. She invites Hayes to stay but she’s not interested.
I felt like the mother’s boyfriend made sense as a suspect but they kept saying that he was suspicious because he had enough time to drive her to Gunther’s and make it back home which contradicts what she said about staying someplace with chimes for a few days. I’m glad it wasn’t the teacher but on the whole it just seemed dumb. Why did the waitress do it? For her boyfriend? Stupid.