That evening, Saint sits at her desk with the Macauley file, trying to regain her focus after Patch disrupted her thinking and after the chaos caused by Richie Montrose’s death and Chief Nix’s suicide. The workload ahead feels heavier than anything she has faced since taking over, and Deputy Michaels stays nearby despite Saint telling him to go home because he senses she will need help.

Saint methodically reviews the facts she has and the gaps she still needs to close. She knows Nix took his gun, drove to Darby Falls, entered Richie Montrose’s home, and shot Richie once in the chest. She also weighs Martin Tooms’s claim about searching for a dog, recognizing that even if part of that story is true, it does not clear him; Tooms still could have encountered Misty by chance while pursuing another motive. Amid the confusion, Saint fixes on the one hard fact she cannot ignore: Callie Montrose’s blood was found in Marty Tooms’s farmhouse.

As Saint prepares to leave, the lab calls with new forensic results. Expecting Himes, she instead speaks to Lucy Alston, who reports fingerprint matches from the letter found beside Richie’s body, the one reading, “I’ll see you in hell.” Saint first learns that Nix’s prints are on it, which fits what she already suspects, but Lucy then adds two more matches: Martin Tooms and Joseph Macauley.

The discovery sharply changes the shape of the investigation. What had seemed like overlapping but still separable threads now connect directly through physical evidence, linking Richie Montrose’s final scene not only to Nix but also to Tooms and the old Macauley case Saint has been reviewing.