Chap­ter 23 of We Solve Mur­ders takes read­ers on an intense jour­ney as Steve dri­ves toward Hol­lands Wood Camp­site, a place that should be peace­ful and serene but only increas­es his anx­i­ety. Locat­ed just past Brock­en­hurst and adja­cent to the Balmer Lawn Hotel, the camp­site is filled with fam­i­lies enjoy­ing the sun, kids run­ning around play­ing foot­ball, and cou­ples casu­al­ly bik­ing through the land­scape. The con­trast between the tran­quil sur­round­ings and Steve’s ris­ing pan­ic is pal­pa­ble. As he makes his way through this idyl­lic scene, Steve’s thoughts are con­sumed by his upcom­ing meet­ing with Jeff Nolan. Even though Amy reas­sured him that every­thing was fine, he couldn’t help but wor­ry. The ten­sion between his hope and fear becomes more pro­nounced as he thinks about the meet­ing’s purpose—what could it bring to light? He dreads what lies ahead but also knows that it’s nec­es­sary to face what­ev­er comes.

As Steve dri­ves deep­er into the camp­site, the atmos­phere becomes even more unnerv­ing. The areas sur­round­ing the pitch­es start to look more iso­lat­ed and exclu­sive, with many vacant spots despite it being a busy sum­mer day. The seclud­ed nature of these sec­tions sug­gests that they’re reserved for those seek­ing pri­va­cy, fur­ther height­en­ing Steve’s sus­pi­cion. It’s hard for him to ignore the stark con­trast between the peace­ful­ness of the camp­site and his own trou­bled thoughts. As he pass­es, he notices an elder­ly cou­ple sit­ting under a car­a­van, calm­ly enjoy­ing a qui­et moment. Their seren­i­ty stirs some­thing in Steve, and he can’t help but think about his late wife, Deb­bie. His heart aches with regret as he reflects on the life he lost, but he quick­ly shakes off the sad­ness, real­iz­ing that cling­ing to past griev­ances won’t help him solve the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion at hand.

Final­ly reach­ing Pitch 38, Steve feels his heart rate increase as he draws clos­er to where Jeff is sup­pos­ed­ly wait­ing. Despite being assured of the loca­tion, the strange request for pri­va­cy weighs heav­i­ly on Steve’s mind. Some­thing feels off, and as he pulls up to Pitch 46, his worst fears come to life. The black BMW that Jeff had been dri­ving is there, its doors open. The sight of the vehi­cle is unsettling—its driver’s win­dow is shat­tered, and a pool of fresh blood stains the seat. Steve’s pulse quick­ens as his mind races through the pos­si­bil­i­ties. There’s no sign of Jeff, and the scene before him indi­cates some­thing ter­ri­ble has hap­pened. As he cau­tious­ly approach­es, the blood on the seat sig­nals that this isn’t just a sim­ple mishap—there’s some­thing much dark­er at play. The lack of Jeff’s pres­ence and the omi­nous clues around him make Steve real­ize that this is a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion far beyond what he antic­i­pat­ed.

With a sense of grow­ing urgency, Steve fol­lows the blood trail through the gorse bush­es, only to uncov­er more blood and tire tracks. The tire tracks sug­gest the vehi­cle that left the scene was a Vol­vo XC90, a piece of evi­dence that could be cru­cial in fig­ur­ing out what hap­pened. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of a kid­nap­ping or mur­der runs through his mind, and Steve can’t shake the fear that Jeff might be in grave dan­ger. His instincts tell him to call the author­i­ties, but his con­nec­tion to Jeff, espe­cial­ly through Amy, pre­vents him from walk­ing away. Steve knows he can’t aban­don this inves­ti­ga­tion, even though his ratio­nal mind tells him to let the pro­fes­sion­als han­dle it. His con­cern for Amy’s safe­ty inten­si­fies, espe­cial­ly since she has not reached out to him, and he can’t help but won­der why. The silence from her end sends a chill­ing mes­sage that some­thing much larg­er is at play, and the stakes are high­er than ever before. Steve knows that what­ev­er hap­pened to Jeff, it’s only the begin­ning of a much dark­er conspiracy—one that may now involve Amy and the lives of every­one involved.