Cassie freezes after seeing her mother’s photograph among the murder victims connected to the active case. Michael tries to frame the hacking as a distraction, while Sloane explains that the UNSUB’s known method differs from Cassie’s mother’s attack: victims are abducted, likely restrained or drugged, and killed elsewhere with little evidence left behind.

Cassie asks when Agent Briggs will return, already thinking about how to bring the case to him or Agent Locke. Michael warns that Briggs will never allow Cassie to work an active investigation, especially one that may involve Cassie’s own mother, because Cassie is too personally connected and Briggs’s mandate is cold cases. Sloane calculates that Briggs should arrive in just under three hours.

Michael senses that Cassie wants solitude and leaves with Sloane and the files. Cassie spends the waiting time in her room, trying to identify something useful she can offer the FBI so they will include her. Instead of Briggs arriving, Dean knocks on Cassie’s door and asks to come in, explaining that he closed the door because Lia eavesdrops.

Dean apologizes for pushing Cassie away earlier, then reveals that Lia told him about the files Cassie, Michael, and Sloane found. Cassie challenges the idea that their revelations make anything between them resolved, but Dean says nothing is okay. When Cassie admits the evidence may not match her mother’s case, Dean counters that killers can evolve over years, revealing a shared understanding shaped by his father’s crimes.

Cassie finally tells Dean what she found after her mother disappeared: the ransacked room, the blood, and Cassie’s conviction that the attack was personal. Cassie argues that the current UNSUB may be killing women who resemble or echo her mother as a way of killing Cassie’s mother again. Dean tells Cassie that no one will believe Cassie because Cassie is too close to the case, but Briggs will believe Dean. Dean agrees to review the file, and Cassie goes to retrieve it.