Hook: Heather "Coleman" Black is about to lose her bar - her livelihood - unless she can come up with the money to pay the debt.

Heather is running late for a party she has been hired to act as the bar vendor
she drops her keys and they fall under her porch
she goes below the house to find the keys
she thinks a spider is crawling on her and, in an act of terror, throws everything including the keys
the keys land in a box and go to the bottom
afraid of more spiders, she pulls the box out from under the house and dumps it on her porch
The picture of a young girl on top nearly tempts Heather to examine the contents, but she forces herself to not look, refusing to think of her parents any more than she has to
She leaves the box in her house and rushes to the party
Elizabeth accuses her of being typically unreliable and threatens to cut the agreed payment for hours not worked.
Elizabeth tells her to go find Ethan, Elizabeth's brother, who is scolding some teenagers for swimming in the mine quarry. She tells her to watch out for the mine shaft because it's hidden
On her way to the quarry, she hears a scream and runs to it
She finds a mine shaft and stands on the edge, certain she heard a scream
From behind, she feels like someone pushed her in
She sees the ghost of a girl but thinks it's a hallucination
She can't get out of the mine shaft so she begins yelling for help
Ethan hears her and pulls her out of the shaft
She tells him what she saw and he laughs it off
She attacks him and he leaves her to fend for herself against his irate sister, Elizabeth
By this point, the party is over and Elizabeth has sent a truck away with all of Heather's belongings, including hundreds of dollars worth of liquor and her portable bar, along with the key to her car. She has no idea how much anyone drank and Elizabeth has refused to pay her.
She walks home, unable to do anything until the morning. She's got a spare at home.
Pinky, a well-meaning neighbor nearly runs her over
He gives her a ride home and she explains what happened in the mine
Pinky offers to give her a ride in the morning

Backstory: Heather has isolated herself from any friends or family that might be able to help her. She doesn't trust anyone and feels unworthy of being helped. Her parents were both mentally abusive and she spent her adolescent years bouncing from couch to couch of strangers, most of whom wanted sex in return for shelter. She married her ex-husband when she was only 18, the previous bar owner. He got her names on the papers and quickly bailed, leaving Heather with a bar stealing electricity. She felt ill-equipped to run the bar, and now it's about to be lost.

She lets Pinky in and he asks her what's in the box
He opens the box and finds a picture of a girl. She says she doesn't know who it is, and when he picks up the picture he sees Karen's photo. He says she looks familiar.
She tells Pinky she found the box under the house and to mind his own business, without looking at the picture
He asks her if she knows why she calls him Pinky
He reminds her of a time when she was 4, when her mother accused him of spying on her and stole his Pink Flamingo lawn ornament. Her mother started calling him Pinky
She becomes angry and yells for him to mind his own business and that her parents were useless
He tells her that if she keeps hiding everything from her parents under the house, she'll never know where she came from and she'll always be angry
He leaves and reminds her that he'll give her a ride in the morning
She at the table where the box is and stares at it, contemplating going through her parent's box.
Heather opens the box and pulls out letters her parents had exchanged before her mother's mental illness took a grip and pictures of herself as a child
As she goes through the pictures, good memories turn sour as she remembers her mother stumbling home drunk after a night doing God knows what and her father became so angry that he punched walls and then turned to alcohol and drugs to soothe his pain.
She remembers asking him why he didn't leave her, and he told her that her mother was ill and couldn't be blamed
She finds a wooden cross she made at her mother's church and remembers her bout of sudden religious awakening that lasted long enough for Heather to attend the church once, where she was harassed by older boys. Her father was too strung out by this point to care, and her mother blamed her for dressing seductively. She was 12
The last time she saw her parents when she was 15, her father sat outside in a lawn chair. He warned her through slurred speech and sweats to be prepared when she went into the house. She opened the door and found her mother and a known drug dealer having sex. She ran back outside and found her father laughing that he told her to be prepared.
She went to the house of her boyfriend, who told her she could sleep there that night but she'd have to sneak in. She continued doing this for a few days, but when she refused to sleep with him, he said his parents found out and, rather than lose his freedom, she had to find somewhere else to stay.
She was continuously mocked for being dirty and harassed as someone the boys felt was an easy lay until she finally quit going to school. She spent her days working odd jobs so she could save enough money to buy a car, which became her home until she met her ex-husband.
She met him when she walked in looking for work and a place to sleep. He agreed and told her she could live with him. After a few months, he asked her if she wanted to get married and put her name on the papers.
He abandoned her shortly after, and the apartment they shared informed Heather that he hadn't paid rent in over 5 months. She moved into the storage closet of the bar
10 years later, the neighboring restaurant changed hands, and they discovered that Heather's bar has been stealing electricity from them. They contact the electric company and now she owes the company the past dues or threatens a lawsuit which will surely bankrupt the small business. With the electricity now shut off, she has no choice but to move into her parents' now abandoned house. That was 3 months ago.

Crisis:

Heather goes to Strickland mansion to take her things from Elizabeth. She attacks Elizabeth, calling her names, to which Elizabeth responds with a smile and [people like you can't be trusted. I was taking precautionary action as an employer with a rogue employee].
When Elizabeth hands her the check and leaves, Heather looks at it. 500 dollars wouldn't cover even half of the liquor she needed to restock the bar.
Also, the check was made out to Heather Black. Her name on the bank account is Heather Coleman.
Heather goes after Elizabeth, her accent echoing through the house
Ethan comes in and tells her it sounded [like a cat is being mauled]. She's visibly upset and Ethan tries to help. She explains she needs the check made out to Heather Coleman and gives him the check Elizabeth gave her. He tells her to wait in the library and he'll get Elizabeth.
Heather is alone in the library. She admires a picture of a family on a yaght. A man and woman in their 30s with a young boy and girl, who Heather makes out as Ethan and Elizabeth. A plaque on a large antique desk has the title, "G. W. Strickland." George comes in with a checkbook.
George is a large man with a very burly voice, and Heather is intimated. He smiles, though, and the tension breaks.
He asks how much does she need to get out of the debt, and she doesn't understand. He gives her a check for 5,000 and says that should cover everything. The check is signed with a nearly illegible GW Strickland.
She's speechless, for once. Without changing his demeanor, he tells her if she ever comes back to the house or the mine again, she'll lose more than just the bar.
He tells her she's worthless and comes from a worthless family out to get free money and if she ever so much as looks at his son again, she will disappear and nobody will miss her.

Mer B

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