Without a Trace 9-23-08

We see two men running through the streets. The chaser disappears.

Sam is back from maternity leave, struggling to hide the multitude of stains. There is a new agent. Medina reports that a Ryan Mitchell was reported missing by his ex-wife. Mitchell's daughter disappeared three years ago and was never found.

Medina starts asking for strategy and assigns different interviews, but leaves Jack out of the loop. Jack looks pissed.

16 hours missing. They are interviewing the ex-wife. Wondering why he'd chase a guy wondering if there would be anything he wouldn't tell the police. She said yes, he was very involved in finding his daughter. During a flashback we find out that he was with the daughter when she went missing. The wife tells him to let her go. She then reports that every Sunday the dad and daughter would go for icecream. The dad hasn't been able to revisit the street, but the mom goes every week.

They are listening to the first interview that the dad gave after his daughter's disappearance. They flash back to where the girl goes missing. They had just left the ice cream shop when someone bumps into him, he drops his stuff and when he reaches down to pick it up she vanishes. No one saw the girl after she went missing. They discuss whether or not the girl may have known her abductor.

Ryan, the dad, paid a psychic and at 18 hours missing the team is at the psychic's place of business. They ask the psychic where Ryan is, the psychic says he can't talk about it. They ask if he's hiding behind "Psychic/Client Privilege"

The psychic tells them that things are not always as they seem. During the flashback the psychic is telling of a black wall. He asks Mr. Mitchell, "what are you hiding?" Then says "you killed your daughter." Says he didn't report that to the police because he was afraid he'd be killed.

19 hours missing we're back in the office. Jack and Sam are discussing the liklihood that he killed the daughter. Sam argues that he wouldn't have kept up the search for three years. She then offers up Ryan's Easy Pass log they match his sales calls except for one. Then they discover he's joined a support group for parents with missing children. The support group leader says she doesn't think he killed her. He was starting to help other parents deal with their loss.

The team speaks with parents who were being helped by Ryan. One of the parent's disclosed that Ryan had hated the psychic and hadn't seen him in a long time. However, the last check to clear Ryan's bank was to that psychic and it was quite large. The team had assumed that the large check was for keeping the secret. The parent said Ryan intended on exposing the psychic as a fraud.

Jack is in therapy discussing the new boss. Jack says he's a "good soldier" the therapist asks if he can be a soldier when he has been a general. Jack says the job is about finding people. The therapist says the Universe gives us advice. She advises him to examine why he does the things he does. She asks if this job is supposed to cost this much. He says self awareness does not lead to transformation, it leads to self justification. She asks why he keeps coming back, he's not required to be there.

20 hours missing. They have the psychic in the interview room. Accusing him of killing Ryan. They remind him that he committed a felony by lieing to a federal agent and he's going to lose everything fighting to keep himself out of jail. They flash back to a scene where Ryan is handing the psychic a check and telling the psychic to leave the other parents alone. It's not the grief that kills you, it's the hope.

The team finds a lead in the another kid's disappearance. They track it back to a guy that looks exactly like the sketch of the guy being chased by Ryan. It was also a guy who had been visited by Ryan several weeks prior, and had a recent arrest for kiddie porn. Sam and Martin go to check him out only to be told that he'd left an hour ago. They see him on the street. Sam chases after him on foot, Martin blocks him with his car, and Sam punches him in the face knocking him out.

21 hours missing Jack goes into Medina's office and tells him of a lead up in Albany where the body of the missing boy may have been buried. Sam asks Jack to cover for her while she runs home to check the baby. Medina asks who should go to Albany. Medina tells Jack "let's take your car."

When they get up to Albany, they run into a kid who saw Ryan digging lots of holes on his father's farm. The kid asked Ryan what he was doing, he answered that his friend had lost something and he was looking for it. Ryan tells him, it's not here, I made a mistake. Asks the kid to tell his dad he's sorry for digging all the holes.

He then gives up the search for that kid as well as his own. But the team has found his daughter. All the little puzzle pieces lead to a substitute teacher the girl had right before her disappearance. But now they have to find Ryan as well. The get an Easy Pass hit and discover him at the icecream shop. They take him back to the office where he sees his daughter and his ex-wife.