In Chap­ter 131 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint iso­lates her­self in her apart­ment for two weeks, engrossed in track­ing a pirate with the help of Himes. Dur­ing this time, she obses­sive­ly lis­tens to hours of inter­views and stud­ies tran­scripts, includ­ing tapes from her grand­moth­er’s answer­ing machine. This immer­sion in anoth­er world keeps her engaged, allow­ing her to escape from her own trou­bles.

She recalls vivid imagery that she asso­ciates with her grand­moth­er’s mem­o­ries, mark­ing var­i­ous loca­tions on her map. As she rem­i­nisces, she often draws par­al­lels between the places her grand­moth­er described and those she vis­its in her mind. For instance, she marks Okla­homa where the sky at Baldy Point and Lake Altus-Lugert are vivid­ly described, and South Car­oli­na for Fort Sumter’s his­toric allure. The heav­i­ness of her iso­la­tion leads her to eat lit­tle except for canned soup and to con­scious­ly shut out sun­light, ful­ly com­mit­ting to the world encap­su­lat­ed by her research.

After forty hours of this men­tal jour­ney, she finds her­self back in Mon­ta Clare, reflec­tive on moments from her past, espe­cial­ly relat­ing to Patch. The mem­o­ries are rich and detailed, as she vivid­ly remem­bers min­ing vil­lages and sig­nif­i­cant loca­tions like Den­ver. Over the next five days, she con­tin­ues to delve into Joseph Macauley’s mem­o­ries, retrac­ing routes from var­i­ous places includ­ing Cot­ton­wood Falls to New York City and New Eng­land to Mon­tana. Her find­ings cul­mi­nate in a clear route on her map.

After exten­sive­ly ana­lyz­ing the last tape, Saint draws a bold red cir­cle on the map to sig­ni­fy her con­clu­sion. She deci­phers that the pirate’s actions were not ran­dom but rather reflec­tive of the girl’s jour­ney. Filled with new­found clar­i­ty, Saint feels that she under­stands the pirate’s next inten­tions. She reach­es out to Himes, deter­mined, stat­ing, “The pirate. He’s see­ing what the girl saw. I think I know where he’s head­ed next.” This rev­e­la­tion hints at a deep­er under­stand­ing of the con­nec­tion between the pirate and the young girl.