Original subtitles

Previously on CSI: Vegas...

All of these cases,

all of these people are related.

Lamont Moore. ROBY: Dario Donnelly.

Lynn Zobrist. The sick mind behind all of these murders

is Dr. Diane Auerbach.

I was so certain that she was responsible.

(screams)

Max, you need to see this.

I need you to get two rooms at the Aurora.

One for me, one for you. Use fake names.

RAJAN: Players are assigned a target.

Once they eliminate one, they inherit

that player's target as their next assignment.

That was the plan, take out the last man standing yourself?

But you made that pretty impossible.

I gave my best player a real challenge.

You're all in the game now. May the best man win.

* You'll reach in my brain *

* And it drives me insane *

* How you touch me this way. *

(man whistling)

* *

BRYAN: You know we have a fully stocked minifridge

in our hotel room, right?

I am not paying ten dollars

for bottled water.

Not even after the apocalypse.

Your mom's a civil servant, not a high roller.

BRYAN: How long are we planning on staying?

I thought you caught the guy who wanted you dead.

One of 'em, but it kind of seems like there's another one.

And we just got to be careful, okay?

It won't be forever.

ROBY: Hi.

Dad.

(chuckling)

You got here fast.

Well, there's a deranged killer

hunting your mama.

It seemed urgent.

I'm worried about you.

I've only been in town an hour

and I've already tracked you down.

Daniel, it was really kind of you

to come all this way, but we're gonna be fine.

I promise-- Maxine.

We're still a family.

I'm not going anywhere.

Not until you're really safe.

I am so sorry.

I can't do this. I can't.

BRYAN: That went well.

Poor Molly.

What have we got?

Adhesive residue on her wrists and ankles.

Killer had her bound up.

There's no blood, no trauma, no ligature marks.

I have no guess on cause.

Witness in that tent saw

a man wheel this cart under the 15,

then walked off whistling.

Remembers a fancy suit, not a face.

It's all right. We know exactly who did this.

He told us himself.

CHAVEZ: He signed his work?

He's not just signing his work.

He's giving us the finger.

The only print found at Molly Tate's dump site

was the digitus medius.

He's flipping us the bird.

Lovely. In silver ink.

Here's our man, Ronald Winter.

WILLOWS: Quite the mugshot.

His wanted poster's gonna look like an Armani ad.

Put it on the local news, make him famous.

I can't find any other trace of his life online.

Uh, this was for a first-time offense.

Cyberstalking.

So now he's crawling out from behind

his keyboard to put on a show?

Going public like this feels like Molly's his opening act.

Who's the audience? Why dump her like that?

This guy was drafted into that twisted wheel of death game.

But that's over. Why keep going?

RAJAN: He's a bit different from the others

tangled up in Ted Hester's Silver Ink Murders.

Ron had a troubled youth, too,

but look.

ROBY: Look at that IQ.

160? WILLOWS: If he's that smart,

you got to imagine he's got an endgame.

RAJAN: Maybe he's already told us what it is.

The postcards, the scribbles on the walls in the white room.

What? ROBY: We had the same instinct

when Ted told us about Ron.

So much so that Catherine called a forensic linguist

at Quantico. They're working on it, but...

We don't have enough material for the cryptanalysts.

If we had a large enough sample,

they could find patterns, figure out how Ron's

symbols could group into words,

sentences, but... we need more.

You're gonna need more evidence of every kind.

Anything that tells us where Ron is.

(phone chimes) Well, Sonya's ready

to walk us through Molly's autopsy.

Let's start there.

Jack, please, where are we on the coffee?

I need caffeine.

Like, any form. Intravenous would be acceptable.

Hey, sis. How about you look down?

ROBY: You all right?

You look kind of exhausted. Yeah.

I'm fine. I just...

I was up all night with this autopsy while

lover boy over there was out gallivanting around.

RAJAN: Did you go on a date?

How'd it go?

Well, he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, so...

She was talking about the autopsy. Ah.

You are right. Um, not as well as I hoped.

But I still can't tell you what killed Molly. Mm.

All signs point to Molly being poisoned orally.

See those small tears in her laryngopharynx?

That makes me think that she was forced

to swallow something, something that

did this. ROBY: Whoa!

Yeah. Pretty sure the liver's not supposed

to look like a slice of Swiss cheese.

Hepatic vacuolizations. Ricin poisoning?

SONYA: That's what I thought, but no.

I spent hours testing the contents

of her stomach. Not a drop.

And then I got really confused when I opened up

her large intestine and found extensive bleeding.

Okay, now that sounds like hydrogen cyanide.

It does, but again, no.

And before you ask, I also tested

for arsenic and strychnine.

Even though it couldn't possibly be either of those, because...

(heavy breathing)

ROBY: Hey.

You okay?

Yeah.

Um... (clears throat) Sorry, uh...

Couldn't be either of those, because those poisons

don't cause hepatic vacuolization

and bloody GI, so...

...so I am completely...

Come on, sit down, take a seat, come on.

Yeah. Let's get some water and sit down.

Whoa!

JACK: Sonya!

My heart... My heart is racing.

Sonya? Sonya, are you okay? SONYA: Get away from me!

Get out! Just get out! No! I-- No...

Seal off the morgue!

Molly's a Trojan horse.

JACK: What are you talking about?

ROBY: That's why he dumped her.

He's using her body to poison all of us.

Control, C16. This is CSI Allie Rajan.

I need medical assistance at my location immediately!

Tell me how to help you.

I don't know. (groans)

I think whatever killed Molly, it's killing me.

Listen. Listen. Just stay with me.

(wheezing)

* *

* Who... are you? *

* Who, who, who, who? *

* Who... are you? *

* Who, who, who, who? *

* I really wanna know *

* Who... are you? *

* Oh-oh-oh * * Who... *

* Come on, tell me who are you, you, you *

* Are you! *

DOCTOR: We need to restrain her!

NURSE: Having a hard time. She's convulsing.

DOCTOR: Prepping the pentobarbital.

(screams)

DOCTOR: Give her another 25 mils.

(Sonya screaming)

Do they know what it is?

No, but they just started testing.

And they're straight on symptomology.

Her heart is racing. She can't stand.

She's got severe abdominal pain. Have they checked for sepsis?

Jack, they know everything that we do.

They're doing all they can, hon.

How'd this happen?

RAJAN: Sonya said that she was poisoned

by the same poison that killed Molly Tate.

Was it airborne?

RAJAN: We don't think so.

She was with the body for hours.

She said it was a Trojan horse.

Rigged to release poison.

I just don't know how.

Are-are you all in danger?

No, none of us ever touched Molly's body.

Maybe this is why the guy snuck into our morgue, to-to scout it.

Guys, I don't know how long Sonya has if we don't figure out

what did this. We will.

All right? We will.

Whether we have to track down Ron

and pry it out of him or identify

the poison on our own, we will, okay?

Where do you want us?

Joshua, I want you at Molly Tate's house.

Beau and Penny are at the White Room.

Allie, I need you to suit up.

Somebody's got to look at the body-- I-I can help.

I've got, I've got Sonya's notes.

I-I don't want to just sit on the sidelines here.

I was gonna say, "Work with Jack."

This man came after one of our family.

We need all the help we can get.

And he's gonna realize what a big mistake that was.

I'm gonna grab Catherine,

and we're gonna talk to Ted Hester. He picked this guy.

Maybe he'll tell us something.

Hey.

You think this is a good idea?

To sit down with Ted?

I mean, he's the one who put you in the crosshairs.

Yeah.

Well, now he's in mine.

I don't know what to tell you.

Ron's pretty smart.

If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be.

You put him up to this? Actually, I didn't.

Ronald's playing his own game now,

and whatever he does next will be a surprise to us all.

You know, the one thing I can say for sure is

it's gonna feel good.

What is?

Being vindicated.

I had the perfect way

to find and eliminate serial killers,

and you stopped me.

Now we all get to see if that was a good idea.

I get that this is a game for you.

But wouldn't it be more fun if everybody knew how to play?

I might be able to point you in the right direction,

for a price.

What do you want? Not much.

A little privacy and a PlayStation 5

so I can play Shadow Cell.

Give up your MVP for a video game?

ROBY: That's my son's favorite.

They shoot zombies and chat with their friends.

It's just fun.

You found Richard Sloan through that game.

Is that how you talk to Ron, too?

Nice try, Dr. Frankenstein.

We're not handing you a direct line to your monster.

ROBY: I tell you what.

You give me your user name,

we'll see what we can do about that private cell.

Sorry.

I don't negotiate with terrorists.

That's what you are.

Needlessly putting the innocent at risk

from people like... You?

Ronald Edward Winter.

Something tells me I'm gonna be seeing you again soon, ladies.

* *

Ready? Let's find out what your sister ran into.

(sighs)

SONYA (on recording): Okay, it's 11:45 p.m.,

December 15, 2022.

This is Sonya Nikolayevich,

head ME Clark County.

I'm performing an autopsy on a 32-year-old female vic,

and tonight, I'm going in solo.

Hope the date's fun, Jack.

Okay, first impressions.

No blunt-force trauma,

no GSW, no knife wounds. Possibly poison.

But I do need to get inside to be sure.

I'm using a number ten

to perform a standard Y incision.

Never seen liver vacuolization like this before.

(computer chimes)

But the presence of blood

in the vic's GI tract has me stumped.

And while I'm asking questions that don't have answers,

why is there an injection site

on the upper right quadrant of the abdomen?

RAJAN: So Sonya opened the injection site.

Standard procedure.

If you see something on the surface you can't explain,

you gotta go deeper to find the answers.

Wait, what is that?

It's like a pocket

in between the layers of Molly's skin.

Condition and the color says it was created postmortem.

That would mean that Ron made it.

Why would he do that, and how?

I think I can answer both questions.

JACK: After he killed her,

Ron gave her an intradermal injection.

The liquid forced the layers of Molly's skin apart,

creating this pocket.

RAJAN: And that pocket held his mystery poison

until Sonya sliced it open.

Mm.

Got a little spatter here.

Did you hear that? I think that's when it happened.

That's it, right there.

When she hit this dermal pocket, that was it.

I think you're right.

I think that's how she got dosed.

Okay.

I'm gonna test this

and tell you what I find.

Huh. CHAVEZ: This guy didn't just kill Molly Tate.

He got her poor fish, too.

FOLSOM: We got serious signs of a struggle.

This is probably where it went down.

(gasping)

He held her here, too.

Same residue was on Molly's wrists and ankles.

He sure was careful to keep the room dark.

Had to make it look like nobody was home three days ago.

That's a pretty specific timeline.

Right after we arrested Ted Hester,

I sent a car over here to check on Molly.

The uniforms knocked, no answer.

(crying out)

Thanks, Molly.

This might tell us what he was playing with.

OFFICER: Ma'am, I need you to stay back.

WOMAN: This is my daughter's house.

OFFICER: This is a crime scene.

I want to see her. I want to see my Molly!

She was poisoned?

I'm so sorry, ma'am.

This was always our worst nightmare.

Molly had so many allergies.

Peanuts, bananas, cotton.

We spent her whole childhood

terrified of anaphylaxis.

Did she take medication for that?

I'll give you a list.

She was on more than allergy meds.

Molly had some trouble emotionally.

Ever since she was a little kid.

That may actually be why she was targeted.

What?

We recently arrested a really disturbed individual.

He had a list of folks who suffered

mental health afflictions like your daughter.

He was trying to get rid of them.

Molly wasn't a bad person.

Her troubles, they were just baked in.

We got her doctors.

We got her fish.

Whenever Molly felt like she was slipping under the waves,

I bought her another friend to keep her company.

Help her swim back up.

It never solved anything, but...

She knew you cared.

A few months ago, everything changed.

Out of nowhere, Molly started refusing my help.

What?

FOLSOM: The guy we told you about,

he made contact with her a few months back.

He may have been blackmailing her.

If you know something... She never told me anything.

She kept me out.

I always tried, but...

You did what you could.

Well, clearly, it wasn't enough.

Just tell me that you're going to find the person who did this.

* *

The poison that killed Molly Tate.

I've run it through the Agilent, the GC/MS, the Xevo,

the IXRF and the FTIR.

Nothing. I can't identify it. It's either novel or...

Extremely rare.

I did a bit better. Epithelials from the pocket

confirm it belonged to Ron Winter.

And the GC/MS determined that

the holes were caused by nitric acid.

I wonder if he splashed himself whilst he was making the poison.

If we could find him, maybe he'd just tell us what it is.

Either that or

we'll have to hope he wrote

his recipe down someplace.

FINADO: Found more hieroglyphs.

This guy had a lot to say.

(sighs) I can't tell you what any of it means.

I've been staring at squiggles so long

I'm starting to see 'em in my sleep.

Memory card's almost full. How many squiggle pics

do think it'll take to crack the Ron Winter crazy code?

Code breaking's hard.

I doubt anyone can say how many character combos we need

to start finding patterns.

The linguist at Quantico just said "more."

GILL: Well, I've been keeping track of distinct characters,

and I think we're at 34.

That's eight more than my favorite alphabet.

Maybe it all translates to Cyrillic.

FINADO: We ought to be looking for

repetitions of the same character.

That's how Alan Turing cracked the Nazi's Enigma code.

GILL: Those two look like the Bat-Signal.

Zodiac's code took 50 years to crack.

Just leave that to the supercomputers.

We're just better off focusing on the evidence.

Nobody collects baseball cards anymore?

Why did he have so many infrared smoke detectors?

Maybe Ron's a safety nut.

Well, none of 'em went off when the fire started.

Some of 'em don't even have batteries.

(phones ringing) These are just completely disabled.

(ringing)

(phones ringing) Hey.

(phones ringing)

(phones ringing)

ALL: Hello?

Mr. Winter,

this is you, isn't it?

Good afternoon, Maxine.

Let's give everyone a moment

to join before we begin.

Hello? This is Detective Chavez.

Who is this?

WINTER: Sounds like we have a quorum.

It's nice to meet everyone.

I am Ronald Winter.

Of course, you know that.

Just the man we're looking for.

I'm the man you're hunting.

But that's a two-way street, isn't it?

What have we done to you, Ron?

Why would you poison our medical examiner?

Is this Miss Rajan?

I read about you.

I'm sorry, I won't be divulging that information at this point.

RAJAN: Why not? I mean, the man that was blackmailing you

is in jail.

His game is over.

WINTER: Yes, I read about Mr. Hester.

It was very kind of you to take care of him.

But, uh, you found him a little too late,

or too early.

I'm not really quite sure which it is.

If you're not acting on his orders,

Ron, what are you doing?

It's something much, much bigger.

It was a shame about Dr. Nikolayevich,

but I thought it was only fair to show you.

I can get to anyone. Anyone.

Anywhere.

I had to assume Mr. Hester would have promulgated my name.

That is what he does, after all.

So I had to make it clear what would happen

if he would not give me the space

to finish what I started. CHAVEZ: The only way this ends

is with you behind bars.

No!

Now is when you listen,

so you don't get hurt.

I just called you to tell you

to sit back and relax.

Let me lighten your workload.

What does that mean, Ron?

Ron.

What does that mean? (phone disconnects)

RAJAN: How did Ron get all our phone numbers?

ROBY: Well, he walked into our lab and left a note.

Clearly, he took something with him.

WINTER (over computer): Now is when you listen,

so you don't get hurt.

I just called you to tell you

to sit back and relax. (children shouting)

Let me lighten your workload. Did you hear that?

Mm. Not Ron.

What's happening behind him.

WILLOWS: That sounds like kids playing.

Maybe he's calling from a park?

Hardly narrows it down. Yeah.

I just wish LVPD could have traced his call.

Mr. Winter is way too savvy to be caught like that.

We're gonna have to find a different way

to catch this guy.

What about his mystery poison?

Do Sonya's doctors have any idea what it was yet?

No. We're all still banging our heads against the wall.

WILLOWS: So it's up to us to identify the poison

and save Sonya's life.

Yeah, one this exotic might tip Ron's hand

and help us find him. Max?

Yeah?

There is someone in your office

you're gonna want to talk to. Who?

Ronald Winter.

Senior.

WINTER SR.: I wish I was more surprised.

Ronnie's always been a...

a handful.

We're not close.

He got his brains from his mother,

and never had much use for me. Neither of 'em did.

Is he with her now?

Helen died of cancer.

She left me with a six-year-old

who was already smarter than I was.

It was no picnic,

but I did all I could.

Probably not, though, right?

I mean, you say your son is gifted?

He's a killer.

He poisoned an innocent woman,

and used her body

to poison one of our colleagues, too.

I'm sorry to hear that.

We do not need your sympathy. We need your son's location.

I don't know where Ronnie is. Well, neither do we.

Look, ladies, it's like I told the detective.

I-I wish I could help. ROBY: Okay. So let me guess.

You came in here to say that you helped the police,

but you haven't given us a damn thing.

You got his number? Call him.

Call him.

He won't answer.

(line ringing)

AUTOMATED VOICE: Your call has been forwarded...

See? ...to an automatic voice message...

We only ever talk over text.

Most times, I need a dictionary

just to get the gist.

WILLOWS: "Orgulous. Umbrage. Ennui."

God, what a gasbag.

Ronnie's big ol' vocabulary may be just what we need

to track him down

if he uses these obscure words online.

Right? Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, we keepin' this.

Allie.

What are you doing here, Jack?

I just came from the hospital.

Sonya's heartrate's over 100.

Her blood pressure's 90/60.

All her vitals are heading the wrong direction.

I don't know how long she's got.

I came here because whatever she got splashed with,

it's giving her a positive GUAIAC test.

That's usually an indicator of arsenic or amatoxin.

I know. We eliminated both of those.

Along with strychnine, cyanide, ricin.

I just, like, I can't think of another poison

that would trigger a positive.

I can.

Abrin.

Damn it, it's negative! How?

Maybe...

Maybe the test is wrong.

High-affinity monoclonal antibodies

have made these tests incredibly accurate.

It's not abrin.

I just don't understand why...

(cries out) (beaker shatters)

(sniffles) It should have been me.

Sonya would have figured out what the poison was by now...

and saved me.

Jack, we're gonna save your sister.

I promise you.

You're not supposed to make promises to the family.

I know.

But I'm making one anyway.

DANIEL: Go ahead, take 'em.

A buddy of mine has a rental property out in Henderson.

You and Bryan will be safe there.

You can stay as long as you need.

No strings attached.

Daniel, you don't need to do this, okay?

Actually, Maxine, I do.

I have to do something.

I've had four years to think about

where it went wrong with us.

And my biggest regret is not being more decisive.

Not showing you.

Daniel, if...

Hey, I flew across the country.

Will you let me finish a sentence? I'll let you finish.

Do you remember what I said to you

the day Bryan was born? Yes.

What?

That we were gonna make mistakes

as parents. Yeah.

But that we're gonna make them together.

And we did.

For a while we were on the same page.

But then things changed

If I'm being honest...

I changed.

I'm sorry.

You do not owe me anything. Okay?

I just want to protect the people I care about.

You never left the top of the list.

I just stopped saying it.

Here.

(elevator bell dings)

Whoa, this is not the same code.

This is math. Ron was calculating something.

Math is a language we do know.

This could be like our Rosetta Stone.

I mean, do you think it even adds up?

What do you mean? I mean,

None of the rest of this even makes sense, Penny.

You ever heard of the phrase "ravings of a madman"?

What, you think this is all gibberish?

That would be so disappointing.

What have you got?

Just a burnt mess, but it's a burnt mess

that smells like accelerant.

Is that turpentine and butane?

Yeah. Diesel, too.

I think Ron made a chemical cocktail

to ensure that the fire burned real hot right here.

I don't think he was interested in torching the whole room

as much as he was destroying this.

What do you think this was?

FINADO: More smoke detectors, and... I don't know yet.

You're the one who's always bragging about her Lego skills.

* *

You see this dark blob?

I'm pretty sure it used to be a size-six rubber stopper.

Well, whatever it is, I think it was on the end of this

melted tan noodle,

which I think looked like a latex hose.

Got your noodle's other end melted to

a bunch of shattered glass.

Might be a tank of some kind.

Well, that corroded husk is definitely a car battery.

And we've got these electrodes. Got a tank, a power supply...

latex hose. I mean, the setup is perfect

for electrolytic precipitation.

Ron had himself a little chem lab.

That's why he rigged it to burn,

so we'd never figure out what he had cooked up.

We'll see about that.

GC/MS doesn't care how big of a mess he made.

Okay.

Tropane. Tropane?

Tropane.

Okay, uh, I'll get Max.

You call the hospital. FINADO: This doesn't makes sense.

Tropane isn't a poison.

Not unless you ingest gallons of it.

It's a precursor that can be turned into atropine or cocaine.

But neither of those chemicals was on Sonya's tox screen.

Yeah, I know.

It's another dead end.

If there's any change-- Okay, thank you.

They had to put Sonya in a medically-induced coma.

The pain was too much.

We may have a new angle soon.

Mm-hmm. DA's making a deal with Ted Hester.

His lawyer insists he knows Ron's plan.

They're meeting right now. Tell him to make space at that table.

Catherine and I want a second crack.

Hey, Max.

You look about like I would if I was about to

give a present to a man who ordered my death.

You really don't have to do this with me.

You're as bad as my ex.

So he's worried about you, too?

Yeah, he doesn't think I feel safe.

Pupils are dilated. Unreactive.

Get back! Get back! He's crashing!

WILLOWS: That's Ted.

Ron's pretty smart.

WILLOWS: What happened?

FEMALE EMT: He's seizing.

MALE EMT: I need vitals on him now.

Take his pulse ox.

(siren wailing)

Winter did say, "Anyone. Anywhere."

Yeah, but he didn't tell us who's next.

That looks familiar.

RAJAN: Is that the slide of Ted's liver?

It looks worse than Molly's.

JACK: His GI tract is in worse shape, too.

He must've got an even

more concentrated dose of...

What? What does this?

I'm not seeing any puncture marks on Ted's skin

with the forensic scope.

Means he's not another Trojan horse.

JACK: Ron didn't have access to Ted's body.

He must have somehow poisoned his food.

You think he took it orally?

You see that bluish goo right in there?

That is the aftermath of a cupcake,

which was definitely not on the jail's menu.

Chavez can pull surveillance up from the jail,

but I don't think we should get our hopes up.

Yeah.

It's not like you need Andy Dufresne's tunnel

to smuggle contraband

into Clark County jail. Okay.

I'm gonna choose to look on the bright side here.

Both Ted and Molly swallowed the poison.

That's why they died so quickly.

Sonya was exposed through her skin.

Her symptoms might be progressing slower,

but they're still progressing.

Her SpO2's dropped below 90%.

She's got hours,

not days, and the guy that did this to her,

he-he could be anywhere.

* *

Okay, Mr. Winter. Here we are.

Looks like there was a problem with your garment.

What are you talking about?

You have a stain we couldn't get out,

from your lab coat.

Something abrasive. Maybe bleach?

(inhales softly)

Well...

I appreciate you trying.

Say, do you like cupcakes?

Today was my niece's birthday party, and uh...

I almost have a whole box left.

Sure.

All right, Agent Mercer, that's the last one.

You guys get it?

MERCER (over speaker): Page 245. Clear as a bell.

Yeah, but it should be 45,234 characters total.

That's a start. We'll let you know.

Whoa, whoa. (chuckles softly)

How about an ETA?

How long does it usually take your fancy

code-cracking software to, you know, crack the code?

The characters are handwritten.

Lots of variance.

Could take nine or ten years.

(quietly): What? GILL (chuckling): Uh, sorry.

Sounded like you said nine or ten years?

Could be. Could be nine or ten days.

Call me next week-- I'll let you know

which way it's looking. (call hang sup)

Isn't that guy head of the FBI Cryptanalyst Unit?

What's he got, a computer powered by

a hamster wheel? Beau warned me

it'd be slow going. Even so,

you think we could run the Bureau's software

on all our computers?

Focus up, Penny.

Oh, I'm not playing Shadow Cell.

I'm searching its chat function. For what?

Max thinks that Ted contacted Ron through the game,

so I've been trying to find their correspondence.

But without knowing their screen names,

and with over 80 million comments in the chat,

it feels like that's a search that'll take a decade, too.

Mm-hmm. I just spent an hour

on the phone to a mathematician from MIT

who finally admitted he has no idea

what this calculation's supposed to be.

Beau's been doing the same thing.

With similar results.

You'd think math would be an easier language to decode

than schizophrenic medieval gibberish. (phone ringing)

Maybe I'll ask him.

Can you trace it? Yeah, I can try

with an IMSI catcher.

Okay.

(line ringing)

RAJAN (over phone): Hello?

Ms. Rajan, hello. How are you?

Not great, Ron.

A friend of mine is in ICU.

You put her there.

She would be a lot better if you told me what you used.

I'm sorry, I really do want to share with you,

but not that.

Why not? WINTER: Many reasons.

How's Ted Hester?

He's very dead.

Is that why you called?

To confirm that he's gone?

You're... quite brilliant,

actually. How did you pull it off?

You're quite clever, too, Miss Rajan.

I wasn't admitted once to Harvard,

let alone twice.

But I must insist,

we won't be discussing my methods.

My motives are more interesting anyway.

Where are you, Ron?

Let's meet up and talk in person.

Oh, Miss Rajan.

How utterly disappointing.

From what I glean remotely,

you're the most perspicacious CSI.

Ron, you flatter me.

But I have to ask-- to what end?

Because we are both afflicted.

Plagued.

Did you poison me, too?

No, uh, I haven't exposed you to anything

that you aren't immune to already.

And what's that?

People.

Hell is other people.

Their stupidity.

You might be the only other person

who understands what I'm doing.

I think you'll be grateful once they've all been eradicated.

Who? Who are you referring to?

Patience, Miss Rajan.

You will see tonight.

It really will be, uh...

...lights out.

(call beeps off)

RAJAN: Tell me you traced it.

ROBY: And then he just hung up?

RAJAN: Penny said he was using a relay device

to stop us from pinpointing his location.

Smart as advertised. Where are we on poison?

All we can tell you is what it isn't.

It's not tropane.

That's the only chemical we found in Ron's DIY lab.

Why would he set a fire to hide a chemical

that's not the poison?

Well, he might've added tropane

to mask whatever he was actually making.

You see this plating?

Tropane's organic.

Its extraction doesn't leave metal on electrodes.

So something else must've been the source of that plating.

Any ideas?

Unfortunately, we have none.

Hold on.

How many of these infrared smoke detectors

did Ron have? FINADO: Dozens.

None of them work;

it was a weird little collection. Then that's it.

Wait. You think--

Infrared smoke detectors contain

tiny amounts of various heavy metals.

Right. It's what makes them so sensitive to smoke particles.

He was probably harvesting heavy metal ore

from the smoke detectors.

He could dissolve it into a solution

if he had a strong enough acid...

RAJAN: Like nitric acid,

which explains the holes in his shirt pocket.

So Ron was using these electrodes

to send different currents

into his acid solution to draw out

a metal of his choice.

A really nasty metal--

thallium.

That's his poison.

If I remember my Intro into Inorganic Chemistry,

symptomology...

checks out.

Cellular death in the GI walls, bleeding in the small colon,

vacuolization of the liver...

It was thallium.

How'd we miss this?

Because heavy metal poisoning is so rare

there's only one machine on Earth that could ID it.

And we don't have an ion coupled plasma

atomic emissions spectroscope.

Only geolabs do.

ROBY: We're damn straight gonna get one.

But first....

there's an antidote.

(slaps table)

As soon as they administered the Prussian blue,

Sonya's heart rate started coming down.

She's not out of the woods yet, but...

Is that sign language?

When we were younger, Sonya forced me to learn ASL

so that we could talk trash about our idiot stepfather

in front of him.

What are you saying to her?

"I love you."

But she's not responding. (inhales)

RAJAN: Jack...

if her vitals are any indication,

she's coming back to us.

The man that did this to her...

We're gonna find him.

* *

BRYAN: Feels like a weird time to learn how to play Shadow Cell.

I need your login.

I tried to get my own,

but they wouldn't give me access

to the message board.

Should I be offended?

No.

You actually have to play the game to access the chat.

All right. No lurking.

So, while the game is loading... ROBY: Mm-hmm.

...you gonna tell me why you've been avoiding Dad?

He said you haven't been returning his calls.

I have not been...

Been... I mean...

Okay. Me and your dad, um...

I don't know. I just, I mean-- I don't know.

What do you mean you don't know? I don't know.

Can we just search "thallium" with two L's, please?

(groans)

Okay, we got one.

DymphnasReaper37 said "thallium" in a chat

three months ago. Excuse me.

"My favorite metal could solve every problem

"at Mountain Vista.

"I see 293 problems, but an MO ain't one.

All they need do is breathe."

Oh, my God.

This formula calculates dosage

for his next attack.

It's a mass casualty event. Joshua!

Mom, what's going on?

Hey, man. ROBY: I know what Ron meant

when he said

he was gonna lighten our load.

He's gonna aerosolize thallium

and poison 293 people,

and I know where--

Mountain Vista Psychiatric Hospital.

FOLSOM: The mental hospital in Henderson?

ROBY: Yeah, they have 293 beds.

If we don't get there in time,

there will not be enough body bags

in Clark County.

And we got to get there by lights out.

* *

This is the most recent photo of Ron Winter we have.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Yeah, remember, "lights out," 8:30.

It gives us half an hour before he--

Atomizes the thallium and kills us?

Yeah, Catherine's right. Where's SWAT?

We should be storming this place.

CHAVEZ: LVPD has plain clothes inside.

They're helping staff lead patients few at a time, but...

any large action could tip off Ron.

Then? Boom.

If he's smart-- and we know Ron is--

he will put his device in a vent shaft

and then use the AC to blow death

all over the building, okay?

I gave my guys your order. That's where they're looking.

But I-I got some pushback.

They don't know why you're so certain.

Tell them I read all about it online.

Society has much bigger problems than that.

Better to flip the table

and knock all the broken pieces off the board in one fell swoop.

TED: How?

RON: I could brew something special.

Something... expeditious.

TED: Poison.

RON: It's only fair, isn't it?

They infect, they contaminate,

they pollute everyone they come into contact with.

They are God's greatest mistakes.

And what do you do with mistakes?

Erase them.

You know the most delicious part of my plan?

Once the angel of death has visited Mountain Vista...

...they'll never find me.

* *

And they'll never catch me.

Hey, Ronnie.

That's him.

I'll cut him off up front!

CHAVEZ: Hey! Stop!

FOLSOM: Law enforcement! Move!

CHAVEZ: Out of the way, move!

FOLSOM: Stop!

(Ron shouts) (Folsom grunts)

(groaning)

You're too late.

We got him. We got him.

Wait, wait. You have Winter?

We do, but he doesn't have it on him and he won't talk.

Damn it.

Beau...

FINADO: That's it.

That's it. That's it.

GILL: That's less than a minute, Beau. Come on.

Can you disarm it? No. Not enough time.

(beeping)

Is it gonna... (exhales) No, it held.

But we're... We're not gonna touch it, okay?

The thallium has been contained.

ROBY: Oh, God.

* Don't ask for the truth *

* Then call me a liar... *

Hey! What does this say?

* But my soul's getting tired... *

Hey.

It doesn't matter anymore.

* Show me the difference... *

It was you. Right, Miss Rajan?

You were the one who realized it was thallium.

It could only have been you.

I'm disappointed.

I thought you, of all people,

would realize what I was trying to do.

RAJAN: I do understand.

You were trying to kill innocent people.

Hardly.

These people are a needless burden.

They're mentally malformed.

No, you're the only malformed mind that I see around here.

You can only pretend to turn a blind eye for so long.

But you see it. I know you do.

It is our burden. You're so wrong.

I didn't stop you alone.

No matter how brilliant you think you are,

you're not smarter or better

or more righteous than the people

that fight every single day to stop people like you.

What you don't understand is I was trying...

Save it for your manifesto, buddy.

This job...

I mean, I love it, but some days...

Some days.

* Sometimes I wonder *

* If I'm ever gonna make it home again *

I like it out here.

* It's so far... *

I don't want to go home.

You don't have to.

* Someone to talk to *

* And nobody else *

* Knows how to comfort me tonight... *

(quietly): Hey.

She says...

"Thank you," Allie.

Hey, I'm right here.

(both chuckling)

I cannot tell you how grateful I am.

We couldn't have done it without you.

Hear that?

I'm a hero.

Pretty much like a huge hero.

* Till I see you alone again *

* Till I'm home again and feeling right *

Have the doctors said anything about her recovery?

There's really no way of knowing how much damage

the thallium did to her nervous system.

It's...

It's gonna be a long... long road.

Well, I'll never bet against her.

She'll be back giving you hell in no time.

(chuckles softly)

I hope so.

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Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org