After another bad dream about the bat attack on Kate McKay, Holly Gibney wakes before sunrise and acts on two new lines of inquiry. Holly emails Jerome, asking him to search for churches with records of militant protests against abortion, women’s rights, or LGBTQ+ causes, because Holly now suspects Kate’s female stalker is a religious extremist. Holly also emails John Ackerly and asks him, if anonymity rules allow it, to ask around recovery circles about someone named Trig, because Holly now believes Trig may be the killer’s real name or nickname.

Later that Sunday morning, Izzy Jaynes and Tom Atta visit defense lawyer Russell Grinsted at home. Grinsted’s wife, Erin, sends them to the backyard gazebo and immediately gives the impression that the marriage is cold and strained. Izzy and Tom question Grinsted about his whereabouts on key dates connected to the murders. Erin confirms that both she and Russell own guns, but the weapons she names do not match the likely murder weapon. For May 4, Grinsted produces an appointment book entry showing that an IT worker, Jimmy Sykes, came to fix his computer, giving the detectives a lead to check.

When Izzy asks about May 20, the night Reverend Mike Rafferty was killed, Grinsted first claims he was playing poker. Erin calmly destroys that alibi by revealing that Russell was actually with his mistress, Jane Haggarty, and that she has known about the affair for over a year. The disclosure humiliates Grinsted but may also clear him of the murder if Haggarty confirms his whereabouts. Izzy and Tom then confront Grinsted with the overlooked Plastic Man comic-book evidence from Alan Duffrey’s case and make clear that Grinsted failed to investigate properly. Tom deliberately calls him Trig, but Grinsted shows no guilty reaction, and Izzy finally concludes that the Briggs-to-Trig lead was a coincidence and that Holly’s suspicion of Grinsted was wrong.

While the detectives are ruling Grinsted out, the real Trig is driving through rural Cowslip County. Trig reflects on his killings as another form of addiction, comparing murder to alcoholism and deciding that the urge has taken control of him. Trig thinks the killing of Mike Rafferty may have been the moment when the compulsion fully took over. Remembering the young woman he recently left at a shelter, Trig feels his appetite for violence sharpen again and stops on Route 121 when he sees an elderly farmer driving an old tractor.

Trig waves the farmer down as if asking directions, then shoots the man twice in the chest with the Taurus .22. Trig calmly places slips bearing juror names in the farmer’s straw hat, settles the body upright on the tractor, and leaves the scene without panic, feeling a temporary sense of relief. As Trig drives away, he admits to himself that he is going to be caught, especially because altering Rafferty’s calendar may have exposed the name Trig. When a State Police cruiser speeds up behind him, Trig prepares for a final confrontation and even considers killing the trooper, but the cruiser passes by. Reassured only for the moment, Trig decides he is not finished and keeps driving, still determined to continue the murders.