As 7:40 approaches, Betty Brady realizes she may have to go to Holman Rink despite the autograph seekers hemming her in at the Mingo. Outside the rink, Holly waits with her revolver, paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong move while listening to Donald Gibson rant inside in multiple voices, including the "Daddy" voice that confirms his instability. At the same time, Izzy Jaynes takes the mound in the charity softball game and, after an ugly warm-up pitch, settles down and dominates with her dropball. In the Mingo lobby, mysterious signs naming Kate McKay, Betty, Corrie, Barbara, and Gibson as "guilty" draw attention away from the event and deepen the sense that something coordinated and dangerous is happening.

Izzy keeps shutting down the fire department team, but tension rises as firefighters accuse her of cheating and the crowd grows more hostile. When George Pill hits a grounder and races to first, Izzy covers the bag to take the throw, and Pill deliberately crashes into her hard enough to wreck her shoulder. That injury ignites a full-scale brawl between players and fans, escalating into a riot serious enough to overturn a police car. The chaos clears Betty's path, so Betty leaves with Red's gun in her purse, takes heart pills, and heads for the rink; when one last autograph hound follows her, Betty brandishes the gun and sends him running.

While the riot spreads, Red finally admits to Jerome that Betty took his loaded .38, and Jerome realizes Betty has gone after Gibson. Jerome finds Betty collapsed near the trees; Betty tells Jerome that Barbara is inside the rink with a crazy man named Gibson, but warns that Gibson expects Betty to knock and say, "It's me." Inside, Trig sits beside the bound Kate McKay and rejects Kate's attempt to make herself the sole target, insisting the situation is about guilt rather than fame. As the deadline passes, Trig nearly executes Corrie, then delays for five more minutes because "Daddy" says women are always late.

Jerome reaches Holly outside the rink and explains that only Betty's voice will get the door open. Holly reluctantly knocks, pretends to be Betty, and answers Gibson's demand for a confession of guilt. Gibson believes her enough to unlock the door, but he has already decided to light the rink before answering it; he ignites the Kingsford-soaked pile at center ice and then opens up. The instant Gibson sees Holly instead of Betty, Holly shoots him twice in the chest and Jerome shoots him again, killing him before he can use his own weapon. Holly and Jerome rush inside and find the fire spreading rapidly along the crisscrossed wooden ties while Barbara, Corrie, and Kate remain taped in place.

Holly frees Barbara first because Barbara is both the nearest and Holly's most personal priority, while Jerome tries to smother the flames with Gibson's coat before giving up and helping with the captives. Betty, having recovered enough to reach the rink, arrives with a pocketknife from her purse, and Jerome uses it to cut Corrie and then Kate loose. Barbara helps Betty out, Jerome carries Corrie when her legs fail, and Holly drags Kate outside as smoke and heat intensify. Jerome then drags Gibson's body out, and Holly and Kate go back for Christopher Stewart's corpse and haul that body out as well. With the arena about to go up completely, Holly finds the keys in Kate's van, the group loads the bodies into the back, and Kate insists on driving the survivors away from the burning rink.