On the first day of the new semester, Patch opens the gallery while worrying about Charlotte, who waited until the last minute to say her sneakers hurt. As he sorts the mail, he finds an envelope that has slipped behind the desk. When he notices a Saint Paul postmark, he treats it as a new lead and, by noon, has pulled Charlotte out of school and started driving north on Route 63.

During the trip, Charlotte and Patch fall into the uneasy mix of affection and resentment that defines their new life together. At lunch in Columbia, Charlotte says she wants to be a writer and go to Harvard like her mother, then adds that unlike her mother she will not be a dropout. She also bluntly reminds Patch that she knows she was an accident, and Patch tries to defuse the sting with jokes. After overeating pie, Charlotte gets sick several times along the road, then sleeps as they approach Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Patch drives them to a gray clapboard house on Saint Paul Street, following the clue from the letter and a remembered comment about city lights on the Mississippi River. The house is clearly long abandoned. Later, while Charlotte sleeps in a cheap motel room, Patch calls Saint and explains that the forgotten letter felt like a sign. He says a neighbor told him the missing girl connected to the house was named Rosie Carter and that the Carters moved away after Rosie disappeared; the neighbor has promised to call if he learns where they went. Patch asks Saint to run the name and address, and Saint agrees.

The call turns into an argument about what Patch is really doing. Saint points out that Charlotte should be in school, while Patch says the missing girls are like brief lights in darkness that he cannot stop chasing before they vanish. He also says he has heard that Dr. Tooms may receive another legal stay, showing that even now he is still intervening in that case. Saint counters that Patch is not simply helping others but seeking absolution, and she names his compulsion as survivor's guilt. After Patch tries to end the call, Saint asks why he never painted her, and Patch answers that he never did because Saint never needed him to.