To Serve And Protect

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Isabel tries to convince Valenti once again to search for the girl, but Valenti says he doesn’t have enough information to do anything. Isabel then tells him she saw the girl’s car – a silver Honda or Toyota (she’s not good with cars). Valenti assures her that he’ll look through the abandoned vehicles report. He then goes to the Crashdown, where he has a discussion with a former classmate, Judith Foster, who tells him that she’s concerned about her daughter Melissa. It seems Melissa hasn’t called her mother since she went to visit friends in Santa Fe. Valenti remembers that Melissa drives a silver car, and immediately starts an investigation. Valenti shows Isabel and Max a picture of Melissa Foster, and Isabel is unsure it’s the girl from her dreamwalking, but thinks it has to be. Lying on her bed, she dreamwalks yet again, and this time, she sees the kidnapper – Grant Sorenson.

Isabel and Max once again go to Valenti, who then travels to a golf course in an attempt to get a search warrant from a golfing judge, but the judge refuses. Undeterred, Valenti takes it upon himself to confront Grant at his campsite, where he spots a large vinyl bag. Despite Grant’s protests and the lack of a search warrant, he unzips the bag…to find photosensitive equipment inside. Valenti is in trouble yet again. Dan the investigator is furious, and he and Valenti are arguing heatedly, when suddenly, Melissa Foster shows up, alive and well.

Valenti tells Isabel and Max that nothing was found at Sorenson’s site, and Isabel apologizes, worried that she’s caused trouble for the sheriff. Meanwhile, Max berates Isabel for possibly getting Valenti fired, and for basically being wrong. Isabel says she knows that, but maybe she needed the girl to be missing so that she could do something good for a change with her alien heritage. Max assures her that he believes in her and always will. He then tells her to get some sleep because she looks "really bad"…which shows that Max obviously is in need of glasses.

In her room and dreamwalking once more, Isabel sees further details of the events of the kidnapping, and screams out for Max, who comes in to comfort her. Max calls Valenti and tells him that it’s not Melissa Foster, but another girl who’s in danger – and he now knows where she is. When Isabel, Max, and Valenti meet and search the clearing in Frazier’s Woods, Valenti finds a hose half-buried in the ground and leading to a set of oxygen tanks. The other end leads to a girl buried underground in a clear plastic box. As they struggle to get her out, a gunman aims at the trio, and then shoots. But Max holds the gunfire off by using his force field, and Isabel breaks the plastic of the box by using her own powers. Valenti shoots at the gunman, just as Dan the Investigator arrives on the scene. He is suspicious that Max and Isabel are there, but once again, Valenti gives nothing away.

Having been rescued, the girl, whose name is Laurie, lies on a stretcher, unhurt but shaken. She thanks Isabel for saving her life, then takes Isabel’s hand. Upon contact, Isabel gets a flash of something resembling cells. She tells Max that there’s something about the girl – "It’s like I know her." They watch as an ambulance takes Laurie away.

Judith Gerber