Chap­ter 147 begins with Saint stand­ing in the shade of the tow­er­ing Ten­mile Range, gaz­ing at the scene before her in Breck­en­ridge. The area around the old lodge is eeri­ly qui­et, guard­ed by six uni­formed offi­cers. The atmos­phere is thick with ten­sion, a still­ness that only comes with the trag­ic loss of a child. As Saint observes, the local police chief, a thin man with a horse­shoe mus­tache and a pale com­plex­ion, approach­es her. It’s clear from his green­ish pal­lor that he’s had a rough night, per­haps haunt­ed by the hor­rif­ic events of the day. Saint, how­ev­er, doesn’t offer him com­fort or false reas­sur­ances; she knows from expe­ri­ence that this tragedy won’t fade eas­i­ly for any­one involved.

Dressed in white cov­er­alls and gloves, Saint steps care­ful­ly under the police tape. Her shoes are cov­ered with pro­tec­tive bags as she makes her way down a steep slope, fol­low­ing the chief. They reach a flat area where con­struc­tion work­ers stand idly by, their hel­mets in hand, watch­ing her intent­ly as she approach­es the site. The chief ges­tures to the scene, men­tion­ing casu­al­ly, “New homes.” But what Saint sees is far from any sign of progress or renew­al; instead, it’s a field of felled trees and damp earth. Among the mess, the remains of the child lie buried under the weight of time and con­struc­tion, her bones the trag­ic rem­nants of a life that was cut short. This is why Saint is here—she came to find answers, to give the child back a voice.

Saint’s hands trem­ble slight­ly as she han­dles the remains. Despite the pro­tec­tive gloves, the sense of rev­er­ence and care in her actions is pal­pa­ble as she unearths a small set of rosary beads. Hold­ing the mar­bled blue beads to the light, she inspects the medal attached, deep in thought. The child had been buried with her school clothes, shoes, and even her school­bag, a poignant reminder of her life before the vio­lence took it all away. As she uncov­ers a purse in the debris, Saint runs her thumb over its poly­ester shell, care­ful­ly unclasp­ing it. The sight is heart­break­ing yet famil­iar to her, a painful but nec­es­sary part of the search for jus­tice. The chief, stand­ing a lit­tle ways off, asks if she rec­og­nizes the girl. Saint’s answer is sim­ple, yet heavy with expe­ri­ence: “I know all of them.”

This moment encap­su­lates the emo­tion­al toll of Saint’s work. Her abil­i­ty to remain com­posed and focused despite the har­row­ing cir­cum­stances is a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion she brings to each case. How­ev­er, beneath that com­posed exte­ri­or is a woman who knows the pain of loss all too well. The chap­ter illus­trates not just the grim real­i­ty of the work that Saint does, but the per­son­al cost of uncov­er­ing the truth in a world where so much is buried and for­got­ten. As she con­tin­ues to unearth the past, she’s not just recov­er­ing bodies—she’s try­ing to recov­er the lost pieces of lives that were nev­er meant to be tak­en. She could­n’t shake the unease that had set­tled in her stom­ach, the raw sense of grief and loss fill­ing her as she focused on the small details that oth­ers would over­look. As Saint moved clos­er, she noticed the wear on the cloth­ing; the fab­ric was weath­ered by time, the shoes scuffed from use. There was a cer­tain sad­ness in the for­got­ten items scat­tered across the ground, each a small token of the life that had been lived and then bru­tal­ly inter­rupt­ed. Despite the over­whelm­ing sor­row, Saint pressed on, deter­mined to uncov­er the truth that had been buried here. The scene was a painful reminder that the answers she sought were often hid­den beneath lay­ers of time, vio­lence, and silence.