Saint and Nix drive along Route 9 to follow up on a minor robbery at an isolated gas station. Saint takes a statement and watches grainy security footage, then the two stop at a worn diner. Nix praises Saint for learning the fundamentals of police work, asks about her grandmother, and asks whether Saint has heard from Patch.

The conversation turns to Patch's life after prom. Patch bought the house his mother had rented, worked in the mines, and stayed fixed on finding Callie and Grace. Saint says she has filed another visitation request for Marty Tooms, but Nix explains that Tooms still refuses to see anyone, even though Nix keeps visiting the prison just to look him in the eye.

From there, the chapter recounts the prosecution of Martin James Tooms. Tooms pleaded not guilty to Callie Montrose's murder, but Saint and the district attorney kept building the case while Patch repeatedly tried to confront him. Patch wrote dozens of letters to Tooms, swinging between pleading for answers, offering mercy, and threatening damnation, and Saint helped Patch prepare an impact statement describing the lasting damage of his captivity and his torment over Grace.

Tooms remained almost completely silent, and an insanity argument failed when the judge ruled that Tooms's planning showed forethought. The case tightened when hair recovered from Eli Aaron's burned house matched Tooms, and eight blood samples from the hidden underground room in Tooms's home matched Callie Montrose. In court, Callie's father broke down as the evidence showed Tooms had prescribed himself drugs and supplied them to Eli Aaron to sedate victims; even then, Tooms would not reveal where Callie's body was, though he cried when asked.

The night before sentencing, Patch followed Judge Heinemann home and spoke outside the judge's door about Grace and the life she should have had. The next day Heinemann sentenced Tooms to death, a shocking decision that sparked speculation that the sentence might pressure Tooms into revealing the locations of Callie and the rumored missing girl. Instead, Tooms stayed silent, and Saint sees that Patch has become exactly what he promised: someone willing to burn through every barrier in pursuit of the truth.