In Charleston, Patch walks past wealthy old mansions and studies their details, imagining how they once looked before changes were made. He is still following old traces, so he goes to one house after remembering that Mya Levane's parents had once written to him about their daughter.

A housekeeper answers and initially listens, but the conversation changes when Patch asks about Mya. The housekeeper forces Patch back outside and tells him that Mya's body was found six months earlier. When Patch asks what happened, the housekeeper gently warns him that the truth is not something he wants to know.

Patch then mentions Grace, still trying to connect missing girls and find the one he seeks. The housekeeper stops him and says Mya was not Grace, explaining that Mya had been in Mexico at the time. That answer closes off another lead and confirms that Patch is still chasing fragments rather than certainty.

An hour later, Patch robs the Bank of South Carolina and leaves with a thousand dollars. He gives most of the money to homeless people by the Ashley River, keeping only two hundred, and a very young girl hugs him. He then rides a bus through the night without sleeping, touching his scar and reflecting on the years the search has consumed. As Patch thinks about how his pursuit might end, his thoughts settle on Eloise Strike and her father, Walter, because a hunch tells him that Walter may have been searching for the same girl Patch has been trying to find.