In Chap­ter 24 of “The Art Thief,” Anne-Cather­ine earns her driver’s license and buys a rasp­ber­ry-red Ford Ka, allow­ing her to com­mute to work after mov­ing out from her par­ents’ home to a stu­dio apart­ment on the out­skirts of Mul­house. Mean­while, Bre­itwieser strug­gles with his life after Anne-Cather­ine leaves him; for four months, he refrains from steal­ing, feel­ing aim­less with­out her. He occu­pies him­self with tem­po­rary jobs and broods alone, lead­ing him to even­tu­al­ly con­tact Anne-Cather­ine.

When they speak, Bre­itwieser express­es remorse for how he treat­ed her, acknowl­edg­ing his obses­sion and volatil­i­ty while promis­ing to let go of his past anger about their rela­tion­ship, includ­ing the abor­tion. He con­veys his love for her, claim­ing she is the only woman for him and admits that her absence has quelled his addic­tion to art theft. Con­verse­ly, Anne-Cather­ine, now with a sta­ble life, can­not shake her addic­tion to the excite­ment she shared with Bre­itwieser, which involved clan­des­tine art heists. Although she warns him against vio­lence, she does not explic­it­ly for­bid him from steal­ing, pre­fer­ring to main­tain her own space free from art while rejoin­ing him in the attic.

As their rela­tion­ship rekin­dles, Bre­itwieser feels inspired again, retreat­ing to local muse­ums to steal art­works. By late 1999, he has amassed around 250 stolen items, pri­mar­i­ly avoid­ing church­es, hav­ing rec­og­nized Anne-Cather­ine’s dis­com­fort with those thefts. How­ev­er, he even­tu­al­ly returns to them as they pro­vide easy tar­gets with valu­able art. His col­lec­tion grows, mak­ing their attic space increas­ing­ly clut­tered.

In the new year, Bre­itwieser secures a well-pay­ing job in Switzer­land, which he jug­gles with his art theft. Deter­mined to appease Anne-Cather­ine’s crav­ing for excite­ment through legal means, he orga­nizes a roman­tic get­away to the Domini­can Repub­lic, where he refrains from steal­ing entire­ly. After this trip, he plans future vaca­tions with her, yet Anne-Cather­ine remains cau­tious about his work in Switzer­land, fear­ing the con­se­quences of anoth­er arrest fol­low­ing their pre­vi­ous luck. Though the­o­ret­i­cal­ly agree­ing to her cau­tion, Bre­itwieser strug­gles with temp­ta­tion as he dri­ves past muse­ums on his way to work .