Saint is now working for Nix on the Monta Clare police force. Tooms is in prison for the murder of Callie Montrose, though he pled not guilty. The blood in Tooms’s house matched Callie’s blood, and some of his hair was found in Eli Aaron’s house. The assumption is that he supplied Aaron with the pills to subdue the girls. He was sentenced to death.

Saint and Nix discuss the case over lunch. She has painstakingly researched Tooms’s life and is unsure how he met Aaron or what his motive could be. Patch left town to look for Grace since his mother died a few years before.

Patch roams over the US, following leads on missing girls and hoping one might be Grace. He meets with the families, learns about the girls’ lives, and then paints their portraits. When he runs out of money, Sammy tells him he hasn’t sold any paintings recently and doesn’t have any to give him. Patch uses an unloaded gun to rob a bank and sends most of the money to a missing persons charity, using the little left for traveling expenses.

He meets a father called Walter Strike, who says he is glad to speak to someone who understands the loss.