Pretty Red Balloon

Lisbon’s team is called in when nine-year-old Connor Flint is abducted from his school bus stop but when Jane arrives at the family home he realises the boy’s mother, Beth, is a former client from his days as a phoney psychic… and she still believes he has powers. What’s more, Beth has a new psychic in tow: Nate Glass.

Two other boys have recently been taken in similar circumstances and both were found dead only 12 hours later, so time is of the essence. The team look into the two previous abductions and call in various witnesses but soon realise the killer would have needed a high vantage point to see one of the kids. This points to one of the witnesses – Brady Walton, a telephone line repairman.

The agents head to his home to bring him in, only to be met by machine gun fire. They’re pinned down but Van Pelt sneaks in and takes the killer down. Of Connor, however, there’s no sign. Jane has known all along that Walton didn’t take the boy, though as yet he has no idea who did.

The team re-examine the family members: Beth is in debt and would inherit a lot of money if Connor died; Uncle Deke is a gambler, but he’s wealthy; and Connor’s half-brother Jonathan is clearly there to comfort his step-mother, Beth. Then Jane begins to understand and performs a psychic act in front of them. Pretending he’s getting an image of where Connor is being held, he watches the reactions of the family members and instructs the agents accordingly.

Some time later, the team follow a hoodied man to a hide in the woods where they find the missing boy. Half-brother Jonathan is the culprit; he was trying to wheedle his way into Beth’s affections and believed he could do that best if she was going through a crisis.