In Chap­ter 227 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint arrives at a stark apart­ment com­plex, evok­ing mem­o­ries of her ear­ly days as an agent. Tem­porar­i­ly rein­stat­ed by Himes, she is giv­en full access to the resources at her dis­pos­al but finds she needs lit­tle to inves­ti­gate.

Inside, she finds Coop­er liv­ing alone in a life­less space. His clothes are neat­ly arranged on a rack, and a sin­gle sofa faces a win­dow that over­looks a park­ing lot, with drawn blinds allow­ing a hint of light to fil­ter through, illu­mi­nat­ing him as he regards her indif­fer­ent­ly.

Saint observes, “You’ve had a rough time,” not­ing Coop­er’s tall, slim frame and the sym­me­try in his fea­tures, char­ac­ter­is­tics that should invoke con­fi­dence. As they go over his state­ment togeth­er, she cross-ref­er­ences it with the orig­i­nal and ver­i­fies he has­n’t devi­at­ed from the truth. In a trou­bling admin­is­tra­tive sit­u­a­tion, the prison office is over­whelmed, lead­ing to a dis­con­nect with War­den Riley’s busy line.

Coop­er describes a mun­dane life, hav­ing spent a decade in pub­lic libraries before his tenure at Han­ning­ton. He reveals noth­ing about his past fam­i­ly life, empha­siz­ing his solitude—no wife, no chil­dren. As Saint pre­pares to leave, sug­gest­ing he con­sult a lawyer for future inquiries, she unex­pect­ed­ly notices a small pho­to­graph on a bed­side table, the only sign of life in his aus­tere envi­ron­ment.

Drawn to the image, she approach­es and picks up the small gold frame. The fad­ed pho­to­graph fea­tures a dark-haired girl whose full lips and green eyes seem strik­ing­ly famil­iar. After a moment of con­tem­pla­tion, Saint pre­pares to exit, stat­ing, “I’ll be see­ing you, Mr. Coop­er.” To her sur­prise, he cor­rects her, say­ing, “Actu­al­ly, Coop­er is my first name,” before reveal­ing his full name, “My sur­name is Strike. My name is Coop­er Strike.” This unex­pect­ed rev­e­la­tion lingers in the air, sug­gest­ing deep­er con­nec­tions and poten­tial devel­op­ments ahead.