A House Is Not A Home

A House Is Not A Home is the seventh episode of Season 1 of The Player.

Summary
Alex travels to Chicago to stop an enraged father from avenging his family; and Cassandra discovers the location of the next attack and sends Alex to prevent it. Meanwhile, Mr. Johnson has ulterior motives for going to Chicago.

Plot
When a bomb explodes in a Chicago bank, a new bet is on, taking both Alex (Philip Winchester) and Johnson (Wesley Snipes) to the Windy City. The bomber, Javier Cruz, is a laid-off demolition expert who has gone vigilante after losing his home to foreclosure. Alex intervenes twice, first to save the reporter who was bribed to kill Cruz's story and then to talk Cruz down from killing the bank CEO, ultimately winning the Game.

Meanwhile, Johnson is in Chicago to visit his old friend Samuel Letts (Richard Roundtree), who believes someone is coming after the House. Letts assures Johnson his people will find answers, but it's a promise he will be unable to keep. A few hours later, Johnson discovers Letts dead, his throat slit. In the wake of this attack, Johnson calls Cassandra out on having a side agenda and tells her to let it go. They have bigger problems. Cassandra does indeed have a side project: looking into Ginny's disappearance. Hacking into Johnson's personal database, Cassandra discovers the photo of Ginny at Miami's airport was doctored. The original photo was taken in a small Nevada town. Cassandra travels to a mountain cabin near this town, where someone has recently been in residence. Cassandra calls to Ginny, offering to help, but no one answers.

Back in Las Vegas, Ginny's mother, Barbara, is in town to sell Ginny's house. Alex gets two important things from her visit: the statement (said by Barbara while drunk) that Ginny was a liar who never had an honest day in her life and a mysterious key, taken from Barbara's keychain, marked with Ginny's name.

Main

 * Philip Winchester as Alex Kane
 * Charity Wakefield as Cassandra King
 * Damon Gupton as Detective Cal Brown
 * Wesley Snipes as Mr. Johnson

Minor

 * Richard Roundtree as Samuel Letts