The episode begins with a teenaged girl in a room as she writes in her diary. She hears something at the door, and a young child is pushed in. The teenager is chained around her ankle.
Later, this teenager’s body is discovered in a shallow grave, a bullet wound in her back. She wears no shoes, but cuts on her feet and scratches on her arms lead Five-0 to believe she may have been running when she was shot in the back.
Tire tracks are at the scene, but no other evidence, except a foreign hair on the girl’s body.
Autopsy results of scar tissue and calcification at the ankle bone show that this girl has been restrained for years.
Her fingerprints reveal that she is Amanda Morris, and she disappeared when she was seven years old. She is now 17. Age progression technology proves her identity.
Meanwhile, Kono, who hasn’t heard from Adam in a number of weeks, goes to his place to find some clues to his whereabouts.
Two men with guns show up. After a brief confrontation with Kono, they surmise she is Adam’s cop girlfriend and inadvertently tell her Adam must be with Sato.
Back at headquarters, the team learns from Fong that the hair on Amanda’s body belongs to a six year-old girl, who went missing the day before. Her name is Ella Bishop.
McGarrett and Danny pay Ella’s parents a visit. They also put out a Mailee Amber Alert and enlist the help of Mailee’s father and his motorcycle buddies.
At the parents’ house, Danny promises the couple they will find Ella and bring her back home. McGarrett is very upset with Danny for making such a promise that he may not be able to keep.
A neighbor in Ella’s neighborhood reports that a van had been spotted driving around the day Ella went missing. Mailee’s father and buddies get a lock on the van, and McGarrett and Danny arrest the driver, who turns out to be a burglar, but not a kidnapper. Stolen property is found in his garage. He had obviously been casing houses in the neighborhood to rob them.
Meanwhile, Kono asks Catherine to help her find out the identity of Sato.
As Chin and Kono later look at footage from a camera in Ella’s neighborhood, Chin notices a red car that passes through the same intersection six times. It is registered to a Helen Cantera.
When the team goes to Cantera’s house, they discover the car, which is now blue, and Cantera inside the house. Before they can arrest her, she commits suicide.
Kono finds a closet full of uniforms – police, nurse, etc. – people that children would trust. They decide Cantera must be taking children for someone else. There is no evidence at the scene that either girl has been in the house. Chin does, however, find a bracelet belonging to Ella in the car trunk.
Catherine gets back to Kono, and tells her that Sato is connected to the Yakuza and to Hiro Noshimuri, Adam’s father, and that Adam is at Sato’s place.
Danny and McGarrett listen to a call on Cantera’s cell phone from a David Parsons in Vital Records. He gives false ID’s to the children Cantera takes, and the last one he gave was to Ella. Her new ID is Lisa Beckett, and her parents are listed as Ray and Terry Beckett. They are a real married couple on welfare. The benefits for their older daughter, Jessica, run out in a month. Jessica is believed to be Amanda.
Danny and McGarrett go to the Beckett house, where McGarrett discovers a room behind a bookcase. This is the room both girls have been in.
They separate the husband and wife. While McGarrett is questioning the wife, he tells her that her husband killed Jessica and shows her a picture.
Unaware that this happened, the wife tells McGarrett that her husband took Jessica someplace on his truck.
McGarrett questions the husband about this and, getting nothing, he leaves Danny alone with the husband to whatever fate may occur. Before he leaves, he asks Danny for his badge, then walks away.
In the next scene, the team finds Ella buried alive in a box. She is reunited with her parents as Danny looks on.
There is a final scene of Amanda’s parents reading her diary, holding each other, crying. As cops clear the bedroom where the girls were held captive, a voiceover of Amanda reading her diary is heard.