Two Daughters

Summary
The team is in a race against time to rescue fellow agent Megan Reeves from the clutches of the deranged Crystal Hoyle.

Plot
A new day begins as Winters is booked into lockup. Charlie and Edgerton continue to work on finding Hoyle. A traffic cop starts handing out parking violations and comes across a stolen van that has the words ‘Buck goes free’ spray painted inside. Don, David and Colby are on the scene. It’s near a diner. They can’t get a hold of Megan. Don suggests they try Larry, much to Colby’s surprise, but Charlie says the only phone he has is his office phone so it will be difficult. Don gets a call. Megan’s number shows up on the call display. It’s Hoyle, not Megan. She wants a trade for Buck and gives the rest of her demands. The team heads back to the FBI as the search begins.

Don, Charlie, and Edgerton are watching the security footage of Megan leaving the FBI and Hoyle following her. Colby comes in – Megan’s phone has been found, but there is no sign of Megan or Hoyle. Larry is telling David about their meal at the diner. Larry is worrying and David tries to comfort him, but doesn't succeed. Larry calls his attempt artless.

Hoyle is holed up in a hotel room with Megan restrained. She’s trying to get free, but can’t. Megan reveals she left home at 16 and never went back.

Don has Winters in interrogation. He closes all the blinds to talk to him. He wants Megan back, but Buck won’t talk. Don walks out of the room and Edgerton walks in. Colby questions his actions, but Don is sure about what he's doing. Charlie is working and Larry walks in. He isn’t helping by showering the situation with anxiety. Charlie tells him that the best way for him to help is to leave. He does.

Edgerton leaves the interrogation room with a piece of paper and hands it to Don. He doesn’t know she would have gone next. They start with the location he gave them. The property is clear, but Megan’s car is there. They posit that she’s still alive or they would have found a body.

Charlie compares the new situation with a game and they need to change the parameters of the game to be able to win. He suggests going back to looking for Rivers as that was one of Hoyle’s original main objectives. A lawyer showed up in the majority of Rivers’ cases. Charlie believes that contacting this lawyer and asking them to reach out to him will hopefully incentivise Rivers to come forward and help them find Hoyle.

Megan is trying to figure out Hoyle’s reasons for running off with Winters. She finds out that Hoyle was pregnant when she was a teenager. Brenner, the married man she was seeing at the time, took her to Rivers and Rivers convinced her to give her baby up. That’s why she wants to find him – she wants her baby back.

Charlie’s idea worked. Rivers is at the FBI and David is trying to find out why Hoyle wants to find Rivers. He's having no luck. Colby comes in with some information that Don takes into interrogation. Brenner made a $50,000 payment to Rivers’ lawyer in ’92. Don wants to know why, but the lawyer ends the session. Don flips out and arrests Rivers.

Charlie approaches Don in the conference room. He doesn’t know what else to do to get Megan back. Charlie starts in on a theory and Don flips out on him too. Charlie gets a brainwave. Charlie suggests they use a spiral formation starting from a spot between Hoyle’s last three known locations to pinpoint where she is with Megan. The team starts the search pattern.

It’s 45 minutes to when Hoyle said to meet. Megan wonders why they aren’t leaving to go to the meeting site. Hoyle starts to talk about her daughter again. Megan taunts her. Hoyle threatens her with the gun. Megan manages to get a hold of it. She and Hoyle struggle and they shoot a lamp. David and Colby get the call about the gunshot and go there as they’re nearby. Hoyle starts to fire on them. She uses Megan as a human shield and throws a grenade at the car. She takes Megan back to the motel room and slices Megan with a knife before running away. Don and Edgerton arrive. All four head up to the room. Megan has lost a lot of blood. Edgerton sees Hoyle speed away and wants to pursue with Don’s car, but he says no, they need to get her to a hospital.

Megan is doing ok in the hospital. She tells the others about Hoyle’s baby. They discuss how they found her. They leave her alone as Charlie and Larry show up with flowers. Larry apologises to David on how he treated him earlier.

At the Eppes’ house Don is resting on the couch. Alan asks how Megan is and they talk about how Don handled things. They also talk about Alan’s condo search and how the house can be pretty great.

Amita comes into Charlie’s office. He’s working late. She wants to get dinner, but he’s brought a sandwich. He apologises about not going to get food and not telling her that Megan was ok. She confronts him about the incessant apologies. He doesn’t want to disappoint or upset her. They talk about her staying and where they are. She leaves the status of their relationship with him.

Don and Edgerton discuss what Hoyle’s next move could be. They don’t think she’ll run. Colby finds them. Outside the motel room there was a payphone that Hoyle had been on a lot. She called the National Criminal Information Centre (NCIC) using Megan’s credentials to get information on Rivers and his attorney, Adam Denton. Colby follows up.

Denton is dead. Colby brings David up to speed on the situation. He died about 2am. There are records from adoptions littered all over his home office. She probably knows where her daughter is, leaving the FBI in the dark as to where she’ll be going.

Larry is helping Megan leave the hospital so she can find Hoyle. Larry offers some insight to figure out where Hoyle might find them. Charlie and Amita use the child’s social security number to help narrow down the search. They find a number that doesn’t fit with any hospital records.

Hoyle is outside the home of her daughter watching her play catch with a friend. Her adoptive mother comes out and Hoyle almost pulls out her gun to go after her. She hears sirens and leaves after her daughter goes inside. Police pull up just as she’s driving away. Megan and Colby are onsite. Colby gets a call. It’s from the switchboard for Megan. Hoyle has been patched through. She tries to get Hoyle to turn herself in. All Hoyle wants is to talk to Buck.

They’ve gotten him out of lockup and call Hoyle for the couple to talk so they can triangulate her location. They find where she is. She ends the call. It looks like she is running to Mexico. She approaches the roadblock that has been setup with two state troopers behind her. Megan calls her to try to keep her from hurting anybody. Hoyle ends the call, unpins a grenade, and heads for the blockade. She is shot dead. Edgerton is surprised as Don dispels the casing from his rifle. The car stops with Hoyle dead just before the grenade goes off.

At CalSci Megan is listening to Larry talk about the universe during a walk. She kisses him. Charlie is playing a golfing video game at the house. Don gives him some pointers before taking over the controller. Alan interrupts. He wants to build a private entrance to get to his room to provide a bit of privacy. He notices what they’re playing. Alan takes over the controller.

Main

 * Rob Morrow as Don Eppes
 * David Krumholtz as Charlie Eppes
 * Judd Hirsch as Alan Eppes
 * Alimi Ballard as David Sinclair
 * Navi Rawat as Amita Ramanujan
 * Diane Farr as Megan Reeves
 * Dylan Bruno as Colby Granger
 * Peter MacNicol as Larry Fleinhardt

Guest

 * Kim Dickens as Crystal Hoyle
 * David Gallagher as Buck Winters
 * Mark Rosenthal as Billy Rivers
 * Michael Oberlander as Adam Denton
 * Lou Diamond Phillips as Agent Ian Edgerton
 * Jon Spinogatti as Motel Manager

Trivia
Originally conceived as a single episode, the story was expanded into two parts with the previous episode (Numb3rs: Spree (2006)). This is the first multi-part story in the series, and marks the beginning of a much more serial, arc-driven format for the show.

The license number on the van is 3PC1296 and the LAPD case number is 19376.

Goofs
Agent David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) says to Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) that Agent Megan Reeves (Diane Farr) holds a black belt in Krav Maga. Krav Maga doesn't have belt ranks.

After Crystal is killed her car turns and comes to a stop as if the brakes were applied. (the front of the car dips when it stops.) For this to happen the driver needs to apply the break. The car is already going down hill. If the driver is killed the car will continue rolling until it comes to the bottom of the hill or until it hits something. Most likely the car will turn into the ditch and crash.

Crazy Credits
[This appears at the beginning of the episode] 15 years, 14 hours, 9 digits, 0 ways out