The Mysteries of Laura Episode 2.03 The Mystery of the Locked Box

Zac Romero is a 22-year-old billionaire and tech genius - or he was, until his housekeeper finds him dead in his apartment, covered in hundreds of tiny stab wounds. At the scene, Detectives Laura Diamond (Debra Messing) and Jake Broderick (Josh Lucas) notice Zac's cellphone is absent and the blood spray is unusually... spray-ish. Detectives Billy Soto (Laz Alonso) and Meredith Bose (Janina Gavankar) speak with the building's concierge and find out that after the housekeeper left, no one entered or exited Zac's apartment, including Zac. The concierge says it's impossible anyone could've bypassed security - Zac's maid agrees: his apartment is virtually impenetrable.

Laura talks to Zac's mother, who explains Zac never picks up his phone, so two days ago, she had to call his business partner, Shane Allen, now the sole owner of a billion-dollar company. Meredith and Billy question Shane, who reveals he helped Zac move into a new apartment after he found a "crazy woman" sleeping in the bathtub of his old place. Billy and Meredith track down Abby Pollard, who has taken Romero as her new last name. When they approach her apartment, she tries to attack them with a knife. Billy suspects Abby of Zac's murder, but she insists she would never kill her husband. Laura decides to play along, asking Abby about their history. Abby, clearly suffering delusions, explains that Zac's profile in TIME Magazine contained messages for her and that's when she knew they were supposed to be together. They had dinner two nights ago - the night of his murder - at the Congee Noodle House, where Zac got into an argument with a man in a baseball hat. Convinced Abby is incapable of murder, Laura meets with the coroner, who's pretty sure the murder weapon was not a knife. Plus, no evidence was found at the scene: no foreign fibers, hairs, footprints or fingerprints. Could their suspect be invisible?

Meredith and Billy scope out the Congee Noodle House, where the owner confirms Abby's story... except that Zac had dinner with a man in a baseball cap, while Abby watched from outside, per her usual routine. While learning there's a secret entrance to Zac's apartment behind a local bodega, Laura gets concerned when Jake repeats himself. Recalling his surgeon's words, she wonders whether he may have suffered neurological damage as a result of the shooting. What she doesn't know is that Jake is taking some kind of medication, which requires he track his blood pressure.

Laura and Jake bring Abby to Zac's funeral, in hopes spotting the mystery man in the baseball cap. Over it, Shane forces the speaker - a friend of Zac's who's taking several drags off an inhaler - off the stage so he can take over. Furious, Zac's mom Rosalie starts yelling, just as Laura eyes a man in a baseball cap lurking in the background. When Abby identifies him as the man from the noodle house, he runs. Jake and Billy tackle him and take him back to the station, where he admits to being David Romero, Zac's father. Though David's alibi checks out, he mentions Zac was working on a big idea, tech to revolutionize Wi-Fi - which he was going to give away for free - contradicting what Shane said about no new company developments. Laura suspects he's lying, so when she spies him with Zac's missing phone, she brings him in. Shane admits he was trying to sell Zac's incomplete big idea to his competitor so it would never see the light of day.

It turns out Zac had multiple voicemails from the same number, mostly silent except for occasional wheezing. Laura figures it must be Jordan Pelham, the asthmatic who spoke at Zac's funeral. When Meredith learns that depressed and disgruntled Jordan recently bought a drone, the team raids his apartment to find a drone fitted with small blades. No human being could enter Zac's fortress of an apartment... but this drone could - and it explains the blood spray. After work at Calligan's, Laura is stunned to spy Captain Santiani complimenting her team for the arrest during a press conference. Then she turns her attention to Jake, bringing up his memory loss. He shares that he has a minor heart condition, which he's been keeping secret to avoid losing his job - but he's fine. Jake asks Laura to keep his secret... or risk losing her partner.