Saint meets with Chief Nix and refuses to let the search for Patch fade into resignation. Exhausted and frayed, she keeps pressing him because she believes something in Misty Meyer’s account does not make sense.

Saint asks again about Dr. Tooms being in the woods near the place where Patch was attacked. Nix repeats that Dr. Tooms was there that morning because his dog had run off, and Misty had been helping him search.

As Saint heads for the door, she stops on the detail about the dog. Drawing on what she knows from living behind the Tooms farm and from years of crossing that land with Patch, Saint says plainly that Dr. Tooms does not have a dog. Her challenge turns Dr. Tooms’s explanation into something suspicious and raises a new possible lead in Patch’s disappearance.

Before Nix can answer, the phone rings. Saint watches the color leave his face, signaling that the call brings terrible news. By that afternoon, Monta Clare learns that another girl has gone missing, widening the danger from Patch’s case into a larger threat hanging over the town.