Hunter realizes that, because he used his real name at the hotel and left his Audi at City Docks, the police will soon identify him as a suspect. He does not want to fight law enforcement, but he cannot afford arrest while Sue is still alive only because Arrowsake may think she can lead them to Jason Mercer. As Rink drives hard to escape the pursuing patrol cars, both men worry that more police could block the highway ahead.

To avoid a roadblock, Rink turns off the highway onto forest tracks near Chickenhouse Branch and eventually hides the Ford under dense tree cover on a bluff. Once they are briefly safe, Hunter notices Sue's tote bag in the back seat and decides to inspect it because she had guarded it so fiercely. He first finds the silenced pistol Sue failed to grab during Vince's attack, then her personal items, a switched-off smartphone, and an old disassembled cell phone that looks like a burner.

Hunter keeps searching and breaks open a locked cash box, finding money, credit cards in the name Suzanne Carter, and packets of narcotics, which he assumes Sue used to buy covert help rather than for personal use. The most important discovery is a taped plastic bundle containing six property folders. At first the documents look like ordinary real-estate files, but Hunter and Rink conclude that at least some of them probably conceal locations tied to the protective network Sue claimed to work for, including possible safe houses. Hunter reinterprets Sue's earlier story about Mexico Beach as a lie told to hide her real mission.

While Rink stores the files in the trunk, Hunter reflects that Arrowsake's recent gunmen, including Vince's team, seem far less disciplined than the operatives he once knew. Rink checks Sue's smartphone and finds a number he believes belongs to Mercer, but the call does not connect, suggesting Mercer has already discarded that phone. Hunter and Rink then confront the larger issue between them: despite Rink's history of shooting Mercer, they agree Sue's rescue must come first. Hunter reassembles the burner phone found in Sue's bag, finds that it contains only one stored contact, and presses call in hopes of finally reaching Mercer.