Chap­ter 217 of All the Col­ors of the Dark fol­lows Saint as she dri­ves six­ty miles to the small town of Dar­by Falls, filled with a deep sense of nos­tal­gia as famil­iar sights pass by. She glances at a church along the way, its bells ring­ing in her mem­o­ry, a sound she longs to hear again. Upon her arrival in Dar­by Falls, she is met by a young, anx­ious police offi­cer stand­ing out­side a house, his unease pal­pa­ble. He informs Saint that they are still wait­ing for the foren­sic team to arrive, but his focus is on Richie Mon­trose, a for­mer cop who has failed to deliv­er his news­pa­per. The officer’s con­cern grows as it becomes evi­dent that Richie is now sus­pect­ed of being dead, his absence rais­ing fears of some­thing more sin­is­ter at play. The qui­et of the scene con­trasts with the build­ing ten­sion as the officer’s wor­ry sig­nals the unfold­ing of a grim dis­cov­ery.

Inside the house, the atmos­phere is thick with a somber tone, made even heav­ier by the tick­ing of a grand­fa­ther clock. The lounge, though clean, car­ries an eerie still­ness, devoid of any scent or signs of life, except for the life­less body of Richie Mon­trose. His body lies on the floor, a bul­let hole in his chest, indi­cat­ing the vio­lent nature of his death. The scene around him is unset­tling­ly order­ly, offer­ing no signs of a strug­gle or dis­tur­bance. This lack of chaos implies that Richie knew his killer, sug­gest­ing that this was not a ran­dom act but a method­i­cal exe­cu­tion. The chill­ing pre­ci­sion of the crime only deep­ens the sense of dread hang­ing in the air, as Saint is left to grap­ple with the real­iza­tion that Richie’s death was planned and car­ried out with­out hes­i­ta­tion.

On the man­tel­piece, a pho­to­graph of Cal­lie Mon­trose, Richie’s daugh­ter, catch­es Saint’s atten­tion, adding a per­son­al lay­er to the unfold­ing tragedy. The image of the girl, who had pre­vi­ous­ly been the cen­ter of a vig­il that Saint couldn’t for­get, res­onates with her, inten­si­fy­ing the emo­tion­al impact of the moment. The con­nec­tion between the vic­tim and the pho­to­graph reminds Saint that this isn’t just anoth­er case—this is a per­son­al tragedy for some­one she had come to know. As she con­tin­ues to process the scene, her eyes fall on a let­ter beside Richie’s body, addressed to him. The omi­nous words, “I’ll see you in hell,” writ­ten on the let­ter, height­en the ten­sion in the room and point to a deep­er sto­ry that remains to be uncov­ered. This cryp­tic mes­sage fur­ther com­pli­cates the inves­ti­ga­tion, sug­gest­ing that Richie’s death may be tied to forces larg­er than Saint ini­tial­ly antic­i­pat­ed.

Saint’s inves­ti­ga­tion takes a deci­sive turn when she dis­cov­ers secu­ri­ty cam­era footage from a neighbor’s house, reveal­ing the iden­ti­ty of the killer. The footage shows the per­pe­tra­tor enter­ing the scene with no attempt to con­ceal their iden­ti­ty or escape, indi­cat­ing a lev­el of con­fi­dence or per­haps even a mes­sage behind the crime. The lack of any attempt at eva­sion rais­es the stakes, sig­nal­ing that this killer is not act­ing out of fear or pan­ic, but rather with pur­pose and intent. As Saint process­es this new infor­ma­tion, a wave of sor­row sweeps over her, deep­en­ing her emo­tion­al tur­moil. The inves­ti­ga­tion into Richie Montrose’s mur­der now feels like some­thing much more sig­nif­i­cant, with the promise of uncov­er­ing dark­er truths ahead. The chap­ter con­cludes on a poignant note, with the weight of loss and the heavy bur­den of what’s to come press­ing down on Saint, fore­shad­ow­ing the unset­tling real­i­ties that will unfold as the inves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es. The emo­tion­al impact of Richie’s death, com­bined with the unset­tling clues left behind, sets the stage for a deep­er dive into the shad­ows that haunt Dar­by Falls.