As Holly prepares to follow Kate McKay’s tour to Madison, Izzy calls with mixed news. Russell Grinsted is definitively cleared as Trig, but a forensic review of Reverend Rafferty’s calendar confirms that the altered note really says Trig, not Briggs, giving the investigation a stronger lead through recovery circles. Holly blames herself for the Grinsted detour, yet Izzy pushes her to stop apologizing and to recognize that her deduction about the handwriting mattered. Holly then coordinates with Corrie, accepts Kate’s thanks for stopping the baseball-bat attacker, and asks Jerome to investigate extremist churches while she drives on to Wisconsin.

At the Davenport Rest, the stalker wakes in his male identity, Chris, and remembers an earlier anti-abortion campaign by Real Christ Holy Church in Rawcliffe, Pennsylvania. In Chris’s recollection, Brenda Blevins and a group of wealthy local women called Brenda’s Bitches mocked the church’s protesters by charging them on pink motor scooters outside a women’s clinic. Chris and Jamie Fallowes retaliated by spreading cooking oil over the parking lot, causing the scooters to wipe out and injure the riders. The church avoided punishment because its lawyer argued that the counter-protesters had initiated the confrontation, and the evidence favored that account.

That memory curdles when Chris thinks of his mother, Gwen Stewart, who refused to help incriminate the church even after being struck by a scooter mirror. Chris remembers that she later died of leukemia after Pastor Jim rejected medical treatment in favor of prayer, and he recalls how she had once protected her twins when their father wanted them cast out. The recollection reveals both Chris’s attachment to his mother and the church’s harsh, controlling worldview.

While Holly is driving through Illinois, Izzy informs her that Trig has killed again: an elderly farmer named George Carville has been found shot on his tractor, with more juror names left behind. Holly reaches Madison soon after, where she joins Kate and Corrie for lunch and learns that Kate’s Friday appearance at the Mingo is back on after insurance issues are resolved. Elsewhere, Barbara spends a carefree day with Betty at a lakeside amusement park. Their outing deepens into honest talk about art, fear, addiction, and Barbara’s uncanny poem Faces Change, ending with Betty inviting Barbara to sing with her on Saturday and decide later whether to tour.

Back at the hotel, Holly studies the stalker’s threatening notes and concludes even more firmly that Kate’s enemy is a religious extremist. She cautiously sends Judge Irving Witterson’s photo to John Ackerly in case the judge might somehow connect to the recovery-meeting lead, then tries to clear her head with a walk. Instead she finds Corrie crying outside her room after Kate harshly scolds her for failing to arrange early check-in. Holly is angry on Corrie’s behalf and privately judges Kate’s behavior as selfish and unfair, but she cannot bring herself to confront Kate directly, which leaves her feeling both sympathetic to Corrie and disappointed in herself.

In the chapter’s final turn, Trig sits in his home office, drifting between insurance paperwork, memories of his father, and thoughts of his murders. When he hears on Big Bob radio that Kate McKay’s rescheduled event will indeed happen Friday night, he shifts from isolated revenge killings toward a grander fantasy. Realizing that he may not have time to finish all the juror murders, Trig begins imagining a spectacular attack at the Mingo that could kill Kate, Sista Bessie, and possibly their assistants in a fire.