McGowan sets the phone on the table. Thinks of that pan on the stove. Thinks of the kitchen sink.

“But she’s dead,” she says. “You said someone got to her before you did. Who?”

Pollen shrugs. But this time it feels more like an intentional cover-up.

“A relative of a victim?” Pollen posits. But again, it feels to McGowan like the chief of police knows. Or once knew. And decided to forget.

“Either way,” McGowan says. “Dead.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Some people grow up with magic. And some of that magic is the sparkly kind and some of it isn’t.”

“You don’t really think…”

“All that matters right now is that my job is to protect the people of Samhattan the best I can. I’ve succeeded at that much more often than I’ve failed. And right now…I believe you are the best line of protection these people have.”

“It’s a copycat,” McGowan says.

Pollen looks like she might shake her head no. But doesn’t.

“Might be,” she says. “And while I fear what fate awaits you, I believe it’s the only fate we got.” Then, “Go on now.”

McGowan only stares back. So many questions. So many thoughts.

“Go on,” Pollen says.

McGowan slides out of the booth. Looks down at her chief once more.

“Thank you for your blessing,” she says.

“Do whatever you have to do, Carla. Whatever you have to do.”

Natasha texted the rest of the team everything her mom told her about Daphne. But not everybody has responded. In fact, she hasn’t heard from Kit in too long. Deeply and justifiably scared about this, she told the police in her driveway they needed to check on her friend. Kit’s house is easy to sneak in and out of. Natasha’s done it dozens of times. There’s a back door in the basement bathroom, a bizarre feature the ballers joke about whenever they visit the Lamb house. This is for the sunbathing shits. This is so you don’t shit your pants mowing the lawn. And really, who thought to put it there? What if somebody walked in on you while you were going? Still, the older they got, the more useful the door. Natasha and Kit spent many nights up the street, in the cemetery, or just whispering in Kit’s backyard. Wherever they went on these excursions it felt like a singular place, the two of them, together, a place in and of itself, together, always there. And while Natasha knows Kit uses that door to see Dana, too, it feels good having a secret with a friend.

So…why isn’t she in on the secret now?

Where’s Kit?

And while it’s only Kit who hasn’t responded, those who do aren’t really acting like themselves. In fact, Gemma Wells’s mom responded for her, asking Natasha to please cool it, to leave Gemma alone:

Nobody needs any more horror in their lives than what’s already there.