Chap­ter 32 opens with Patri­ci­a’s voice shak­ing as she recounts the dis­turb­ing encounter with James Har­ris over the phone. She explains to Mrs. Greene that he had been drunk, show­ing off and boast­ing at a par­ty, but it wasn’t just his typ­i­cal brava­do. James had some­how pushed Patri­cia fur­ther away from her hus­band, Leland, until she found her­self trapped in a con­ver­sa­tion that would haunt her. He shared a chill­ing sto­ry about a woman from his past who had sup­pos­ed­ly stolen from him. The way he spoke, in a low voice only meant for her ears, left Patri­cia uneasy. His words hint­ed at some­thing dark­er, some­thing unspo­ken, but it was when he pulled out a driver’s license—Francine’s driver’s license—that every­thing clicked into place. Why would he have it? How could he explain it away? Patri­cia felt the surge of fear as she pieced the dis­turb­ing sce­nario togeth­er. A part of her want­ed to ignore it, but the sight of that license, tucked away in his wal­let, shat­tered any doubt. Patri­cia knew she need­ed to act fast, and her deci­sion was made: this had gone too far.

She quick­ly devised a plan, telling Mrs. Greene how they could trick James into reveal­ing his secrets with­out him real­iz­ing it. They need­ed to catch him off guard. The best oppor­tu­ni­ty would be at the Scrug­gs’ oys­ter roast in six days, a pub­lic event where peo­ple would be drink­ing and dis­tract­ed. Patri­cia was con­fi­dent that, in the chaot­ic atmos­phere, it would be easy to slip the infor­ma­tion into James’s wal­let and get the police involved. The clock was tick­ing, and time was run­ning out. Every move Patri­cia made now had to be delib­er­ate. There was no room for error. The risks of this plan were high, but she knew it was their best shot at expos­ing the truth. Yet, even as she pre­pared to car­ry it out, she couldn’t shake the gnaw­ing feel­ing that some­thing worse was already hap­pen­ing.

Hal­loween evening arrived, and with it, the usu­al bus­tle of the Old Vil­lage trick-or-treat­ing tra­di­tion. Patri­cia, left behind as Carter worked, attempt­ed to keep the night light­heart­ed by hand­ing out can­dy to the stream of cos­tumed chil­dren. She greet­ed them with the usu­al enthu­si­asm, but her thoughts were else­where. The dads came in groups, laugh­ing and shar­ing drinks behind their chil­dren as they made their way through the neigh­bor­hood. It was all so nor­mal, yet Patri­cia could feel the weight of impend­ing dan­ger. Her mind kept wan­der­ing back to Slick’s call, and when she received the sec­ond phone call from her, Patricia’s unease only deep­ened. Slick’s voice was bare­ly audi­ble, repeat­ing over and over, “I didn’t make a sound.” The words were muf­fled, and the des­per­a­tion in Slick’s voice sent a chill down Patricia’s spine. It was clear some­thing was hor­ri­bly wrong. Slick was no longer the per­son she once knew; she was unrav­el­ing, and Patri­cia could sense the dan­ger clos­ing in around them.

Patri­cia wast­ed no time. She grabbed her purse, leav­ing her daugh­ter Korey behind with­out a sec­ond thought. The Old Vil­lage streets, usu­al­ly full of fes­tive joy, became a blur as Patri­cia drove through them with urgency, weav­ing around fam­i­lies and nav­i­gat­ing the maze of parked cars. As she passed James Harris’s house, she couldn’t help but notice the two jack‑o’-lanterns flick­er­ing on his front porch, cast­ing eerie shad­ows in the dim­ming light. Her mind raced. She couldn’t be sure, but she had a sink­ing feel­ing that Slick’s call had some­thing to do with James. The longer she stayed away, the more twist­ed her sus­pi­cions became. Reach­ing Creek­side, Patri­cia was alarmed to see both cars parked in the Paleys’ dri­ve­way, sig­nal­ing that what­ev­er had hap­pened was big­ger than just Slick. The eerie silence around the house and the unset­tling dec­o­ra­tions of pam­phlets with reli­gious mes­sages about the “grace of God” made her pause at the door. The door was unlocked, and she cau­tious­ly stepped inside, search­ing for any sign of what might have tran­spired.

What she found was not what she expect­ed. The house was eeri­ly qui­et, the kind of silence that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But when Patri­cia entered the din­ing room, she was tak­en aback to find Leland, his chil­dren, and their fam­i­ly sit­ting around the table, laugh­ing. They were obliv­i­ous to the ten­sion in the air, their focus com­plete­ly on the Monop­oly board in front of them. Slick, how­ev­er, was nowhere to be found. As Patri­cia tried to keep her com­po­sure, she quick­ly excused her­self to check upstairs. When she entered the mas­ter bath­room, what she saw in the bath­tub made her heart race. Slick was lying there, disheveled, her mas­cara run­ning, and her hair tan­gled. There was a deep, haunt­ing sad­ness in her eyes that Patri­cia couldn’t ignore.

Slick’s frac­tured words about not mak­ing a sound filled the air, and Patricia’s instinct screamed that the sit­u­a­tion was far worse than she’d imag­ined. It was clear that Slick had been hurt—badly. The deep phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al pain Slick was expe­ri­enc­ing struck Patri­cia to the core. Patri­cia knew she had to act fast, but Slick’s plea that “they can’t know” weighed heav­i­ly on her. As she helped Slick into the tub, she couldn’t help but think about the dan­gers they were fac­ing. The dam­age was already done, but they were only at the begin­ning of an even dark­er chap­ter. Patri­cia resolved then and there that she would stop at noth­ing to uncov­er the truth and pro­tect her friend, no mat­ter the cost.