Chap­ter 24 of We Solve Mur­ders inten­si­fies the ten­sion as Amy and Rosie find them­selves in a life-threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tion on a scorch­ing South Car­oli­na after­noon. Amy, dri­ven by urgency, insists on steal­ing a fast car to escape the mount­ing dan­ger, even as Rosie voic­es her con­cerns about the ongo­ing gun­fire in the vicin­i­ty. Despite the close prox­im­i­ty of the bul­lets, Amy dis­miss­es them, believ­ing they aren’t aimed at them and that the gun­fire will sub­side soon. The under­ly­ing urgency stems from a dis­turb­ing mes­sage from Jeff, who urged them to stay under the radar and avoid return­ing to Lon­don. In this moment of dis­tress, Amy real­izes they are iso­lat­ed, with no one left to turn to but each oth­er. The pair must oper­ate covert­ly, avoid­ing any traces of their whereabouts—this includes refrain­ing from using cred­it cards, which adds to Rosie’s already over­whelm­ing sense of dread.

The dan­ger height­ens as the two women take cov­er beneath a pool cov­er in a neighbor’s yard, the near­by gun­fire send­ing their adren­a­line lev­els soar­ing. While they’re hid­ing, Amy recalls a sig­nif­i­cant discovery—Scroggie’s involve­ment in the mur­der of Andrew Fair­banks. The shock­ing dis­cov­ery of scan­dalous emails, which impli­cat­ed Scrog­gie in ille­gal activ­i­ties, was made at his house. Fur­ther­more, a gro­cery bag con­tain­ing one hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars adds to the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. This sud­den wind­fall of mon­ey pro­vides the women with an emer­gency fund to rely on, poten­tial­ly giv­ing them a fight­ing chance to escape the esca­lat­ing chaos and solve the case that has entan­gled them. How­ev­er, their imme­di­ate con­cern remains sur­vival, and the mon­ey they found is now key to that.

Amidst their fran­tic hid­ing and con­tem­pla­tion, Amy begins to sus­pect that law enforce­ment is not just a bystander in these events, but may be active­ly involved in the con­spir­a­cy. As she process­es the con­nec­tions between Scroggie’s actions and the larg­er net­work of play­ers at hand, she reflects on pos­si­ble sources of assis­tance. Rosie, ever the opti­mist, sug­gests that her friend Barb could be an ally, offer­ing a brief moment of light­heart­ed­ness amidst the over­whelm­ing ten­sion. Despite Rosie’s attempt at humor, Amy knows the stakes are too high to rely on hope­ful whims. The sit­u­a­tion demands action, and Amy is res­olute in her deter­mi­na­tion to keep push­ing for­ward, even as the grim real­i­ty sets in. In a moment of clar­i­ty, she thinks of Jeff, know­ing that she can trust him com­plete­ly. How­ev­er, with Jeff now in dan­ger and pos­si­bly unreach­able, Amy real­izes the only oth­er per­son she can rely on is Steve. The thought of involv­ing Steve is daunt­ing, as it would com­pli­cate their already strained rela­tion­ship, but Amy rec­og­nizes that his exper­tise may be their only chance of sur­vival.

In con­trast to the seri­ous­ness of their predica­ment, Rosie main­tains her char­ac­ter­is­tic light-heart­ed­ness, sug­gest­ing that she has a pri­vate plane avail­able to make their escape. The idea catch­es Amy off guard, but it also sparks a plan. Amy knows that steal­ing a car and reach­ing out to Steve might be their best shot at stay­ing one step ahead of their pur­suers. How­ev­er, she’s ful­ly aware that involv­ing Steve would com­pli­cate things fur­ther, giv­en the per­son­al his­to­ry and the del­i­cate nature of their rela­tion­ship. Nev­er­the­less, with the weight of the sit­u­a­tion push­ing her to act quick­ly, Amy resolves to take the risk and imple­ment her plan. As the chap­ter draws to a close, the urgency of their sit­u­a­tion is appar­ent, leav­ing read­ers hang­ing on the edge of their seats, won­der­ing what actions the two women will take next in this esca­lat­ing web of dan­ger and intrigue. The chap­ter sets the stage for more high-stakes moves and dark rev­e­la­tions that will dri­ve the nar­ra­tive for­ward, high­light­ing Amy and Rosie’s deter­mi­na­tion to unrav­el the mys­tery, no mat­ter the cost.