Saint walks up Rosewood Avenue to the Macauley house while the search for Patch continues. Small neighborhood details feel abandoned or suspended, and Patch’s carved skull and crossbones on the yard’s red oak marks the house immediately. Inside, Saint notices both Ivy Macauley’s attempt to look respectable and the poverty and disorder of the home.

Ivy greets Saint with a smoky, alcohol-tinged hug, and the two sit in a kitchen made tense by the steady drip of a leaking faucet. When Saint says Chief Nix plans to search the house again, Ivy reacts defensively and asks whether they think Patch has stolen something else. Saint denies it, though she remembers Patch recently stealing Dr. Tooms’s cufflinks and pawning them.

As Ivy smokes, she studies Saint and asks her age, briefly shifting the mood. Then Ivy returns to the search and says they will find Patch that day because, unlike the girls harmed in other cases, Patch is a boy. Ivy speaks bitterly about violent men, arguing that many only pretend to be decent, which reveals both her fear for Patch and her hard view of the world.

Ivy asks how many people are searching the woodland and whether Misty Meyer is all right. Her sympathy is mixed with resentment, because she feels the search should be centered on the missing child rather than on the wealthy Meyers’ daughter. She also says she wants to be out searching herself, but Nix ordered her to stay home in case a call comes.

Before Saint leaves, Ivy reties Saint’s braid with practiced ease, creating a brief, intimate moment. Ivy ends the scene by insisting Patch is alive and saying she would feel it if he were dead. Her certainty is less evidence than a mother’s refusal to give up hope.