All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

Frans Hals.

Dutch golden age painter

Paul Gauguin.

French painter

In her hand was an envelope. She handed it to him and turned and left.

What did Misty give Patch?

He could use each color he owned painting Misty Meyer, and they would still not come close enough.

Norma watched the rushing chutes. “I ran into Dr. Tooms in town. He said he sees you out there, watching his house. Sometimes late into the evening.”

So Saint is still suspicious

“He’s running a fool’s errand. This girl isn’t real. I see it in Nix’s eyes, hell, I see it in your eyes.”

Norma

“You’ll go, and if Joseph is there then I suppose you’ll remind him.” Saint stared at the paper, at the fanciful lettering and the word cordially. “Remind him of what?” Norma took her small hand and gripped it tight. “That he didn’t lose everything when he was gone.”

The two alone in their kiss, the other girls looking on.

Patch and Misty together now

Patch spent eight hours each day below ground, often in the kind of darkness punctuated only by the shimmer of ore and his memories of Grace.

He became a miner?

Larry Flynt

Man responsible for Hustler lol

Patch left Misty in the warmth of her Mercedes and met with a lady named Carol Birch whose daughter had disappeared four years back.

As Carol told Patch about her daughter, they watched a couple of swans grace the frozen water. The girl’s name was Melinda, and there was nothing at all to suggest she was or was not Grace.

He tried not to see himself as their project, an extension of her mother’s charity work.

They spoke of Grace often, but never in the kind of terms that threatened Misty. He knew that Misty wondered in what way she had to compete with a girl so much of ghost.

and I pretend it’s not a clear waste of my time. Each second should be devoted to finding her. Instead I’m—” “You’re pressing pause, kid.” Patch nodded, though knew a pause by its very definition was a temporary thing.

So does he even love Misty? This whole thing is just sad

Saint lost interest in Dr. Tooms after a year of watching his place. Whatever he had hidden, she was certain it was not Grace.

He mostly knew to stay silent, though she felt his eagerness like a constriction, his need to be something that she would notice. She did not know why he cared, why he saw something in her that she herself knew was not there.

Jimmy and Saint

“You got the girl though, Patch.” “Some nights I lie in the dark and I can’t find her anymore.”

Saint and Patch

“Being a mother, there’s no practice for it. Just because you can do it, because you’re able, doesn’t mean you’re good at it. And if you’re not, it’s not just your life…”

Ivy

Saint gathered the papers the girl had dropped. She glanced down at the name printed across the top. Martin Tooms. His personal prescription.

And then she took the scripts from her pocket, sat on the bed, and held her breath as she checked when the refills began. Saint checked twice. Her blood rushed. September ninth. The day after Patch was taken.

Patch’s mind ran to Danny and the T-Birds, Sandy and her Pink Ladies.

Grease lol

“I understand about origins. The two of you…there’s romance to it. I’m not too old to see that. Like it was written in the stars.”

Franklin about Misty and Patch

Nothing about them fit. Nothing about them worked. She loved him entirely and absolutely.

Patch and Misty

The frustration of the past years, of losing her friend, of the stranger that came back to her. How he didn’t smile. Most days didn’t even notice her in the street.

Saint

“I promised God that I wouldn’t sin. If he’d bring back Patch.”

Saint

A single mattress. And a lot of blood.

Omg what was this place?

“You can’t compare to her,” he said. He felt her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t mean that. You’re just saying it so I’ll go to Harvard.”

Patch to Misty

“I can’t compete with her because she isn’t real. She’s a fucking ghost. Everyone knows it. Grace isn’t real.”

Misty

“I decide it’s over. Someone like you doesn’t leave someone like me.” She stopped then, stunned by her words, broken by them.

Omg what a bitchy thing to say

Saint wore the navy uniform, the shirt the smallest they carried but still, the sleeves ended halfway between wrist and elbow. “Taking a statement isn’t catching a—”

So Saint became a cop

Saint did not ask where the money had come from.

From Mr. Meyer

That fall Martin James Tooms pleaded not guilty to the murder of Callie Montrose, bringing to a close a year of trial prep, during which the DA leaned and Tooms’s savings eroded.

The case strengthened when hair samples taken from the remains of Eli Aaron’s house matched those of Marty Tooms. Saint and the DA connected dots that weren’t all that hard to join together. And then came the blood.

All eight were matched to Callie Montrose.

only that the next day Marty Tooms was sentenced to death.

“I guess bad people have a way of finding each other. A death sentence without a body though.”

Saint

“She’s tough because he thinks he wasn’t. Dissociative identity disorder. It’s when—”

I've been thinking about DID for a while now

“Heat of the moment, I shoot a man dead over a gambling debt. Am I worse than the man who lays into his wife each week? The law says I am.” “The law is bullshit.” He laughed. “Now you’re starting to sound like a cop.”

Saint and Nix

Noble acts…they don’t always end anyplace good. But wherever that kid is, I hope to God he’s not getting himself into more trouble.”

Nix

Drew and Sally and they held hands and sat on a bench by the north shore and showed him photographs of their daughter Anna May who had wandered from her life near eight years prior. It could not be Grace.

For eight weeks on that very beach he painted Lucy Williams and Ellen Hernandez.

“Fill the bag,” Patch said. He wore jeans and a dark T-shirt and dark glasses, and on his head a bandana tied back his hair.

So he's robbing banks now

Marty Tooms had worked with him. Maybe Tooms lured them sometimes. Aaron snatched them other times. It was messy and altogether uneven.

Walter Strike.

Father of a missing girl named Eloise

Play my Johnny Cash records and start wailing.”

He gave close to every cent to the Harvey Robin Foundation, which covered several southern states, their work tireless and vital.

So he robs banks, keeps a couple of hundred bucks, and then donates the rest to missing persons charities

It would be the first time Patch saved a missing girl.

I guess Patch made a picture of Mia?

Lost love, there isn’t a pain so exquisite.”

Sammy

and spoke of the peak of the clouds, of Misty Moon and ten sleeps.