Jack Sawyer is reluc­tant­ly drawn back into action after two phone calls dis­rupt his seclud­ed life in Nor­way Val­ley. The first call comes from his friend Hen­ry, who informs him about the abduc­tion of a child named Tyler Mar­shall from Maxton’s, mark­ing the Fisherman’s fourth vic­tim. Hen­ry urges Jack to step in, argu­ing that his involve­ment could calm the pan­icked com­mu­ni­ty. Despite Jack’s ini­tial resis­tance, the sec­ond call from Dale Gilbert­son, the local police chief, rein­forces the urgency. Dale reveals that Tyler’s father, Fred Mar­shall, is des­per­ate to speak with Jack, as his wife Judy has suf­fered a men­tal break­down due to their son’s dis­ap­pear­ance.

Jack’s deci­sion to head to the police sta­tion is also influ­enced by a pri­vate, unac­knowl­edged anx­i­ety. He has been expe­ri­enc­ing unset­tling wak­ing dreams and irra­tional fears, such as avoid­ing open­ing draw­ers or the refrig­er­a­tor, fear­ing he might find robins’ eggs—a sym­bol of his unre­solved trau­ma. Though he dis­miss­es these fears as tem­po­rary and irra­tional, they under­score his inter­nal strug­gle. Jack ratio­nal­izes his trip as a mere for­mal­i­ty, intend­ing to offer Fred Mar­shall com­fort­ing plat­i­tudes before return­ing to his retire­ment. He resents the pres­sure from Hen­ry and Dale, feel­ing his oblig­a­tion is over­stat­ed.

As Jack dri­ves to French Land­ing, he reflects on his reluc­tance to ful­ly engage with the case. He plans to ful­fill a super­fi­cial role, offer­ing sym­pa­thy to Fred Mar­shall with­out com­mit­ting to a deep­er inves­ti­ga­tion. Jack’s sar­cas­tic mus­ings about pun­ish­ing Hen­ry with bad music reveal his defen­sive atti­tude. Yet, his lin­ger­ing unease is evi­dent when he fix­ates on the ash­tray in his truck, a triv­ial object that nonethe­less sym­bol­izes his sup­pressed fears. This small moment hints at the psy­cho­log­i­cal toll of his past work and his unre­solved con­nec­tion to the Fish­er­man case.

The chap­ter cap­tures Jack’s con­flict­ed state—torn between his desire for iso­la­tion and the pull of respon­si­bil­i­ty. His jour­ney to the police sta­tion is framed as a reluc­tant con­ces­sion, but the under­ly­ing ten­sion sug­gests he may not escape the case so eas­i­ly. The nar­ra­tive sets the stage for his inevitable deep­er involve­ment, blend­ing exter­nal pres­sure with his inter­nal tur­moil. Jack’s attempts to down­play his fears and oblig­a­tions only high­light their sig­nif­i­cance, fore­shad­ow­ing his even­tu­al con­fronta­tion with the Fisherman’s hor­rors.