In Chap­ter 100, titled “We Solve Mur­ders,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds through two let­ters exchanged between Mick­ey Moody and Susan Knox, both reflect­ing on their lives from prison. Mick­ey, who is in a cell, address­es Susan with a casu­al yet some­what reflec­tive tone. He seems to have tak­en a turn in life that has land­ed him in jail and express­es a mix of defi­ance and res­ig­na­tion. Despite acknowl­edg­ing his fool­ish­ness in his choic­es, he con­veys a sense of cama­raderie with Susan, anoth­er inmate. Mick­ey shares that he’s doing time at Down­view, a prison he asso­ciates with pos­i­tive sto­ries from an aunt who served there.

In his let­ter, Mick­ey offers Susan an unfil­tered glimpse into his cur­rent state, indi­cat­ing that he has no regrets about his life choic­es, sug­gest­ing that they should embrace their present cir­cum­stances rather than dwell on past deci­sions. He invites her to share her own sto­ry, empha­siz­ing his desire for a con­nec­tion amidst their shared prison expe­ri­ence.

Susan’s reply stark­ly con­trasts Mick­ey’s tone. She acknowl­edges her place­ment in prison as fit­ting, indi­cat­ing a sense of account­abil­i­ty for her actions. Susan reveals her past entan­gle­ment with Jeff Nolan, the man Mick­ey attempt­ed to kill, and admits to embez­zling mon­ey from him over the years. She reflects on her squan­dered finan­cial advan­tage and mis­guid­ed invest­ments, which led her deep­er into trou­ble. Susan express­es her regret for get­ting involved in mur­der, point­ing out that mon­ey can cor­rupt peo­ple in unex­pect­ed ways.

Her let­ter is rife with self-reflec­tion and an admis­sion of her mis­takes, ulti­mate­ly stat­ing that she shares no desire to engage fur­ther with Mick­ey. Susan’s con­clu­sion indi­cates a somber accep­tance of her real­i­ty, encap­su­lat­ing the over­ar­ch­ing themes of cul­pa­bil­i­ty, con­se­quence, and the quest for per­son­al redemp­tion in the after­math of their actions. The chap­ter grap­ples with themes of regret, the influ­ence of mon­ey on moral­i­ty, and the long­ing for for­give­ness amid incar­cer­a­tion.

In Chap­ter 100 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch finds him­self wait­ing in line at the First Union Bank, sur­round­ed by the fad­ed grandeur of the establishment—marble pil­lars, dusty palms, and a view of the dis­tant Rock­ies. As he reflects on his jour­ney from Mon­ta Clare, where he left ear­ly in the morn­ing, he recalls the empti­ness he felt dri­ving away from a life he knew. After a long jour­ney through states, he had an emo­tion­al encounter with a cou­ple, Drew and Sal­ly, at Chase State Fish­ing Lake, who shared sto­ries of their daugh­ter Anna May, miss­ing for years. Patch paint­ed a por­trait of Anna May against the unchanged land and promised to dis­play it at Mon­ta Clare Fine Art.

His trav­els took him through Texas, where he paint­ed the sto­ries of oth­er miss­ing girls, includ­ing Lucy Williams and Ellen Her­nan­dez. For weeks, he lived with min­i­mal pos­ses­sions, often sleep­ing in his car and eat­ing infre­quent­ly, all while feel­ing the weight of search­ing for his lost part­ner, Grace. He met mul­ti­ple fam­i­lies, some in mourn­ing, some hope­ful, as he shared sto­ries of their miss­ing girls, forg­ing con­nec­tions steeped in shared pain and loss.

Patch con­tin­ued his quest across var­i­ous states, tak­ing odd jobs, and stay­ing in farms while search­ing for clues about Grace. His jour­ney led him to the Texas coast, where he pon­dered his own men­tal state amidst the search for a girl who felt more like a ghost from his past.

As his finances dwin­dled, he reached out to Sam­my, who unloaded frus­tra­tions about a reces­sion and ludi­crous offers from poten­tial buy­ers of miss­ing girls. In a des­per­ate turn of events, Patch found him­self rob­bing a bank in Tuc­son, though he assured the teller his gun was not loaded and apol­o­gized for the inci­dent. After leav­ing with the mon­ey, he drove away with­out fac­ing any con­se­quences, know­ing he would con­tin­ue to search for Grace, donat­ing most of the stolen cash to a char­i­ty for miss­ing per­sons, real­iz­ing that the quest would like­ly remain unful­filled.