The Outsider

July 25

Before leaving for Flint, Holly visits some places associated with Heath Holmes—the cemetery where he is buried, his mother’s house (the place where she hanged herself), and the shrine where his two victims were discovered. She theorizes that the outsider goes there to feed on the pain of the people still grieving over the deaths of its victims. Standing in the parking lot of the cemetery where Holmes and some of his family are buried, Holly takes photographs of nearby abandoned buildings that seem like likely places for the outsider to hide while it adopts the face of its new target.

Holly then takes a flight to Flint and meets Howie, Alec, Ralph, Jeannie, Marcy Maitland, and Bill Samuels. Holly asks if she can hold her report for the end of the meeting. Howie compares her to the detective in a mystery story by Agatha Christie. When Detective Sablo has summarized the case so far, Holly begins by telling them that both murders were committed by an outsider. The outsider relies on modern forensics to confuse pursuit, but his most effective defense is that no one believes in the supernatural.

While the investigators are meeting, Jack Hoskins dreams about the thing that put the burn on the back of his neck.