Misty drives Patch to Thurley State Park in her old Mustang, and they spend the night by a box canyon before starting at first light. Patch studies the vast woods and thinks about the girl Tooms claimed to have buried there, while Misty follows his lead through the terrain Saint had reconstructed from Tooms's statements.

Using Saint's directions, they move through the park toward an old, closed access road and a rusted sign marking the area. Patch tests the landscape against Tooms's story, checking the trails, the elevation, and the likely route a man with a body in his car would have taken.

When they climb the steep rooftop trail, Patch concludes that Tooms could not have carried a body that far. He and Misty turn back and keep examining the lower ground, with Patch stopping repeatedly to study breaks in the trees and patches of earth, trying to find any place that fits the confession.

Near the access road, Misty suddenly remembers that a storm had felled large sections of woodland around the time Patch was taken, and that the road near Turners Breach was not cleared until fall because of the Danby Dam disaster. Because that blocked road was the only practical way into this section, Misty realizes Tooms could not have driven there when he said he did.

The discovery changes the meaning of the entire search. Back at the old house, Patch calls Saint, who cautiously suggests Tooms may simply have remembered the location wrong. Patch rejects that explanation, decides Tooms lied, and pushes the possibility that the girl everyone thought buried there may still be alive.