42. August 18, 2021

On a warm morn­ing in August, Hol­ly Gib­ney enjoys the tran­quil­i­ty of her bal­cony, con­tem­plat­ing the sig­nif­i­cant changes in her life. No longer bound to the rou­tine of her office job due to a tem­po­rary clo­sure, she reflects on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of nev­er reopen­ing Find­ers Keep­ers, the inves­ti­ga­tion agency she’s part of. Pete, her col­league, con­sid­ers full retire­ment, while Hol­ly, hav­ing recent­ly come into a sub­stan­tial inher­i­tance, faces the prospect of an ear­ly retire­ment her­self. Despite this, a part of her remains reluc­tant, haunt­ed by the dark mem­o­ries of past cas­es involv­ing malev­o­lent forces and human deprav­i­ty, the lat­ter exem­pli­fied by the hor­rif­ic acts of Rod­dy and Emi­ly Har­ris.

The chap­ter delves into Hol­ly’s inter­nal bat­tle with the evil she’s encoun­tered, par­tic­u­lar­ly the nat­ur­al, non-super­nat­ur­al kind, which she finds most dis­turb­ing. These reflec­tions are trig­gered by the heinous crimes of the Har­ris­es, whose mun­dane exte­ri­or masked their true mon­strous nature. Hol­ly is forced to rec­on­cile the veneer of nor­mal­i­ty in indi­vid­u­als capa­ble of unspeak­able acts, a real­iza­tion that chal­lenges her view of human­i­ty.

In the midst of these reflec­tions, Hol­ly receives a call from Bar­bara Robin­son, a friend and fel­low sur­vivor of trau­mat­ic events linked to their inves­ti­ga­tions. Bar­bara’s tri­umph in win­ning the Pen­ley Prize and hav­ing her poet­ry pub­lished serves as a stark con­trast to the dark­ness per­me­at­ing Hol­ly’s thoughts. Bar­bara’s achieve­ment offers a moment of light, her poet­ry pro­vid­ing a means of cop­ing with her own expe­ri­ences of hor­ror.

As Hol­ly pon­ders her future, torn between with­draw­ing from a world rife with evil or con­tin­u­ing her work, the nar­ra­tive explores themes of resilience, the capac­i­ty for both good and evil with­in human­i­ty, and the search for redemp­tion and pur­pose amidst the after­math of trau­ma. The chap­ter clos­es with Hol­ly fac­ing a crit­i­cal deci­sion, sym­bol­ized by a ring­ing phone: to embrace a new, peace­ful life fund­ed by her inher­i­tance or to reen­gage with the dark real­i­ties of her pro­fes­sion by answer­ing the call. Her choice, made in the final moments, reflects a com­mit­ment to con­fronting evil, influ­enced by the lega­cy of her men­tor, Bill Hodges, and her own inner strength.