Episode 2: Secret Services
Last episode, Claudia found out her sister (Claire) didn’t die in the car accident that killed their parents, and that Artie has been keeping the truth from her ever since they’ve known each other. Artie insists Claire is dangerous, but Claudia obviously wants to find out whatever she can about her sister. She checks out old news reports and notices the car seems to have smashed into a tree at a strange angle … like it flung itself at the tree sideways. Claudia figures the “accident” might’ve been a Warehouse case, and she tells Steve she can hack the Warehouse records, but Artie interrupts with a better idea … he’ll just show Claudia what she wants to know. At least that way, he can keep an eye on her. At the boardinghouse, Myka talks to Mrs.
Frederick, assuring her that her cancer is gone. Mrs. Frederick mentions that Myka might want kids someday and Myka says she has no interest in that, and even if she did, she’d have to find someone half-decent to have them with. That’s when Pete walks in (eating a banana—very Freudian) and says he’ll have kids with her and they don’t even have to have sex. (Pete: Okay, how about this? If, in ten years, neither of us has found someone …”; Myka: “Oh, a murder-suicide pact … that’s a great idea.”) Pete has a new haircut that looks really weird to me … it’s like his shower has no pressure or something. It almost looks like a wig.
In Washington, D.C., a Congressman and a lobbyist are talking in a health club. The lobbyist is going on about how safe fracking is when he starts coughing up water. The lobbyist keels over, spewing water from his mouth 
and drowning right there on the floor. When Pete and Myka show up, they find a couple of their old Secret Service colleagues (Ted Simkins and Elise Meyers) already on the scene. They seem to know each other pretty well (and Elise really knows Pete, since she holds him at arm’s length when he goes in for a hug) and they swap info on the dead guy. His lungs were full of sea water and some of the water he coughed up even had sand mixed in with it. Ted and Elise have heard rumours about Pete and Myka investigating weird “woo woo” stuff, so they’re hoping the duo can shed some light on things.
At the Warehouse, Artie tells Claudia he wants to use the baby shoes (from “Shadows” Season 3, Episode 9) to go back and show Claudia what happened to her parents. Claudia says she doesn’t remember that, but Artie admits he saw it happen. Claire’s troubles were handled by the Warehouse and Artie was the one who investigated. He reminds Claudia the danger of
using the shoes is getting seduced into never wanting to leave the memories, so they’ll have to anchor each other to make sure they both come back. They use the shoes and show up at Claire’s school just in time to see a mass exodus of freaked-out students from a classroom. A slightly younger Artie shows up and goes into the classroom. (Claudia says she was seven when her parents died and she just turned twenty-one, so I guess this happened fourteen years ago; Artie looks pretty much the same.)
In the class room, Claire is doing an Exorcist/Carrie-type number: levitating, eyes glowing, flinging stuff around the room telekinetically. Claudia is shocked to see her sister like that. In Washington, Myka and Ted find out plenty of people were opposed to the dead lobbyist’s fracking crap, 
up to and including OPEC. Pete hits on Elise and she’s not interested, getting away from him as fast as possible. She and Ted leave and Myka gives Pete shit for scaring her off. (Pete: “Don’t worry, me hitting on other women does not change my offer of platonic child-bearing.”; Myka: “I liked it better when you just stared at my boobs.”; Pete: “I can do both … look, just did.”) Elsewhere in Washington, a Senator talks on the phone to a constituent about some zoning issue she wants taken care of and promises to help her, even as he tears up the letter she sent. After hanging up, he starts coughing up water and falls down, drowning right there in the parking garage.
Myka and Ted check out the scene and Myka notices Red got a parking ticket; she wonders why he didn’t just have the Secret Service take care of it and Ted says he hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Myka notices some salt residue on the car window where the Senator was coughing up water and Ted finds the torn-up letter and fills Myka in on the Senator’s bullshit promise to the woman he talked to on the phone. In the Senator’s office, his
chief of staff (Diane Hewlett) tells Pete and Elise that the Senator was a big supporter of fracking, so they figure there might be a connection and ask to see files on any meetings they had. Ted and Elise seem anxious to get out of there, and Pete and Myka are anxious to discuss the case, so they part ways. Myka tells Pete about the salt residue and guesses the victims are drowning in sea water. Pete rattles off a few possible artifacts (including Teddy Kennedy’s turn signal) and Myka says Artie is sending an artifact to counteract the drowning effect.
In Artie’s memories, he and Claudia watch Claire and her parents in the principal’s office after her freak out. The younger Artie can’t find any artifact at Claire’s school and discusses the case with Mrs. Frederick, who says the artifact must be powerful to have such a lasting effect on Claire. In 
Washington, Myka and Pete find out from Diane that the dead Senator co-sponsored the fracking bill with about ten others, so they ask for their names. They try to get in touch with Ted and Elise, but both of them have their phones turned off. Myka mentions the parking ticket Ted was so weird about and Pete wonders if Ted and Elise are the ones with the artifact. Myka says the ticket was from Judiciary Square, so they head over and catch Ted and Elise coming out of the courthouse. Turns out they just got married and were acting weird because agents aren’t supposed to get romantically involved. Ted checks in with his office and learns there’s been another drowning victim.
In Artie’s memories, he and Claudia pop up outside the Donovan house just
as Claire’s parents are trying to take her to a hospital (or maybe a psych ward). Claire is pissed off that they’re lying to her and has another freak out, telekinetically slamming the car between some big trees until her parents are dead, as Claudia watches in horror. Claire keels over and young Artie (who was watching from across the street with Mrs. Frederick) comes to check on young Claudia, who’s still inside.
Inside the house, young Claudia knows something bad has happened, and she even tells young Artie what caused it, pointing out a half-burnt music box in the fireplace. Mrs. Frederick comes in to say Claire has been sedated and taken away and that someone’s coming to look after Claudia. Artie 
points out the music box (which belonged to Frances Farmer and causes telekinetic outbursts triggered by anger) and mentions that Claudia seems to have some kind of sensitivity to artifacts. Mrs. Frederick says they’ll have to keep an eye on her. Modern Artie tells modern Claudia that they couldn’t cure Claire’s condition, since the artifact that caused it was destroyed, so they put Claire into an artifact-induced coma to keep her from hurting anyone else. Claudia wonders if she’s the one who threw the music box in the fire and kept her sister from being curable, but when she tries to access her own memories, she and Artie pop back to the present.
In Washington, the latest victim turns out to be a real estate investor, who had nothing to do with politics and probably didn’t even know what fracking was. (Pete: “I asked his assistant where Freddy stood on fracking, she thought I meant on Battlestar and giggled.”) Ted and Elise find out the dead guy was a bartender at a hotel until recently, when he moved into his
big, fancy house. They decide to check out the hotel where the guy used to work, and Ted and Elise have a playful disagreement about why the place sounds familiar. At the hotel, another bartender tells them the dead guy supposedly inherited a pile of money. Pete and Ted admire the scantily clad female guests around the pool before being jarred back to reality by the sight of Myka and Elise across the way. Ted and Elise both talk about how they didn’t see their relationship coming until it hit them in the face, which makes Pete and Myka wonder about their own partnership.
Myka recognizes the hotel’s logo and recalls a scandal that took place there a while back. A young Senate staffer went missing and her boss (a senator named Kelton) was suspected of being involved. All kinds of rumours 
swirled around him and an anonymous tipster even claimed Kelton and the staffer were at the hotel the night she disappeared. Kelton lost his seat (to the Senator who drowned in the parking garage) and killed himself. Pete and Myka figure a bunch of people (including the former bartender, who must’ve been the suddenly-rich anonymous tipster) conspired to get Kelton ousted from his seat and now someone is punishing all those involved. They figure the next victim might be the reporter who broke the story, Nancy Molloy.
At the Warehouse, Claudia wants to use the shoes with Claire, to find out how the music box ended up in the fireplace. Artie says it’s way too dangerous and offers to go instead, but Claudia says this is something she has to do. Steve points out that Artie is so determined to protect Claudia that
he might’ve subconsciously blocked her memories, so Steve says he’ll use the shoes with Claire and Claudia since he’s a neutral party. Artie takes them to the room where Claire is being kept. She’s suspended from the ceiling by Joseph Pilates’ resistance bands (which keep her body from breaking down physically) while she’s kept comatose by Oliver Sacks’ record player. Artie says it was the most humane option they could think of.
In Washington, Pete and Myka talk to Molloy and she denies knowing anything about a conspiracy against Kelton. As soon as she says that, she starts drowning right in front of Pete and Myka. Myka uses a silver necklace from the Atacama Desert to reverse the effects, saving her life. Myka 
realizes the trigger for the artifact must be when the victim lies, which is a great thing for he killer since they wouldn’t even have to be around when it happens. Molloy admits she and the dead bartender were paid off to lie about the Senator. She says it was Diane, the new Senator’s chief of staff, who paid her. They figure Diane might be the next victim, so they go talk to her. While Myka checks the office, Diane tells Pete they used the girl’s disappearance to make Senator Kelton look bad and win the election, but they didn’t know he’d kill himself. Pete says she’d better start cooperating if she doesn’t want to be the next victim.
At the Warehouse, Steve and Claudia go into Claire’s memories (although the version of Claire that goes with them is still in a coma) and wind up at a yard sale. Seven-year-old Claudia had a way with computers even back then, and when Claire finds the music box (and gets infected by its bad
mojo), Claudia gets worked up and tries to talk her out of buying it … unsuccessfully. In Washington, Ted and Elise’s cute newlywed disagreement has turned into a full-blown argument. Myka says it’s good she and Pete have boundaries to keep their work and personal lives separate, but Pete reminds her that they have rooms at the boardinghouse that are right next to each other. (Myka: “You know, I still wish that you would close your bathrobe in the morning.”; Pete: “That’s involuntary, Myka, okay … all guys wake up like that.”)
Diane takes a saber from her desk, broken off just above the hilt. She tells Ted it’s a gift from Veterans’ Affairs, but she reflects light from the saber into his eyes, and as soon as he lies (telling Elise he wasn’t ogling women at 
the hotel pool), he starts drowning. Diane takes off with the saber, leaving Pete and Myka to use the Atacama silver to save Ted’s life. He tells them about the broken saber and Pete remembers a statue of Alfred Dreyfuss in Paris with a broken saber. Myka mentions Dreyfuss was imprisoned on Devil’s island, which would explain the salt water drowning. They guess Diane must feel remorse over driving Kelton to suicide and is killing everyone involved to salve her conscience. Ted and Elise are freaked out by all the talk of magical artifacts, but Pete and Myka are more worried about Diane’s next victim. They speculate that the missing woman that brought down Senator Kelton (Julia Helmsworth) might still be alive and that Diane is going to get rid of her too. Sure enough, Julia is still alive and Diane has gone to her house.
In Claire’s memories, Claudia sees what preceded her parents being killed outside; they’re all in the living room, trying to convince Claire they want to take her somewhere to get her help. But she doesn’t believe them and starts
getting worked up, even as young Claudia insists it’s the music box that’s causing her to act that way. Present-day Claire (still comatose) starts getting agitated and Claudia asks her to hang on a little longer. Young Claudia keeps insisting the music box is the problem until young Claire flings it telekinetically into the fire. Claudia, Steve, and Claire come out of Claire’s memories and Claudia is relieved she’s not the one who threw the music box in the fire. Claudia points out that even though Claire was in pain, she stayed long enough to show Claudia the truth.
In Washington, Pete and Myka figure Diane must know where Julia lives, so they rifle her desk to find the info. They show up at Julia’s house right before Diane goads her into a lie. Diane locks herself in the garage and 
flashes the saber in her own eyes, then lies deliberately so she’ll drown too. Pete and Myka bust in, bagging the artifact and saving Diane’s life, insuring she’ll be punished through the courts and not by her own hand. Ted and Elise agree to say Diane was using some unknown toxin and Pete and Myka agree to keep their mouths shut about the secret marriage. Back at the Warehouse, Pete reiterates his offer of parenthood with Myka and she seems to kinda be considering it. Meanwhile, Claudia tells the comatose Claire that she can’t leave her the way she is. Yeah, that’s probably not going to end well.