In 1971, Charlotte buys a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and decides to stop confining herself to Boston. She drives west under the open night sky, finding a sense of safety in its vastness and anonymity. For the first time in years she feels as if she is not running, and the journey begins to restore her.

Loneliness eventually pushes Charlotte to seek connection. She does not hunt for it, but young women approach her across cities: Grace in Nashville after a gig, Renée in St. Louis sending a drink, and Luce in Chicago, bold and unafraid, who declares the true curse would be immortality. Charlotte lets these women into her life and bed, reveling in their warmth and energy. She realizes she has been haunting herself with fear, not pursued by Sabine, and decides to stop living as if hunted.

Then the women begin to vanish. First, Grace can no longer be reached and Charlotte rationalizes it as touring. Next, Hannah invites Charlotte on a date and never appears or contacts her again. Finally, Luce is pulled from the river in Chicago, and Charlotte witnesses the vigil on the Clark Street Bridge.

Shaken, Charlotte calls Ezra from a Union Station pay phone, insisting “It’s her.” Ezra cautions that cities are large and that not every cruelty points to Sabine. That night Charlotte returns to the bridge, passes a growing memorial, and stops at the spot where she and Luce once stood. There she finds a single red rose tied to the post—Sabine’s clear calling card.

Charlotte abandons her yellow Beetle and takes her first flight west to San Francisco, briefly enduring the sunlight to watch the landscape fall away. She vows “Never again,” repeating it over weeks, months, and years as she lets darkness close in and resumes a life without life, guarding her lonely heart.

In Seattle, a condolence card reading “Time Heals” prompts Charlotte to reject the sentiment. She concludes that time does not heal but wears a person down, lulling them into believing the past stays buried.