On Friday, Sadie's last day at Le Moulin before the Guyenne fair, she arrives to find René's woman waiting in the parking area, silently triumphant that Sadie has stepped aside as René's target. The atmosphere among the Moulinards is calm; preparations for the fair are complete and they are simply waiting for the next day's action.

At lunchtime, Sadie excuses herself, citing fictitious family paperwork related to Lucien's uncle's death, and drives the route she had previously observed Naïs taking. She intends to investigate Bruno's home while Naïs is occupied at her café.

Sadie reaches a remote stone farmhouse and barn at the end of a dead-end road. She inspects the property, noting the dilapidated, working disorder of rural poverty. She reflects on a contrasting past job entrapping wealthy fine art dealers in the Hudson Valley with forged Picassos, who saw through her disguise.

Wandering the grounds, Sadie finds the permaculture plot, the stone hut where Bruno lived after his daughter's death, and the large rock at the base of which lies the cave entrance Bruno had described in his emails. She enters the shallow cave with her pocket flashlight and locates the narrow crevice with metal anchors and a guide rope leading down into the underground network. She calls Bruno's name twice; no reply comes.

A vehicle arrives. Sadie exits casually and encounters a man her age in utilitarian clothing, whom she initially assumes is Bruno's son. She fabricates a story about searching for a vacation rental near the Château de Gaume. The man directs her back to the D79 and identifies the property as belonging to "Madame Quercy"-possibly the ex-wife's name, which might explain why Sadie never found a property record for Bruno. The man turns out to be a Telecom worker addressing a wind-related outage, not Bruno's son.