“The Harvest” is episode sixteen of season two of First Wave.
A nervous-looking woman is sitting in a hotel room. She sips a drink, which she dislikes, starts reading a book then removes a wedding ring. A man knocks on the door and introduces himself as Russ. The woman thinks this is a mistake but Russ reassures her. Later, as they are in bed, Russ removes an evil-looking syringe from his pocket and stabs it into her forehead. It starts extracting a liquid.
Cade is in Boston where three wealthy women have disappeared. He arrives at a press conference where a woman is saying that the latest is her sister and the police have done nothing. The detective with her isn’t happy with that comment. A reporter asks if it’s true that video of a suspect has disappeared from police custody. The woman offers a $50K reward for the safe return of her sister. The detective thinks this is a bad idea, so she raises it to $100K.
Afterwards, Cade approaches the woman, Renee Ashford, and says he’s with her sister’s bank. Did Renee know her sister’s credit card was used to pay for a hotel room? She did; the police told her. Did they tell Renee that her sister didn’t use her own name? The signatures don’t match; she used the name Christina Reynolds. Renee knows who that is; it’s the heroine from one of her novels, her sister Jennifer’s favourite book.
They head to the hotel together. Renee says the cops don’t care about finding Jennifer; they think she’s dead at the hands of a serial killer and are waiting for her body to turn up. Renee says that if Cade can find Jennifer, the reward is his. The police have ordered the hotel not to release details and Cade asks if Renee can create a diversion so he can get into the computer and get a copy of the bill. She can.
Renee asks why Cade is doing this; it could cost him his job. He tells Renee that a few do still care. Jennifer made two phone calls and ordered a drink from room service. Renee says Jennifer doesn’t drink. But she’s ordered exactly what Christina Reynolds would have ordered. Christina is a desperately unhappy woman married to an insensitive jerk. Rather like Jennifer. Renee doesn’t think Jennifer would have had an affair and taken off without telling her. One of the numbers is to Jennifer’s therapist. The other is not in service.
Cade calls Eddie, who is researching by reading Renee’s romances. He thinks Renee is distrustful enough to be his type. Cade wants to know if there are any other numbers associated with the first. Yes; a new account. No name or address, just a PO box. Eddie also looked up the undercroft reference in the quatrain. It means a chamber below a church. Does Eddie know how many churches there are in Boston? 483.
Cade calls the new number and it’s clear that the person on the other end is close by. He searches and finds Russ, who leaves. Cade follows, Renee sees, and Russ warns him off. Cade doesn’t listen and follows Russ up to the roof and confronts him. Russ deliberately falls of the roof. Instead of his body evaporating, though, Russ heals the damage and walks off. That’s new.
Cade tells Renee he was following a lead that didn’t pan out. Renee didn’t get anywhere with room service but housekeeping found a first edition of one of Renee’s books that Renee autographed for Jennifer. Cade wants to check the hotel room, even though the cops have been through. Renee says they need a key. No, they don’t. She thinks picking locks is an interesting skill for a fraud investigator to have. Night course; know how the bad guys do it. Renee might think this is pointless, but there’s a chance that Cade might help find her sister. Cade finds a vial partly full of the liquid Russ extracted from Jennifer in the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Renee got a call from the police. They found to bodies, neither Jennifer. There may be clues that will help them find Jennifer herself. Though the detective clearly still thinks she’s dead.
Eddie has got the report on the two dead women. They died seven days after they were abducted. Jennifer has been missing for six. In the vial, Eddie says there’s what look like brain cells and something else. The ME said the dead women had puncture wounds in their prefrontal cortex. Like something was injected into their brains. Wrong way around. On hearing how Russ healed, Eddie starts to panic. That will mean their weapons are useless if all Gua heal like that.
All three women had used a special service available through the hotel – or one of the employees anyway – by ordering a certain drink. That service brought them Russ, though that didn’t quite work as expected.
There’s a clue as to why so many Gua don’t know who Cade is, despite them really wanting to catch him and the amount of damage he’s done.