After an eight-hour shift at the diner, Cassie is exhausted but mentally unsettled by the strange boy, the large tip, and the FBI business card. Because it is Sunday, Cassie has to go to her extended family dinner instead of retreating to her room to think.

At the family gathering, Aunt Tasha welcomes Cassie and Uncle Rio teases Cassie about having a boyfriend. Cassie follows the familiar family script, joking with relatives and smiling when expected, but inwardly feels that the warmth and safety of the scene do not truly fit Cassie's sense of self.

Cassie slips into the kitchen, where Nonna asks about work. Cassie carefully avoids alarming Nonna, knowing the family would try to intervene if Cassie seemed unhappy, and mentions only the twelve-dollar tip. Cassie hides the more disturbing detail: the FBI card left by the mysterious boy.

After the family leaves, Cassie goes upstairs and studies the card. Cassie questions whether it is a joke because the boy looked far too young to be a special agent, but Cassie also senses that the boy did not seem cruel or mocking. Looking in the mirror leads Cassie to think about Cassie's mother, whose beauty Cassie believes she inherited only imperfectly.

Cassie's memories turn to the last time Cassie saw her mother alive and to the bloody dressing room Cassie found afterward. Because Cassie's mother's body was never recovered and the case remains open, Cassie wonders whether the FBI card could be connected to the investigation. Cassie then turns the card over and finds two handwritten messages: Special Agent Tanner Briggs's request for Cassie to call, and a second warning in smaller handwriting telling Cassie not to.

The chapter ends with a sharp shift into the mind of an unidentified person who has a sleeping girl captive. The person waits for the girl to wake, anticipates the fear and pleas that will follow, and implies a pattern of doing this to many others before.