The next morning, Patch robs a South Atlantic Bank at gunpoint, forces a young teller to hand over cash, and drives away on Interstate 95. A police car follows him for several miles before passing, and the near miss makes Patch think that if he is ever caught, his only regret will be failing to find what he has been chasing. He gives almost all of the stolen money to the Harvey Robin Foundation, using crime to sustain the search while also supporting an organization that helps families of missing girls.

Patch continues his routine with two more families, painting their daughters and sending the finished canvases to Sammy. He barely calls anyone and avoids thinking about home because he no longer knows where home is, though he keeps his house in Monta Clare because it is his last concrete tie to where everything started. A month later, he moves on again, traveling from Silverton through Red Mountain Pass, Calf Creek Falls, and Bryce Canyon, meeting parents, grandparents, and friends who still cannot let go of the girls they lost. Patch studies old home movies and listens for familiar voices, but each time he cannot identify one, his hope sinks.

In the early morning, Patch calls Saint and leaves a message about a memory of Grace that has returned with painful clarity. In the memory, Grace tells Patch that every person has a unique voice, shaped by the body like a fingerprint, and she says she finds terrible comfort in knowing that each final scream is utterly personal and will never be heard again. The memory shows how strongly Grace still inhabits Patch’s mind and how his search is driven not only by evidence, but by the lingering intimacy of what he learned beside her in the dark.

Patch then travels farther west and south, passing from the Colorado River to Sedona and on to Phoenix and the Apache Trail. In Mesa Verde, he stops at a small church, joins morning mass, lowers his head, and offers an apology, then places a hundred dollars from the robbery into the collection plate. Outside, an elderly woman selling rosaries and handmade goods explains that rosaries mark prayers and symbolize the joyful, glorious, and sorrowful mysteries, and she says her son was buried with his. When she adds that rosaries are cut on the dead to prevent another death from following, Patch immediately presses on the implication, asking what happens when the beads are left uncut, and the woman responds only by crossing herself and returning to her work.