Held at gunpoint after returning from below, Charlie leads the intruder upstairs to Bowditch’s safe. Knowing he cannot let the stranger discover the well, Charlie opens the safe, then flips the bucket and floods the floor with gold pellets. The man slips; Charlie tackles him, breaks his wrist, and seizes the .22.

Weighing murder against exposure, Charlie interrogates him, learning the name Christopher Polley. Instead of killing him, Charlie doles out four pellets, marches him outside, then shatters the other hand with a handshake and throws him over the fence, warning him never to return.

Charlie restores order: he gathers the scattered gold, locks it away, and returns home shaken and starving. He resolves to find the sundial for Radar despite the risks, convinced time is short and that the other world is real and reachable.

To misdirect attention, he builds a Chicago cover story. He wheels supplies up to 1 Sycamore, uses quicklime to finish the dead roach, stages magazines to help conceal the well, and packs. He writes a letter to his father about taking Radar to a miracle dog healer in Chicago, schedules an email to school, and tells Detective Gleason the same story.

That night Charlie gives Radar more pep pills, speaks briefly with his father by phone, and sets an early alarm. Driven by love for Radar and the lure of the other world’s mysteries, he plans to take her down the steps at dawn to seek the sundial.