Patch finally reaches Marty Tooms and begins with the confrontation he has imagined for years. Tooms says that Patch fought so hard to stay alive only to die in prison, and Patch admits that he had prepared words for this moment but, now that he is here, all he wants is to reach through the bars, grab Tooms by the throat, and force him to reveal where the missing girl is.

Instead of resisting, Tooms apologizes. Patch studies Tooms's face, his age, and the slight shaking in his hands, and Patch realizes that the remorse appears genuine. Patch presses the central wound between them by reminding Tooms that Tooms had said she was dead.

The narration then widens to Tooms's future: in seven months, the state will execute him by lethal injection after twenty years of waiting. The coming execution is described as both bureaucratic and public, with activists, witnesses, and local news turning the killing into a final act of vengeance, while Patch and Grace remain alone in its shadow.

As Patch notices Blackjack at the door, Patch asks the question that matters most: whether Tooms really killed her. Tooms does not answer with words. Staring out at the skyline, Marty Tooms begins to cry, suggesting guilt, grief, or a truth more complicated than the one Patch has been carrying.