- Prejean talks to her friend, the reporter Liz Scott, who has just interviewed the Harveys.
- The Harveys are angry at Prejean for supporting Robert; they thought they'd changed her mind.
- Prejean is confused and feels awful, though she still believes that she must work against the death penalty.
- Prejean decides that the best thing she can do now is stay away from the Harveys.
- Prejean meets with Robert, and he seems to be pretty accepting of his upcoming death.
- Still, Robert's kind of upset that the warden seems to like him less than he liked Tim Baldwin, another man who had gone to the chair.
- Baldwin was quite possibly innocent, and it seems like he was a nicer person in general. Even fairly horrible people would like to be treated kindly though, we suppose.
- Robert's father spent years and years in Angola; Prejean thinks about the importance of her own relationship with her father.
- The Death Row lawsuit won a couple of small changes, though Robert won't be able to see it through any further, obviously.
- Robert seems sorry about Faith's death, and he hopes the Harveys find peace.
- Prejean talks to Major Kendall Coody, who's in charge of Death Row.
- Coody finds administering Death Row very difficult and ethically problematic.
- It's December; Robert asks for Christmas cards.
- Robert also says he'd like Prejean to be there at the execution, even though he's only known her a short time. He wants her there so he can talk to someone other than the guards; he has not desire to talk to them.
- Robert is not a fan of the chaplain, who goes along with the death penalty.
- Robert gets a bunch of media interviews, in which he comes off as cocky and generally awful. He talks about how he admires Hitler, for example, which is not generally a way to win sympathy.
- Vernon Harvey gives interviews about how he's eager to see the execution.
- The day before the execution, Prejean goes to visit Robert.
- They make sure to feed Prejean this time; they don't want her fainting again.
- Robert asks Prejean to get a lie detector test for him so that he can say he didn't kill Faith; he feels like it would give his mother some comfort.
- Robert and Prejean talk about the murder a little.
- Robert says that when he left Faith, her body was positioned differently from the way the prosecutors said they found it. It's not clear why this should be. There are lots of small mysteries left around these cases; this isn't a detective novel, where you find out exactly how the crime happened. Real crimes tend not to work like that—which is one reason why the death penalty is a problem, Prejean suggests. There's always doubt, and death is very, very final.
- Robert and Prejean talk about politics. She tries to get him to see that supporting Hitler and violent solutions to world problems is not a good idea.
- Prejean ends up realizing that Robert's support for Hitler is really a result of his membership in the Aryan Brotherhood, which had supported him in Marion. They shared things, and when Robert got a cold potato, everyone in the Aryan Brotherhood demonstrated and got angry and threw their trays back.
- Apparently, white supremacists are nice to each other, even if they're horrible to everyone else.
- Prejean and Robert talk some more; Robert has to go to the bathroom. While he's gone, Prejean calls and sets up the polygraph test.
- Robert comes back and agrees that talking about Hitler in the interviews was a bad idea.
- Prejean needs to go, but remembering an interview during which Robert said he wasn't a religious fanatic but he believed in Jesus, she prays with him for a moment.
- Prejean tells Robert to try to end his life with love, and she tells him that she cares about him.
- Then Prejean goes into a discussion (to the reader) of whether the death penalty is validated by the Bible. She says that Jesus's example of love and compassion is the most important thing in the New Testament but that it has been lost as Christians have became entangled in, and supportive of, the state and its power.
- Prejean says that the death penalty compromises the national morally, and she believes that it will be abolished.
- Prejean goes back to the prison on the day of the execution.
- Robert's mom and his three stepbrothers are there. They joke about the youngest, Todd, sleeping out in the yard in a tent overnight, and getting a little scared and coming in.
- It's a cute moment—and a painful one, since it's Robert's last meeting with his family.
- For some reason, the warden sends Robert's family home earlier than he needs to. Random bureaucratic cruelty.
- Prejean is worried that Robert will struggle on his way to the chair.
- Robert asks about the polygraph test, and Prejean explains that the tests were inconclusive.
- Robert is shocked, but Prejean tells him that of course he's stressed out: the polygraph just showed that he's stressed out because he's about to be executed.
- Prejean and Robert talk more; Robert spews some racist bile. Prejean argues with him.
- You might figure, what does it matter if Robert's racist? He's going to die in a few hours. But Prejean is concerned about the state of his soul. That's why she's a spiritual adviser.
- Weirdly, Robert admires Martin Luther King, Jr. As well as Hitler. He is kind of confused.
- Robert gets his last meal, which is oysters, and thoroughly enjoys it.
- Robert talks about various jobs he had: he grew marijuana and worked on barges.
- Robert asks Prejean to tell him the procedures for the execution so he won't be surprised. He's also trying to figure out what to say before his execution—something about the death penalty being wrong, he knows, but he's not sure what else to say.
- Robert and Prejean chat some more, and they start preparing for the execution.
- Robert calls his family and cries; then he prays with Prejean.
- The guards shave Robert's hair and put in him in short sleeves, so Prejean can see his tattoos.
- Robert and Prejean go into the execution chamber; he says he hopes his death brings the Harvey's peace. He also says that killing is wrong.
- And then they kill him.