In Huntersville, Patch meets another mother of a missing girl and collects another photograph for his search. He then sits with Misty in the basilica while she prays and admits she now struggles to pray because she feels she has already been given enough. They kiss, and even in that tender moment Patch is pulled back to his memories of Eli Aaron’s victims and the details that still keep the past present for him.

Patch spends much of his free time in the public library, reading through years of news and expanding his search beyond the immediate area into surrounding states. He builds a larger archive of names and faces, makes copies at a Xerox shop, and leaves them on Chief Nix’s desk. Nix no longer argues with him or openly discusses the search, but he quietly takes the copies and files them away.

At home and at the gallery, Patch lives in an uneasy balance between ordinary routines and private obsession. He barbecues with Sammy on Sundays, hears Sammy brush off a woman named Nina, and moves tentatively forward with Misty until he finally asks her to prom at Elion Point. At the same time, Patch works at the mine, cares for his mother, struggles to keep up with rent and utilities, and makes sure Misty never has to enter his troubled home. When he occasionally passes Saint in town, Patch is comforted by the thought that she will soon leave him behind.

Because travel and searching cannot resolve his grief, Patch turns more fully to painting. Sammy recognizes Patch’s growing talent and mostly watches rather than teaches as Patch paints the Birch girl and the Huntersville girl, then ships the finished portraits to their mothers. Carol Birch later comes to Monta Clare and breaks down in gratitude when she sees Patch.

Patch then paints Callie Montrose with the same care, and the portrait draws townspeople to the gallery window for an entire day. Chief Nix lingers there longest, visibly troubled by the image. When the painting is shipped to Richie Montrose, Richie sends it back, and Nix explains the reason simply: sometimes the pain of seeing what was lost is too great.