The day after Laura’s funeral, Beth is packing boxes for donation when Lucas comes to apologize for his mother’s outburst. Before they know it, they are in each other’s arms, and they make love. Afterward, Lucas explains that he broke up with Beth in high school because of his father’s death. Eddie Harper died by suicide and left a note implying that he had done something terrible. Nobody knew because Susan and the sheriff explained the death as a hunting accident.

Lucas concludes that Eddie might have been involved in Emma’s disappearance, and “[he] worried that [he] was like him or could be like him” (232). Beth realizes that the tape from 1999 is sitting on the TV. She wants to give Lucas a sense of closure, and she plays the video for him. To her horror, the footage showing Emma in the creek has been erased. Lucas thinks she’s playing some sort of sick prank and storms out of the house. Beth “drop[s] to [her] knees, letting out a howl of a cry. The pain of losing him when [she] thought [she] had him back is nearly unbearable” (235).