Episode: S05 E07, “Truth”
Premiere date: 30 November 2025
Written by: Scott Andrews
Guest starring: Marci Miller (as Jessica Smithson)
LIBERTY CITY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
LIBERTY CITY, NEW YORK, 01948
The hustle and bustle of the hospital rings throughout the air. The nurse’s station remains clear of clutter, while the nurses themselves stand vigilant of the patients they are responsible for.
As the elevator rings, Jessica Smithson steps off of the elevator, taking a brief look over at the nearby nurse’s station, and approaches one of the nurses. “Excuse me,” she interrupts, “but can you tell me which room Thomas Lane is in?”
“Are you family?” The nurse questions. Nodding, Jessica responds, “Yes. I’m his niece.” “He is in room 431.” Nodding in thanks, Jessica makes her way towards Thomas’ room, with the clacking of her heels meeting the luxury vinyl flooring. Her strawberry blonde hair bounces as she keeps a consistent gait walk throughout the hospital. As she steadily approaches Thomas’ room, she slows herself, taking in the sounds of various machines beeping throughout the hallway, noticing the copious patients who currently take residence at the hospital. Stopping outside of room 431, she peers into the slightly opened blinded window, noticing Sarah Lane sitting by her husband’s side, continuing to hold his hand. Opening the door to Thomas’ room, Sarah jumps in her seat, startled by the noise.
“Nurse, I didn’t think you’d,” Sarah began to state, turning around to notice Jessica standing in the doorway. “Jessica!” She exclaimed in shock. “Hi Sarah,” Jessica warmly greets. “I wasn’t expecting you.” Embracing each other in a warm hug, Jessica holds Sarah’s hands, telling her, “I know. No one was expecting me. It’s kind of a spur-of-the-moment visit. I had some time and was able to come home for a visit. I’m glad I was able to see you.”
“How has Italy been?”
“Fine,” Jessica responds. “It’s busy. The gallery is always busy; we’re acquiring so many classic pieces this past season, it’s hard to keep up.”
“But you handle it with ease.”
Letting out a light chuckle, Jessica somewhat agrees, “As much as I can. And how are you, Sarah?” “Oh,” Sarah seemingly and absently responds, “I’m fine. I am managing my life one day at a time, dealing with whatever comes my way. Your uncle keeps me occupied.”
Looking beyond Sarah, Jessica peers at her comatose uncle and questions, “How is Uncle Thomas doing?”
“He’s holding on. Getting better every single day.”
“Is he? Getting better?”
Sharply turning her head back to Jessica, she pointingly questions, “What does that mean, Jessica? What is it you’re getting at?”
“You know exactly what I am talking about, Sarah. Mom told me what happened, and what grandma Shirley is planning on doing.”
“Of course they did,” Sarah responds with a slight shake in her voice. “I want you to get out.” “No, I’m not leaving Sarah. Why are you fighting this so much? You do realise my grandmother will go to the courts and likely win in this? Is that what you really want? Is that what Thomas would want in all of this, because I surely believe he wouldn’t.”
“You don’t understand,” Sarah responds, fighting back the release of tears welling in her eyes.
“But I do,” Jessica softens in her approach. “I do understand, because that’s my uncle and whether you believe it, you’re my aunt, and I love you both. And I don’t want either of you hurting, and I know that if my grandmother goes through with this, you’ll hurt more than you have been.”
As Sarah shakes her head in denial, letting out whimpers of tears, Jessica places her hands softly upon her shoulders, assuring her, “Look at him. This is no way of life for him, Sarah. It isn’t. And wouldn’t you like to be part of the decisions where his life are concerned? Don’t let my grandmother take that from you. Thomas wouldn’t want it taken from you. If you work with them, you can at least do it on your own terms, allowing you the space to feel a bit of control in this situation, and that will help in the long term scheme of things.”
Leaning over, Jessica kisses Thomas’ forehead, and turns to exit the hospital room. As she opens the door, Sarah stops her, “Jessica, thank you.” Letting out a soft smile of understanding, Jessica closes the hospital room door; outside, she takes a deep breath in, resets herself, and walks away.
CJ ENTERPRISES
LIBERTY CITY, NEW YORK, 01948
The quiet of the office deafens as Ava Newton opens Courtney Willis’ office door and walks over to her empty desk. Walking behind it, Ava looks over several folders pertaining to various business ventures the company has been pursuing in recent months.
Jason Spencer, at that moment, approaches the office, peering in and noticing Ava. “Well,” Jason said, his tone almost shifting between serious and joking. “That’s not who I expected to see when I walked into this office.”
Ava’s eyes flashed with a strike of uncertainty, mixed with startle, unsure of just who was speaking to her in that specific moment. “Oh really? And just who, pray tell, were you actually expecting to be in here at this very moment? I’m sure you don’t have any appointment.”
Jason, quick to pick up on Ava’s slight use of intended sarcasm, let’s out a brief chuckle with an almost smug-like smirk. “Well, I didn’t know I needed an invitation to come into my girlfriend’s office, especially if⏤”
“You know very well that Courtney is very busy,” Ava interrupts, holding up her pointer finger in a motion to pause. “But please, go on and try to finish that sentence.”
Jason clears his throat and looks intently at Ava, in the hopes of not upsetting her, now unsure of the tone in which the conversation is presently sitting. “What I was going to say is, especially if her she were not in the office today, which is very clearly is not. And I wouldn’t dare try to bypass her very on-the-nose, professional personal assistant, now would I, Ava?”
Ava chuckled. She didn’t want to ease into the banter that was being shared between her and her boss’ boyfriend, but she couldn’t help but feel seen, attended to, and in some strange way, appreciated. “No.” Ava lightly responded; her face turning away to hide the almost innocent-like smile she wanted to let be seen. “We wouldn’t want that at all. You wouldn’t want that at all.”
“You know, you’re trying to hide that smile, but I see it peering out,” Jason playfully teases. “You can’t hide it from me. And you shouldn’t.”
Letting out a brief sigh, Ava turns her head to Jason, trying to act unimpressed with his persistent quips and compliments.
“I’ll let Courtney know you popped in,” she tells him, in the hopes of ending their brief encounter, reminding him of his relationship status. Nodding in agreement, Jason responds as he exits, “Yeah, you do that. Good to see you, Ava.”
LIBERTY CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT
LIBERTY CITY, NEW YORK, 01948
The usual bustling of paperwork and hand-held radios sounding off filled the main hub of the police precinct. The shuttle grey walls attempted to create a calming yet professional environment; however, given the precinct’s location, calm is seldom achieved. Lauren Bouchard approaches Garrett Gregson, peering ever so slightly over his shoulder, asking him questions concerning their latest training. Her hair, meant to be pulled back and up, is casually down, allowing her to pull it back to the side, exposing the bareness of her neck, innocent or not.
Tori Gregson spots her husband and the young, brunette cadet with him, which immediately sends her mind into a frantic panic. While it was not too long ago she once felt the presence of Jennifer Hughes in the midst of her marriage, she had long hoped situations like this one would not only no longer exist but also not bring back up residual feelings of concern about her husband around other women, especially one of younger years.
“Hi honey,” Tori interrupts as she makes her way to Garrett’s desk, with her eyes pointed at both her husband and Lauren.
Garrett turned, with a smile, and greeted his wife, “Hi honey. What are you doing here?” “Hi, Mrs Gregson,” Lauren greeted.
“I thought I’d invite you to lunch but it appears I’ve interrupted something,” Tori responds to Garrett’s question while pointedly peering suspiciously at Lauren.
Garrett paused for a brief moment before letting out an absent “Uh.” With her attention back on her husband, Garrett responded, “Hon, I would, but it’s a big training day for Lauren, and we’re awfully busy today. A lot of incoming calls.”
Peering around the precinct, Tori snarkily retorts, “Doesn’t look that busy to me, Gar, and I’m not hearing a lot of phone calls. Perhaps your latest distraction is what’s really keeping you here and not wanting to be with your wife.”
Taking a quick glance at the precinct, Garrett grabs Tori by the arm and pushes her off to the side. “Don’t touch me like that,” Tori exclaims, jerking her arm out of her husband’s grasp. As he leans in, he firmly accuses, “What the Hell is wrong with you? That was wildly inappropriate.” Letting out a laugh, Tori responds, “Wildly inappropriate? Me? That’s a laugh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Jennifer Hughes. This police department. The new cadet. That’s all you care about. It’s all you’ve ever cared about, Gar. You promised me. You promised our children. This was all supposed to end. And we could go home.”
“Home? We are home, Tori.”
“Not Liberty City. Chicago, Gar. Back home to Chicago. Like we discussed.” “Tori, this is our home. Liberty City and home and the department needs me.”
Shaking her head in disbelief as tears begin to fill her eyes, Tori refutes, “Your family needs you. I need you. The kids need me. And if you truly feel Liberty City is your home, I wish you could’ve been that honest with me years ago. Because now it feels like I’ve been strung along for years waiting for you to come to your senses and finally put our family first. At least now I know.”
Overcome with emotion, Tori immediately walks away from her husband and makes her exit from the precinct, leaving him there to ponder his wife’s words. Approaching him, Lauren questions, “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” Garrett absently responds with deceit. “Everything’s fine. Let’s get back to work.”
JOHNSON INDUSTRIES
LIBERTY CITY, NEW YORK, 01948
Seated at her desk, Logan Johnson took a sip of her afternoon tea as a ‘bing’ sound echoed from her desktop computer. Turning her attention to her email, she pulls up her newest email, sent from someone within the PR department of the company. Reading through the email while contemplating her response, she heard a knock at her door.
“Come in,” Logan commands, allowing her assistant to walk into her office, holding a bouquet of orchid flowers.
With her eyes widened, Logan questioned, “Where did these come from?” “Oh, they were just delivered downstairs moments ago and we were told to immediately deliver them to you,” the assistant responded. “Did they tell you who delivered them?”
“No, ma’am. Just a general delivery driver. Would you like me to find out for you?”
“No, that’ll be all, thank you.”
As the assistant exits the office, Logan approaches the orchids, peering to find a card. Nestled in the back of the bouquet, she removes and opens it, and she is immediately overcome with concern and questions. Startled, she drops the card onto the side desk where the bouquet sat upon.
Walking over to her window, she peers out at the city she calls home before her email chimes again, shaking her out of her slight trance and allowing her to reconnect to her work.
Underneath the orchids, the mysterious card reads, “Don’t worry, Logan, we’ll be seeing each other soon enough.”
EPILOGUE
In a dimly lit room, only lit by a crackling fire, a shadowed figure casually makes their way across the room, stopping at a framed image of Logan Johnson. Picking up the frame, the figure calmly begins to undo the back of the frame, allowing for the removal of the photograph. Gracing their hands over the photograph, they walk over to the fire. Holding it up against the backlight of the crackling fire, they immediately throw the image into it. As the flames from the fire consume the image, leaving her face to remain the last remnant present, the shadowed figure peers on until the image’s last view is gone, turned completely into ashes.