Back at Chez Dubois, the narrator drinks warm beer and researches Burdmoore, the American she met at Le Moulin. His criminal record is extensive, including a 1977 conviction for arson and second-degree murder, leading her to revise her assessment: he may be the only truly serious figure among the Moulinards, not the harmless geezer she had presumed.

She returns to Bruno's emails, opening one about caves. Bruno describes deliberately spending fourteen days in absolute darkness in his cave, food arranged by touch. In the extreme dark, he experienced vivid inner visions, beginning with a remembered photograph of Helen Keller holding a magnolia. He reflects that the sighted are blind to non-seeing, that he cannot abandon sight, and that the mind's inner imagery resembles psychedelic poster art—a shared counter-reality that picks up commodified debris alongside beauty, which one must let float past.

Lucien calls. The narrator reassures him that Pascal respects him, fabricating quotes to soothe his ego. To keep Agathe and Robert away from the house, she tells Lucien that Robert exposed himself to her on the road. Lucien, alarmed, promises to confront Agathe, ensuring Robert will be kept under watch and away from the narrator—exactly her intent.

Lucien turns intimate, whispering that he needs her. The narrator recalls a recent encounter in a Marseille hotel where Lucien, oblivious to her revulsion, called her "Sadie" and rolled her toward him; she forced herself to submit. She compares this assignment to her first undercover job wearing a wire for a biker, which was physically grueling but emotionally easier because the biker did not demand intimacy or validation.

She reflects that she will be gone before Lucien finishes his shoot, but the bodily memories of him will linger. She considers renegotiating her fee for the unexpected toll of the work, but, recalling his hands on her as if reading Braille, cannot settle on a number.