Agents Patrick Jane and Lisbon were called to the scene of a body found in the Sacramento River near a train bridge. The victim, a female identifed as Celia Jovanovich, was strangled to death. A tattoo was found on her body, signifying that she was a member of the cult called Visualize, and old needle track marks were discovered between her toes, marking her as a heroin user, The tracks were old, indicating that she most likely had not been using for some time. While Jane was at the scene, he received a phone call from an FBI agent telling him that Kristina Frye's voice had been recorded on a radio show call in line. The recording was played for Jane, who identified the female body as Frye's. It also told him that she was still alive, though, in Jane's estimation, her abductor, the infamous Red John, usually did not keep his victims alive more than a few days.
Jane and Lisbon decided to visit Visualize's headquarters and talk with personnel there. Agent Cho was put to interrogating cult members and lower ranking staff at the church whilst Jane talked with his old friend, Brett Styles, the head of the cult. He met with Style alone and questioned him about Celia and asked him if he had been involved in her death. Styles vehemently denied any knowledge of her death and the two men chatted over old times together. Styles did say that Celia had been engaged, sight unseen, to a young male prep cook in the church's kitchen by the name of David Heron. Heron had never seen Celia, but had somehow fallen in love with her and felt that she was his one and only. It was found, by FBI agents, that Heron, upon turning twenty seven years of age, would inherit ten million dollars from his family. The inheritance came from old timber money. Until then, Heron would have to work for his living.
Heron was closely questioned by Agent Jane, but denied having anything to do with Celia's death, did not even now what she really looked like and was truly shocked by the news of her death. He was being questioned in the kitchen where he was employed when the lawyer for the cult stepped in and told him that he did not have to continue answering Jane's queries. Heron had been planning their marriage and life together within the church and now all his hopes and plans for the future were dashed by her killer. He very much hoped that the agents would find her killer. Lucy told the agents about how the cult members, once a week, would sit in front of a camera and confess all their sins, called a vent session, so that when and if a member chose to leave the cult voluntarily, the cult would say that they had all this dirt on the member and would they really want to leave or give out negative information on the church?
Jane returned to his car and found a fortune cookie wrapped in plastic on the hood of his car, the message saying that someone really needed his help. He did not know who might have left the cookie, looked about, did not see anyone and drove off.
Agent Van Pelt and a male agent talked to Lucy, a former cult member and friend of Celia, trying to find out if she knew anything valuable. Lucy didn't want to give out any information, fearing that the cult would kill her if they found out she had been talking to the FBI. The agents reassured her that any information she gave them was safe with them, so she told them that Lucy had confided in her that she had been having an affair with someone up high in the church and was afraid for her life. When the agents drove away, they discovered that they were being tailed by a vehicle, possibly some members of the cult. Stopping at a stop sign, their car was t-boned by an SUV, but no one seemed to be injured. Getting out, they found out that the other driver was an FBI agent also.
Jane suspected that the FBI had an undercover agent in the cult and approached that agent cautiously, asking him if he could get Jane access to the vent tapes because possibly Celia had mentioned the name of her lover/killer during a session, but the agent said no, it was too risky. Jane gained access to the tapes room and sat there in front of the survelliance cameras, was discovered and taken to the leader of the cult, Brett Styles, who asked him what did he think he was doing? Jane cut a deal with Styles, who loudly announced to the room full of high ranking cult members that he was being forced by Jane to show the tapes. When the lawyer for the cult loudly protested, Celia's lover was identified as him. The lawyer, alone with Jane and Lisbon, confessed that he had not meant to kill Celia, but they had quarreled and fought one night, he'd hit her and killed her accidentally. Frightened, he had dumped her body in the Sacramento river where it was found by police.
Styles phoned Jane to set up a meeting with him, handed him a small card with a certain address on it, encouraged Jane to go there now. Jane went with lots of backup, the house was cleared, and in a back room, Kristina Frye was found, alive, sitting on a chair, mute, refusing to speak. She was taken to an interrogtation room where Jane attempted to talk to her, to no avail. Psych personnel was called, but Jane made one more attempt to talk to her. He lit a small candle, darkened the room and pretended to conduct a seance to speak to the spirit of Kristina. She came alert and was speaking as though she were dead, in fact, did believe that she was dead. The two spoke for a few minutes and she returned to her mute state before being taken away.
Later, Lisbon informed Jane that his friend and cult leader, Brett Styles, was in Jakarta now, opening a new church center. It seemed that Jane suspected Styles of being Red John, perhaps.
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