In Chap­ter 118 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint dri­ves eighty-five miles along High­way 177, aim­ing for the Chase Coun­ty Cour­t­house. Upon arrival, she parks in front of the First Kansas Bank, attract­ing the atten­tion of locals in Cot­ton­wood Falls. Inside, she meets a young woman named Dawn, who is unwrap­ping a sand­wich while they con­verse. Dawn, with a bright smile and vivid red nails and lips, jokes about her lunch stick­ing to the roof of her mouth, adding a sense of light­ness to their meet­ing.

Their inter­ac­tion quick­ly shifts to seri­ous mat­ters. A tall man enters, hands a tape to Saint, and leaves, prompt­ing Dawn to share a per­son­al anec­dote about a boy who had pre­vi­ous­ly attempt­ed to rob the bank. Dawn describes him inti­mate­ly, reveal­ing her infat­u­a­tion despite the cir­cum­stance. She recounts the expe­ri­ence of his arrival on a qui­et Wednes­day, where he approached her at the counter. His charm­ing smile cap­ti­vat­ed her, and he con­fessed he intend­ed to rob the bank. Unlike typ­i­cal rob­bers, he dis­played no aggres­sion and sim­ply showed her a beau­ti­ful gun hid­den in his jack­et.

They engaged in con­ver­sa­tion about the bank’s strug­gle to sur­vive in a declin­ing farm­ing econ­o­my, with Dawn con­vey­ing her fam­i­ly’s his­to­ry tied to the insti­tu­tion. She noticed how atten­tive­ly he listened—not in the objec­ti­fy­ing way many boys did—making her feel val­ued. In a sur­pris­ing turn, he left the cash on the counter and walked out with­out tak­ing any­thing, leav­ing behind both the mon­ey and Dawn, who felt a strange con­nec­tion despite the cir­cum­stance.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Dawn reveals she didn’t intend to report the rob­bery until the sur­veil­lance tapes man­dat­ed it. Togeth­er with Saint, she moves to a back office where the tape is reviewed. Upon view­ing the footage, Saint is struck with a mix of sur­prise and real­iza­tion, con­fronting mem­o­ries of the boy who had impact­ed Dawn’s life. The moment brings a heavy heart to Saint as she ques­tions the boy’s actions qui­et­ly to her­self, indi­cat­ing the begin­ning of a deep­er nar­ra­tive inter­twined with unex­pect­ed con­nec­tions and emo­tions.