In Chap­ter 189 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Police Chief Saint is at her desk in the Mon­ta Clare Police Depart­ment when she receives a call from Mil­dred, the principal’s sec­re­tary, regard­ing an inci­dent at the school. She notes Deputy Michaels, who is younger and eager, as he relays the infor­ma­tion. Saint, accus­tomed to her inter­ac­tions with Mil­dred, often brings her treats from the bak­ery, estab­lish­ing a friend­ly rap­port.

As she steps out, she observes her sur­round­ings: the ear­ly spring envi­ron­ment, the work of Mitch Evans paint­ing a sign, and the town’s charm marred by graf­fi­ti, which she has addressed in the past by mak­ing the local juve­nile delin­quents scrub it clean. The com­mu­ni­ty respects her for her ded­i­ca­tion, view­ing her as a tough and com­pe­tent offi­cer, although she still feels the lin­ger­ing judg­ment of her past, par­tic­u­lar­ly relat­ed to Jim­my Wal­ters.

At Mon­ta Clare High, she dis­cuss­es a stu­den­t’s mis­be­hav­ior, Char­lotte, who has been sus­pend­ed. Char­lotte reveals she injured Noah Arnold-Smith after he inap­pro­pri­ate­ly touched her, which prompts Saint to reflect on her own past expe­ri­ences with dis­re­spect­ful boys. The con­ver­sa­tion reveals Char­lot­te’s frus­tra­tion with her grandmother’s impend­ing dis­ap­proval and her desire for inde­pen­dence, high­light­ing her strained fam­i­ly dynam­ics and aspi­ra­tions of mov­ing to Las Vegas.

Saint sits with Char­lotte at Misty’s grave, reflect­ing on loss and expec­ta­tions. Char­lotte express­es her weari­ness of feel­ing judged, fore­shad­ow­ing her strug­gle to rec­on­cile her rebel­lious actions with her fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties. This inter­ac­tion serves to under­line the recur­ring themes of defi­ance, the com­plex­i­ties of grow­ing up, and the bur­dens of expec­ta­tion in Mon­ta Clare, set­ting a con­tem­pla­tive tone for the chap­ter as Saint nav­i­gates her role in the girl’s life against the back­drop of her own unre­solved issues.

In the end, the chap­ter encap­su­lates the ten­sion between past and present, author­i­ty and rebel­lion, as Saint grap­ples with the con­se­quences of actions tak­en by a new gen­er­a­tion while fac­ing her own unre­solved trau­ma .