Chap­ter 174 begins with Saint set­tling at the kitchen table, spoon­ing a warm serv­ing of Brunswick stew pre­pared by Char­lotte. The savory scent ris­es with the steam, bring­ing a moment of com­fort. Saint takes a bite and offers a play­ful cri­tique, mak­ing Char­lotte smirk with a mix of pride and nerves. The com­ment is light, but under­neath it lies a silent understanding—Charlotte had invest­ed her­self emo­tion­al­ly in mak­ing that meal. The inter­ac­tion feels ordi­nary yet mean­ing­ful, a small act root­ed in care and effort. After the plates are cleared, Char­lotte excus­es her­self and descends into the base­ment, where her real project awaits. Down­stairs, the walls are lined with pinned notes, maps, and strings of col­ored thread. Each detail con­nects back to a big­ger picture—one she’s been tire­less­ly build­ing. Saint fol­lows a few min­utes lat­er, drawn by curios­i­ty and con­cern, find­ing her­self sur­round­ed by a visu­al archive of young girls who’ve van­ished.

The base­ment feels cold­er than the kitchen, both in tem­per­a­ture and tone. A large cork­board dom­i­nates the wall, scat­tered with pho­tographs, names, and col­ored push­pins: blue indi­cates abduc­tions, green marks run­aways, orange sig­nals those still miss­ing, and red sig­ni­fies con­firmed deaths. Char­lotte leans in, her eyes scan­ning the names she knows by heart. When Saint picks up a pen and care­ful­ly writes “Crys­tal Wright” in red, the weight of that action set­tles heav­i­ly in the room. Silence fol­lows, heavy with unspo­ken grief. Charlotte’s expres­sion hard­ens, her small fea­tures set in qui­et focus as she explains the back­ground behind each name. For every col­or-cod­ed pin, there’s a human story—parents who nev­er stopped search­ing, com­mu­ni­ties left haunt­ed. Saint rec­og­nizes sev­er­al names, among them Angela Rossi and Sum­mer Reynolds. She flash­es back to news­pa­per head­lines and case files she once reviewed, nev­er imag­in­ing her own child would become invest­ed in the same tragedies. This unex­pect­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion turns into an act of col­lec­tive mourn­ing.

Lat­er, back upstairs, the mood light­ens slight­ly over dessert and a sec­ond glass of wine. The sweet­ness of the pie con­trasts sharply with the somber dis­cus­sion that had filled the base­ment just an hour ear­li­er. Yet the mem­o­ry of the board lingers. Saint leans back in her chair, think­ing through every­thing Char­lotte had laid out. In her mind, con­nec­tions begin to form—threads between the sto­ries, pat­terns she hadn’t rec­og­nized until now. Her pulse quick­ens as real­iza­tion sets in: some­thing impor­tant had been star­ing at her all along, hid­den in plain sight. It isn’t just a col­lage of grief—it’s a roadmap, one that might offer a clue or a new angle. Ris­ing from the table, Saint thanks Char­lotte with a qui­et nod and grabs her coat. Her face shows the fatigue of some­one car­ry­ing too many thoughts at once. As she walks out into the cool night, her mind races, unsure of what the next step should be but cer­tain that one must be tak­en.

Out­side, the wind stings light­ly against her cheeks, and she fum­bles for her keys in the dark. The dis­tant hum of a pass­ing car on the road reminds her of how ordi­nary the world con­tin­ues to be, even while lives are falling apart behind closed doors. Inside her vehi­cle, she paus­es before start­ing the engine, still see­ing Charlotte’s bul­letin board in her mind. It was nev­er just a school project or a teenage obsession—it was a tes­ta­ment to resilience, a plea to not for­get. Saint, who’s seen too much and fought too hard to let things slip into silence, now feels the urgency of Charlotte’s mis­sion becom­ing her own. The chap­ter doesn’t end with resolution—it ends with momen­tum. What began as an ordi­nary din­ner trans­formed into a deep­er reck­on­ing. And as Saint dri­ves away into the night, the weight of what she’s just expe­ri­enced push­es her fur­ther toward some­thing that feels like the truth.