In Chap­ter 100 of All the Col­ors of the Dark, Patch finds him­self stand­ing in line at the First Union Bank, sur­round­ed by the fad­ed ele­gance of the bank’s inte­ri­or. The mar­ble pil­lars and dusty palms add to the sense of decay, con­trast­ing with the dis­tant view of the Rock­ies out­side. As Patch waits, his thoughts wan­der back to his depar­ture from Mon­ta Clare, where he had left ear­li­er that morn­ing, feel­ing a pro­found empti­ness as he drove away from the life he had known. The long jour­ney through var­i­ous states weighed heav­i­ly on him, with a par­tic­u­lar emo­tion­al encounter stand­ing out. At Chase State Fish­ing Lake, Patch met Drew and Sal­ly, a cou­ple who shared heart-wrench­ing sto­ries about their daugh­ter, Anna May, who had been miss­ing for years. Deeply moved, Patch paint­ed a por­trait of Anna May, set against the unchang­ing land­scape, and promised to have it dis­played at Mon­ta Clare Fine Art as a trib­ute.

Con­tin­u­ing his trav­els through Texas, Patch paint­ed por­traits of oth­er miss­ing girls, such as Lucy Williams and Ellen Her­nan­dez, cap­tur­ing their sto­ries in his art­work. For weeks, he lived with very few pos­ses­sions, often sleep­ing in his car and eat­ing infre­quent­ly, all while car­ry­ing the heavy emo­tion­al bur­den of search­ing for his lost part­ner, Grace. Along the way, Patch met numer­ous fam­i­lies, some griev­ing the loss of their daugh­ters, oth­ers still hope­ful, yet all unit­ed by the com­mon thread of pain and loss. Through these encoun­ters, Patch shared the sto­ries of their miss­ing girls, and in return, he formed con­nec­tions built on shared grief. Each meet­ing added anoth­er lay­er to his jour­ney, rein­forc­ing the emo­tion­al weight of his search for Grace while deep­en­ing his under­stand­ing of the pro­found toll that such loss takes on indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies.

Patch’s search con­tin­ued across mul­ti­ple states, where he took odd jobs to sus­tain him­self while stay­ing at farms and search­ing for any clues about Grace’s where­abouts. His jour­ney brought him to the Texas coast, where he was forced to reflect on his own men­tal state, con­stant­ly search­ing for a girl who, with each pass­ing day, felt more like a ghost from his past. The end­less trav­el and emo­tion­al strain began to wear on him, and yet, the thought of Grace kept him mov­ing for­ward. As his finances dwin­dled, Patch reached out to Sam­my, hop­ing for some relief or guid­ance. Sam­my, how­ev­er, unloaded his frus­tra­tions about the ongo­ing reces­sion and the ridicu­lous offers he had received from poten­tial buy­ers of miss­ing girls, adding anoth­er lay­er of despair to Patch’s already bleak out­look. Sammy’s words struck Patch deeply, remind­ing him of the harsh real­i­ties sur­round­ing the search for miss­ing indi­vid­u­als.

In a des­per­ate and reck­less turn of events, Patch found him­self rob­bing a bank in Tuc­son, hop­ing that the mon­ey would pro­vide some relief, even if tem­porar­i­ly. He assured the teller that his gun wasn’t loaded, apol­o­giz­ing for the rob­bery as he took the cash. After walk­ing away from the bank with­out fac­ing imme­di­ate con­se­quences, Patch drove off, know­ing deep down that this was just anoth­er diver­sion in his end­less search for Grace. He donat­ed the major­i­ty of the stolen mon­ey to a char­i­ty that sup­ports miss­ing per­sons, real­iz­ing that while his actions were moral­ly ques­tion­able, they were dri­ven by an over­whelm­ing need to find Grace. Despite the moral com­pro­mise, he under­stood that the quest to find her would like­ly remain unful­filled. His jour­ney had already tak­en him far, and as much as he wished for a res­o­lu­tion, he also knew that it might nev­er come.

This chap­ter delves into the inter­nal and exter­nal strug­gles Patch faces as he con­tin­ues his search for Grace, high­light­ing the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal toll of the jour­ney. Through his inter­ac­tions with the fam­i­lies of oth­er miss­ing girls, Patch becomes increas­ing­ly aware of the shared pain that defines their lives. His own loss, inter­twined with the trau­ma of oth­ers, empha­sizes the deep con­nec­tion between suf­fer­ing and the human need for clo­sure. The nar­ra­tive fur­ther explores Patch’s sense of detach­ment, which grows as he dis­tances him­self from the world he once knew, yet remains teth­ered to his mis­sion. Ulti­mate­ly, Patch’s actions—both noble and desperate—illustrate the com­plex nature of his char­ac­ter, reveal­ing the lengths he is will­ing to go to in his relent­less pur­suit of answers.