In Chap­ter 221 of *All the Col­ors of the Dark*, the nar­ra­tive fol­lows Saint, who is jolt­ed from a fit­ful sleep by a dis­tress­ing phone call from Himes. The con­ver­sa­tion deliv­ers alarm­ing news: Joseph Macauley has escaped from prison. Saint, still reel­ing from her day spent at the Nix house—completing her report and man­ag­ing the emo­tion­al chaos of con­cerned neighbors—finds her­self grap­pling with the impli­ca­tions of this sit­u­a­tion.

Himes informs her that Macauley’s escape was bold; he had locked a library work­er in a store­room, stolen his belong­ings, and van­ished with­out a trace. Saint, still try­ing to piece togeth­er the frag­ment­ed details of the day, express­es dis­be­lief and frus­tra­tion over the lack of secu­ri­ty mea­sures at the prison. Himes reveals that the prison suf­fered a pow­er out­age dur­ing a sig­nif­i­cant fight, which may have con­tributed to the chaos sur­round­ing Macauley’s escape. Despite the prison being on lock­down, Macauley’s cur­rent where­abouts remain unknown.

As ten­sions esca­late, Saint becomes increas­ing­ly deter­mined to take action, assert­ing that she will assist in the search for Macauley. Himes, while acknowl­edg­ing her capa­bil­i­ty, remains con­cerned about the fact that Macauley has killed before, prompt­ing him to con­sid­er the safe­ty of those around her, espe­cial­ly since Macauley’s daugh­ter is under Sain­t’s pro­tec­tion. Saint staunch­ly defends her posi­tion, insist­ing that Macauley wouldn’t return to the place he escaped from, demon­strat­ing her under­stand­ing of his mind­set.

The sig­nif­i­cant under­cur­rent of the con­ver­sa­tion high­lights the com­plex­i­ties of trust and the weight of past actions, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing Sain­t’s his­to­ry with Macauley, hav­ing been the one to appre­hend him. Himes empha­sizes the need for coor­di­na­tion among near­by depart­ments to ensure safe­ty and effi­cien­cy in track­ing down Macauley. Despite her con­fi­dence and expe­ri­ence, the chap­ter clos­es with lin­ger­ing ten­sion, sug­gest­ing the unfold­ing events may lead to unfore­seen com­pli­ca­tions as Saint pre­pares to join the hunt for the escaped pris­on­er.