Play Date

15 The Kiss.

Recap: "Paige!" Riley yells. "Get out here! Now!" Paige rushes back to the living area. Riley stands next to the dining table, holding a piece of paper.

"It just got worse."

***

Paige and Riley pace their impatience. Charlie finishes reading the note for the fourth time and exhales a chest full of air.

"Two hundred grand," Charlie comments. "This is a first for me." Though their first response to the ransom note was to call in Charlie, Riley now thinks they should call the police. When Charlie rejects that idea, Paige argues that Arlene is a kidnapper, and they should let the law handle the situation.

"As much as I would love to let the police handle a kidnapping," Charlie says, "I'm not prepared to explain how the three of us conspired to commit welfare fraud and child endangerment. Those are serious felonies."

"Worse than kidnapping?" Paige asks.

"And extortion?" Riley adds. Charlie explains that Arlene breaking the law does not negate that they also broke the law.

"I have skin in this game," Charlie says. "At the very least, I get disbarred. And at the very worst, we all do time." After everything he's gone through today, Riley has reached a breaking point.

"So let's walk away," he says. "Let her keep the kid."

"Riley!" Paige exclaims. "Missy's got no one. We can't just turn our backs on her."

"She's a rental," Riley comes back. "She probably belongs with Arlene, anyway." Paige can't believe her ears.

"Who are you?" she says. Charlie tries to calm things down with the opinion that Arlene doesn't want Missy. That only serves to fuel Riley's argument.

"Then let her go to the cops," Riley says. "She's in trouble, too. Call her bluff." Charlie's head shakes in opposition to Riley's suggestion.

"She'll tell the police that she rescued her daughter from a dangerous situation and they will believe her," Charlie says. "Then we're all screwed."

"What do we do, then?" Paige asks.

"Pay her," comes Charlie's sober reply. Without hesitation, Riley informs Charlie he and Paige do not have that kind of money. "Can you get it?" Charlie asks, suggesting they tap into any available credit sources, including equity in their home. The painful truth comes out when Riley admits he and Paige are thirty days away from living on the streets. The Missy scheme was a Hail Mary to get a job.

"And now that's gone, too," Paige sighs. Charlie is not the type to give up that easily.

"How much do you have?" Riley envisions their last bank statement.

"Cash? Twenty-five grand," he tells Charlie.

"Look," Charlie says, "Arlene is a hick from Nowhere, Arkansas, and she's in way over her head. Give me what you can, and I'll make her go away."

Riley turns to his wife. So much they still need to say, given Paige's admission. But that conversation is one more luxury they cannot afford.

"We do this today, tomorrow we're greeters at Walmart," he says. Paige doesn't hesitate for even one second.

"We can't abandon her."

"And Walmart beats prison every time," Charlie adds. Riley looks deep into the moist eyes that an hour ago betrayed him, broke his heart. Without changing his gaze, Riley responds to Charlie.