Parents Weekend

Keller meets Chief Jay McCray at the Campus Safety Services (CSS) office. Photos of four students are pinned to the conference room wall. Chief McCray explains the extenuating circumstances: Two students have parents with “unique security profiles” (86). His team contacted the phone companies and learned that all the students’ cell phones stopped pinging around 8:30 pm the previous night, near Rancho San Antonio Park. They’ve sent out a BOLO—be on the look-out—alert and are currently reviewing campus access data and security camera footage, searching the dorms, and surveying the park’s hiking trails by foot and drone. McCray asks Keller to talk to Cynthia Roosevelt, who respects federal law enforcement more than campus police.

Keller meets with Cynthia and her chief of staff, Paul, in Cynthia’s SUV. Paul says there’s no evidence that the students’ disappearance is connected to Cynthia’s job and the bounty on her, but they’re under strict security protocols just in case. Cynthia acknowledges that Blane can be irresponsible, but doesn’t believe he’s willfully ignoring her. Her ex-husband, Hank, hasn’t answered her calls all morning. Keller shows Cynthia a video posted online at 6:55 pm the night before. It shows Blane falling off his skateboard and being helped up by Hank. Cynthia is shocked by Hank’s presence on campus.

Back at CSS, McCray shows Keller a video from 6:54 pm Friday, showing Stella leaving the dorm, looking angry, followed by Libby and Mark. Although Mark’s photo isn’t on the wall, Keller recognizes him from Cynthia’s background checks on the capstone students. She and McCray realize there are likely five students missing, not four. Keller decides to check out the Alpha Kappa house that Blane and Mark are pledging. She asks Annie Hafeez, a CSS intern in her junior year, to accompany her as a sort of “local counsel.”

Cynthia urges her security to look for Hank, though they don’t have the authority or jurisdiction. While they wait for a new safe house to be cleared, Cynthia’s only access to a bathroom is a filthy gas station restroom. She needs a private place to vent without anyone seeing her lose her composure.

At the frat house, Keller learns the pledges got “Bigs,” which are like mentors, the previous Wednesday night. Blane came to see Shaggy, his Big, on Friday night around 7:00 pm and asked to borrow Shaggy’s van, aka “The Machine,” which is painted to look like the Mystery Machine in Scooby-Doo. Keller obtains the van’s make, model, and license plate information. Shaggy reveals Mark is on probation with the frat over some allegation, but says she’ll have to get the details from frat president Griffey, who’s currently playing drone soccer.

Annie talks to the other pledges and learns the allegation about Mark came from a post on Rizz SCU, an app where students post anonymously. She can’t find the post now, but she says it related to Mark’s father. Keller knows from Cynthia’s background checks that Mark’s father groomed and molested teenage girls on the swim team he coached. Now he lives at a halfway house in East Palo Alto. Mark’s mother died a year ago, according to university records. Annie agrees to keep searching online for relevant posts.

Returning to CSS, Keller learns McCray hasn’t been able to get in touch with David and Nina Maldonado. She meets with Ken and Amy Akana. They say they aren’t aware of Libby having any problems or of any reason for Libby’s fight with Stella, but Keller senses Mrs. Akana is holding something back.

Blane hovers in a state of semi-consciousness, unable to fully wake up for some time. When he does, his surroundings are pitch black. Then he remembers the night before, being tied up, his mouth and eyes covered with tape, and phones being taken from him and his friends. Now they’re lying next to each other in a small, enclosed space. The body next to him is strangely still, evoking a memory of Mark rushing at their captors, followed by a gunshot and Mark falling to the ground.

Keller visits David in the hospital, where he’s being treated for a head injury. He tells her about his affair with his anesthesiologist, Zoe Carpenter. Her husband caught them and was so distraught that he chose death by suicide in front of them. Zoe’s son, Cody, had secretly followed his father and witnessed the whole thing. After seeing Cody on campus, David believes that must be who chased him on the beach. He gives Zoe’s phone number to Keller.

Zoe doesn’t answer Keller’s call. Chief McCray confirms Cody isn’t a student at SCU. He attends UC Santa Cruz, about 45 minutes away. Keller and McCray drive there, but Cody isn’t in his dorm room. They find disturbing images in his sketch pad, including depictions of suicide. There’s also a picture of David Maldonado with devil horns and a slash through his face.

Alice goes to CSS to turn over the bloody pink hoodie she found, but a panic attack overwhelms her in the parking lot. She’s had panic attacks since marrying Felix’s father, whose temper terrified her. She withstood his physical abuse, but when Felix became a target, she became courageous enough to leave with her son. Alice changes her mind and throws the hoodie in her trunk along with the stolen file that, in her mind, contains lies about Felix.

With the students’ disappearance becoming increasingly concerning, Keller’s boss has created a task force and is taking command of the investigation at CSS. Keller hears back from Zoe Carpenter, who says Cody has been very depressed. He turned his phone’s locator off, and she hasn’t heard from him in a couple of days. Then Zoe realizes she has a missed text from Cody saying he loves her and is sorry. Based on his sketches, Keller thinks he may be at the Golden Gate Bridge, preparing to die by suicide.

Keller rushes by helicopter to the Golden Gate Bridge, where patrols report they haven’t seen anyone on their latest rounds. As she joins them to continue the search for Cody, Zoe calls to say Cody texted her that he loves her but wants to join his father. Keller sees a man near the edge of the bridge and approaches. He tells her not to come any closer.

There’s a gap in the security net beneath where Cody is sitting. He seems vacant, dissociated, as he says he can’t be fixed and just wants the pain to stop. Keller tells Cody about people who have survived that fall and reported that right after jumping, they regretted it. Cody says to tell David it’s his fault. He’s about to jump when Keller tackles him. He thrashes and nearly pulls them both over the edge, but other officers arrive and pull them to safety.

Stella and the other students are trapped in the back of the van. They managed to remove the duct tape that bound them, but a metal grille blocks their access to the driver’s section, and the van’s rear doors are locked and solid. Mark is still alive, but he’s breathing shallowly.

Stella regrets pressuring the others to come to the bonfire and take psychedelic drugs with her new friend, who had made the post on Rizz about Mark. She’d revealed his father’s crimes, making him a target. The post also made accusations against Felix. When the others recognized her friend, they’d stormed off. Libby had welcomed the chance to get Felix to herself, Stella thinks. Libby is into Felix, but he wants Stella.

They finally make a gap in the van’s doors and crawl out. It’s parked on a dirt road surrounded by woods. Stella thinks they’re going to get out of this alive, then sees the gun trained on them.

The missing students and Cody’s suicide attempt have taken over local news and social media, where the students have been dubbed #TheFive. Keller's boss, Peters, tells her to take a lower profile, which means he’s sidelining her. She’ll be working on getting warrants for Google to provide geofence data, which will show any phones that were present at Rancho San Antonio Park when the students’ phones stopped pinging there. Annie finds out that, according to dorm gossip, Felix was obsessed with Stella and stalking her. Keller hears a commotion and learns Blane’s father has been found.

Having been told to keep a low profile, Keller stays put. A federal attorney tells her Google is requiring separate warrants for every phone number she wants included in the geofence data set. A judge won’t sign such warrants, the attorney adds, due to a recent legal precedent regarding privacy.

Keller asks for help with the warrants from her mentor, Stan, and gets a meeting with a local federal attorney and the on-call judge at a fancy country club. The attorney is overly confident and underprepared, and the judge refuses to sign the warrant. Keller answers the judge's questions more satisfactorily and, with an agreement to add certain specifics to the warrant, gets what she needs.

The forensics team hasn’t found any CCTV camera—closed circuit television camera—recordings of Shaggy’s van from the area. Keller goes to check out Rancho San Antonia Park herself. On the way, she sees a large warehouse with a long line of delivery trucks and decides to ask if the truck drivers have seen anything.

The manager of the warehouse, a FedEx facility, says they have 652 vehicles leaving the facility every day, all equipped with dash and interior cameras. Eager to help, he says Keller won’t contend with any red tape from him. She finds a video of the van driving fast toward the park, Blane and Mark in the front seats, at 8:07 pm. Another video shows the van going in the opposite direction with a single occupant in front wearing a Smurf mask.

Cynthia is in her SUV with Hank. Video evidence showed him at his motel when the students’ phones last pinged, proving he wasn’t involved in their disappearance. Hank admits he’d gone on a bender after losing his job. He was feeling lost and just wanted to see Blane, but they only talked for five minutes because Blane got a text and rushed off. Cynthia urges Hank not to talk to the media.

Keller gets home in time to have dinner with Bob, Pops, and the kids. She senses something is bothering Bob and learns he’s seen the video of Cody almost pulling her off the bridge with him. He makes her promise to be more careful. Keller tells her husband about the case, all the dead-end leads, and her fears for the students’ safety.

The five are back in the van, their wrists and ankles secured even more tightly than before with duct tape. Mark doesn’t know the identities of their two captors or why they’ve been abducted. He remembers meeting the junior who posted about him on Rizz at a frat party. She’d flirted with him, then opened up about her parents’ hardships in Bulgaria. Mark, trying to connect with her, opened up about his own father, but it was a mistake. After she left, freaked out, Shaggy said she’s “crashy” (186), a portmanteau of “crazy” and trashy.