Susie leaves her parents together in the hospital room and goes to watch her “might-have-been,” Ray: “I did not want to leave him any more than I did my family” (283). Susie recalls how, after their encounter on the scaffolding, she wanted to kiss Ray but was afraid that it wouldn’t live up to the stories she read in her magazines. Lynn later reassured her, and Susie has wanted so badly to kiss Ray again after their only kiss.

Fenerman sits in the hospital parking lot, feeling guilty over the affair and for not having anything to share with the Salmons besides Susie’s charm. Fenerman eventually goes to Jack’s room, where Jack is still holding hands with Abigail, and gives him the charm. He tells Jack that the police have linked Harvey to several other murders, but that they haven’t caught him or found Susie’s body. Jack is glad to have the murder case opened again, while Abigail feels the opposite—wanting to put Susie’s murder behind them. Abigail asks Fenerman how they can be sure that Harvey killed those other girls, and he replies that “nothing is ever certain” (291). Abigail, remembering how he said this to the family after Susie’s disappearance and how Jack borrowed the phrase to soothe the family, now considers it “a cruel phrase that preyed on hope” (291) and asks him to leave.