The chapter shifts to Vincent Taylor’s perspective on the evening of June 13, 1975. Vincent tends a small, controlled fire, mindful of time and not wanting Lydia to worry or come looking for him. He explains that he told Lydia he was fetching her a sweatshirt, using that pretext to disappear long enough to dispose of incriminating evidence.

Vincent has dug a hole — a technique he says Danny taught him — and thrown a bloody shirt into it. He covers the shirt with trash collected from the high school at the end of the school year, noting the custodians had been slow to pick it up. He has changed into a musty clean shirt from his PE locker and has also grabbed a sweatshirt for Lydia.

He keeps his eyes open against the sting of heat and smoke, hoping the afterimage of flames will replace whatever else he is trying not to see. He watches a plastic cup warp and burn and deliberately lets the flames die down before the top layer of trash is fully consumed, wanting people to notice the trash but not probe deeper to the ashes of the T-shirt beneath.

When the fire is low enough, Vincent covers it with dirt and tampers down the area with his feet to ensure the embers are dead, then scuffs the surface to disguise the disturbed ground — again crediting Danny for teaching him how. He plans for how to explain the smell of smoke should anyone ask and heads back through the oak grove to rejoin Lydia.

The scene ends with Vincent intent on meeting Lydia, armed with a fabricated story and the sweatshirt she asked for, after disposing of the bloody shirt in a way designed to evade discovery.