Who is the mystery man that attacked Neil? And why is he in Liam’s apartment? Episode 3 of ABC’s “Secrets and Lies” wastes no time picking up after the episode 2 cliffhanger.

While the mysterious blonde man who Detective Cornell (Juliete Lewis) has a sketch of is clearly a suspect in the death of Kate Warner (Jordanna Brewster), he’s the one grilling Eric (Michael Ealy) about whether he had a hand in his wife’s murder. Since he denies killing Kate as well, the question is: Why is he ransacking Liam’s (Graham Phillips) apartment? It turns out that he’s not looking for Liam. He’s looking for a 19-year-old girl named Carly who was photographed at the company party talking to Liam and Neil (Eric Winter). It’s not clear why he’s looking for Carly, but he does reveal that Kate sent him the photo right before she died.

Desperate for answers, Eric brings this new information to Cornell. However, Cornell brushes him off. In fact, she seems more suspicious than ever of Eric. So, what’s Eric to do? He goes crawling back to Amanda (Mekia Cox) for legal advice, despite her giving him a list of other attorneys to call last week. And like any good sister, Amanda agrees to take on Eric’s case again.

But Eric might need a lot more help. His secretary reveals that she did some digging on Liam, and that his whole resume was fabricated. The name and social security number he stole is of a boy from Boon who died in a car accident. Eric remembers that Boon is where Kate was from, and where she gave her baby up for adoption. He speculates that she hired Liam to be near her son, who would be about the same age. However, the issue is deeper than just Kate doing a favor for a blood relative. Liam had direct access to confidential credit information from investors. To top it off, all the files from his office are gone.

With so many secrets piling up, Eric is furious. And it doesn’t get any better when he goes to a motel and discovers that Kate had checked in with her ex-boyfriend before her death. He’s about to angrily confront the man when he has a flashback to that fateful punch in high school that killed a fellow student. He decides to turn around and go home, but home isn’t that much better. Eric exits the elevator to find his crazy ex-girlfriend, Tina (Nikiva Dionne), waiting outside his door.

“I didn’t tell the detective anything,” she yells, causing his neighbors to look.

Unfortunately for Eric, she’s not a great character witness. He reveals to Amanda the next day that he dated Tina for a couple months before things got “weird.” She ended up harassing him and showing up at his place after he broke off their relationship. One night she showed up covered in bruises, threatening to go to the cops if he didn’t get back together with her. Amanda encourages Eric to stay low while she gets a restraining order out.

Work is the only thing keeping Eric sane in all of this. However, that might be crumbling as well. While a majority of his employees have returned to work, many of the investors are leaving the company. So when Cornell summons him to the police station shortly after an investor tell him to his face that the accusation of murder is enough to “taint” him and the firm, he decides that he’s done cooperating with the detective. He refuses to answer when she asks for his version of events regarding Tina.

“If you want to arrest me, come and get me,” he tells her.

Although he’s no longer willing to play nice with Cornell, he’s not stopping his own investigation into Kate’s death. He decides to pull security footage from the office building, but discovers that video from between 7-10pm the night of Kate’s death is missing. The security guard tells him that the computer was rebooted, or someone erased everything. Footage from before and after that time does reveal something suspicious, though. Liam exited the building that night with a box. Further digging reveals that Liam has since stole the identity of four investors to open unlimited lines of credit.

Eric alerts the fraud department and tells them that the company will pay for everything, but he still has to tell his father. He finds his dad, John (Terry O’Quinn), at a rehab facility. John visits his wife there every Monday. Another flashback reveals that Eric’s mom was intoxicated and fell down a flight of steps when Eric, Amanda and Patrick (Charlie Barnett) were young. It appears as though there might be more to that story, but “Secrets and Lies” fans are kept in the dark.

To Eric’s surprise, his dad tells him not to go to the police with the information regarding Liam. Although it’s clear that Kate was onto Liam before her death, John argues that this reveal could affect hundreds of lives. Eric doesn’t agree with his dad, especially since Liam could be the one responsible for Kate’s death. But the topic isn’t open for discussion. John tells his son that if he can’t trust him, then he must obey him.

Eric goes to the bar to day drink his issues away and ends up running into his brother. Patrick takes him back to the house to sober him up, which is where Kate’s ex, Shane Campbell (Carter MacIntyre), finds them.

Shane saw Eric in his parking lot the other night and wants to set the record straight. He claims that Kate invited him to the motel and that nothing happened. She wanted him to install tracking software on her iPad, and yes, he made a pass at her, but she wasn’t interested. Shane doesn’t know what she wanted to track, but Eric has an idea. He shows Patrick the blackmail letters and explains that the motel is right across the street from where the drop was supposed to take place. Kate was trying to track the money.

Eric gets a phone call from Amanda before he can do any more digging. Cornell wants them at the police station, but this time it’s for a good reason. The detective found out from other men that Tina has a history of accusations. She lengthened the restraining order that Amanda took out against her.

Cornell also found out about Shane’s digital tracking software. Since she did Eric a favor, she wants to know if Kate had any devices other than her work computer. Although Cornell finally seems to be on his side, Eric’s not willing to budge. He lies to the detective and doesn’t tell her about Kate’s secret second iPad.

Amanda views this latest development as a win. She tells Eric that Cornell isn’t focused on him anymore, and to not do anything that will put him back in the detective’s sights. But Eric isn’t going to let this Liam thing rest. He gets Amanda to run the plates on the car that picked him up that night and ends up at the driver’s doorsteps. A woman answers the door and appears afraid. Eric demands answers … and the mysterious man from earlier in the episode makes himself known. He’s got a gun to the woman’s head and reveals that she knows where Liam is, but isn’t talking yet. He asks if Eric is going to stay or go — and Eric doesn’t move from the front steps.

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