The Antidote, now awake and aware, eavesdrops on poker-table talk at the Country Jentleman about Sheriff Iscoe's reelection campaign and the conviction of Clemson Louis Dew. Only Charles Evans dissents, pointing out the trial's lack of evidence. The Antidote realizes Vick is exploiting the Lucky Rabbit's Foot Killer narrative to defeat his rival, Ernie Whitson. Several jurors who convicted Dew, haunted by guilt and rumors of more missing women, have begun coming to her to deposit their doubts—including Reggie Nowak, pharmacist Peter Haage, and a muskmelon farmer who deposits a tune Dew once played.

Sheriff Iscoe arrives with Al Kriska, who has discovered that a beautiful memory the Antidote returned to him—dancing with the Astaires at the Orpheum in 1908—is fabricated, since Kriska's family arrived in Omaha in 1919. The counterfeit was Dell's invention. After Kriska leaves to await his real withdrawal, Vick locks the door and confronts the Antidote, revealing he has figured out she is now a counterfeiter, painting false memories into her customers.

Vick demands her cooperation: he wants her to fabricate alibis and memories to bury the Mink Petrusev story, which Mink's visiting cousin has revived. He plans to start with Al Kriska, then move on to Mink's cousin and neighbors, painting Vick as a heroic lawman and possibly smearing Whitson. The Antidote realizes Vick himself is a counterfeiter who planted rabbit's feet to frame Dew, and that she has been his unwitting partner.

When she refuses, Vick threatens her, reminding her what happens to runaway prairie witches. He also reveals that Red dismissed her attempts to tell him the truth about his father. Vick then assaults her on the cot, whispering "I love you" while striking her, before leaving around 3 a.m. Alone, the Antidote hears Mink's voice in her mind pleading for help. She addresses her lost son, describing the breadcrumbs—the cook at the Home for Unwed Mothers, the Beatrice county clerk holding records for "Baby Rossi"—she has left in case he ever searches for her, clinging to the hope that unlikely is not impossible.