In Chap­ter 59 of “We Solve Mur­ders,” the scene is set in the qui­et Arrivals Hall at Dublin Air­port, where Amy and her com­pan­ions, Steve and Rosie, pre­pare for their stay in Dublin. Despite telling them she needs to “see a man about a gun,” Amy is actu­al­ly on a clan­des­tine mis­sion to pick up a firearm from a sub­ur­ban loca­tion west of Dublin. She is aware of a loom­ing dan­ger and relies on her instincts to nav­i­gate the sit­u­a­tion with­out alarm­ing her friends.

As the clock approach­es mid­night, they dis­cuss their plans, with Rosie eager to enjoy the Dublin nightlife, while Steve shows reluc­tance. He prefers to spend the evening watch­ing films in their hotel room. Rosie insists that he should explore the vibrant city instead of iso­lat­ing him­self. Despite Steve’s protests cit­ing his need to catch up on TV, Rosie main­tains her resolve to include him in their plans for the night, threat­en­ing to drag him out if nec­es­sary.

Amy, empa­thet­ic towards Steve’s pre­vi­ous strug­gles, sug­gests allow­ing him to opt out this time. She reg­is­ters the need for a moment of respite for him, hop­ing to bal­ance their fun with his well-being. Once Steve is set­tled into a taxi, Amy checks her watch anx­ious­ly while glanc­ing at the mul­ti-sto­ry park­ing struc­ture across the way.

Before depart­ing, Rosie reminds Amy to join her for drinks lat­er, empha­siz­ing the guar­an­tee she’s giv­en. As the taxi pulls away with Steve inside, Amy’s thoughts shift toward her upcom­ing task, under­stand­ing the crit­i­cal nature of the next thir­ty min­utes as she pre­pares to move for­ward with her covert mis­sion. The chap­ter cap­tures the dynam­ic between the char­ac­ters, high­light­ing their cama­raderie, along with Amy’s under­ly­ing ten­sion about the immi­nent dan­ger she faces.

In Chap­ter 59 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the pro­tag­o­nist nav­i­gates his day in a state of mut­ed des­o­la­tion, walk­ing the school halls with his head down, avoid­ing the whis­pers of his peers. He faces a moment of con­fronta­tion with the prin­ci­pal, who attempts to inspire him with talk of brav­ery shaped by fear, but instead, he choos­es to escape the con­fines of the school. Out­side, he spots Mr. and Mrs. Roberts head­ing into Lacey’s Din­er, which prompts him to take action against their trust. He sneaks into their home, retrieves the keys to their new mus­tard Aspen, and dri­ves off, recall­ing a time when he had often pulled his mother’s Fair­lane into their dri­ve­way.

His des­ti­na­tion is the pub­lic library in Pano­ra, where he spends hours sift­ing through micro­fiche, comb­ing through miss­ing per­sons reports, and absorb­ing the grav­i­ty of sor­row that per­me­ates these sto­ries. Patch, as he is known, notes the over­whelm­ing num­ber of young girls miss­ing, each one a life dimin­ished and extin­guished, caus­ing heart­break not just for their loved ones but also frac­tur­ing the very fab­ric of famil­ial bonds as par­ents strug­gle to cope.

As he dives deep­er into the grim accounts, he is joined by Saint, who pro­vides com­pan­ion­ship amidst the bleak research. Togeth­er they pore over pho­tographs of miss­ing girls, includ­ing one named Cal­lie Mon­trose, whose smil­ing face haunts Patch with a sense of urgency. Their dis­cus­sion turns grave as Saint recounts the dark events sur­round­ing Eli Aaron, a fig­ure linked omi­nous­ly to the dis­ap­pear­ances.

Patch, grap­pling with the past, push­es for answers while allow­ing mem­o­ries of shared trau­ma to sur­face. Saint, admit­ting her fears, reveals that she had stolen her grandfather’s Colt, demon­strat­ing an awak­en­ing of brav­ery trig­gered by des­per­a­tion. They exchange details about the grim find­ings sur­round­ing the case, includ­ing the unset­tling dis­cov­ery of rosary beads on the vic­tims.

As the con­ver­sa­tion shifts, a sense of resolve builds in Patch. He asserts his deter­mi­na­tion to find the miss­ing girl, sug­gest­ing to Saint that if Nix won’t take action, he him­self will. His fierce com­mit­ment to uncov­er­ing the truth cul­mi­nates in a vow to leave no stone unturned, ready to con­front what­ev­er obsta­cles lie ahead, vow­ing that he will “burn every­thing in my path till I find her,” unde­terred by the poten­tial con­se­quences .

In chap­ter fifty-nine, nar­rat­ed from Nina’s per­spec­tive, a heart-stop­ping dis­cov­ery and a con­se­quen­tial deci­sion unfold in an attic bathed in flick­er­ing light. Nina finds Andy’s life­less body, which ini­ti­ates a con­fronta­tion with Mil­lie, armed with pep­per spray and reel­ing from her actions. Despite the chill­ing set­ting, marked by death and betray­al, Nina’s focus nar­rows on Millie’s shak­en state, reveal­ing her human­i­ty amidst despair.

The ten­sion is pal­pa­ble as Mil­lie, hold­ing Nina at bay with pep­per spray, reveals Andy has been dead for days. Nina, assess­ing Andy’s con­di­tion, con­firms his demise, nav­i­gat­ing through the grue­some details with a resilience that under­scores her char­ac­ter’s depth. The room, alive with the echoes of their shared tur­moil, becomes a stage for Mil­lie’s col­lapse into real­iza­tion and remorse.

Mil­lie, over­whelmed by the grav­i­ty of her actions and the loom­ing threat of incar­cer­a­tion, breaks down. Nina, in a moment that binds tragedy to com­pas­sion, decides to pro­tect her. She offers her­self as the scape­goat for Andy’s death, plan­ning to lever­age her his­to­ry of men­tal health issues as a defense. This piv­otal deci­sion reflects Nina’s com­plex­i­ty and the lengths to which she’ll go to shield Mil­lie, por­tray­ing her as a char­ac­ter enveloped in lay­ers of guilt, empa­thy, and resolve.

Their con­ver­sa­tion, a blend of con­fes­sion and strat­e­gy, marks a turn­ing point. Through Nina’s eyes, the nar­ra­tive del­i­cate­ly ven­tures into themes of redemp­tion, sac­ri­fice, and the blurred lines between jus­tice and loy­al­ty. The chap­ter clos­es on Nina’s deter­mi­na­tion to alter the course of Millie’s fate, set­ting a grim yet poignant tone for the unfold­ing nar­ra­tive. The attic, once a sym­bol of secrets and dread, trans­forms into a cru­cible where the weight of deci­sions casts long shad­ows over their futures.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
59
I win­nowed to a near­by rooftop, an ash arrow clenched in either hand,
scan­ning where the Attor was high above, flap­ping—
FEYRE.
I slammed a men­tal shield of adamant up against that voice; against him.
Not now. Not this moment.
I could vague­ly feel him pound­ing against that shield. Roar­ing at it. But
even he could not get in.
The Attor was mine.
In the dis­tance, rush­ing toward me, toward Velaris, a mighty dark­ness
devoured the world. Sol­diers in its path did not emerge again.
My mate. Death incar­nate. Night tri­umphant.
I spot­ted the Attor again, veer­ing toward the sea, toward Hybern, still
over the city.
I win­nowed, throw­ing my aware­ness toward it like a net, spear­ing mind
to mind, using the teth­er like a rope, lead­ing me through time and dis­tance
and wind—
I latched onto the oily smear of its mal­ice, pin­point­ing my being, my
focus onto the core of it. A bea­con of cor­rup­tion and filth.
When I emerged from wind and shad­ow, I was right atop the Attor.
It shrieked, wings curv­ing as I slammed into it. As I plunged those
poi­soned ash arrows through each wing. Right through the main mus­cle.
The Attor arched in pain, its forked tongue cleav­ing the air between us.
The city was a blur below, the Sidra a mere stream from the height.
In the span of a heart­beat, I wrapped myself around the Attor. I became a
liv­ing flame that burned every­where I touched, became unbreak­able as the
adamant wall inside my mind.
Shriek­ing, the Attor thrashed against me—but its wings, with those
arrows, with my grip …
Free fall.
Down into the world. Into blood and pain. The wind tore at us.
The Attor could not break free of my flam­ing grasp. Or from my
poi­soned arrows skew­er­ing its wings. Lam­ing him. Its burn­ing skin stung
my nose.
As we fell, my dag­ger found its way into my hand.
The dark­ness con­sum­ing the hori­zon shot closer—as if spot­ting me.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I angled my dag­ger over the Attor’s bony, elon­gat­ed rib cage. “This is for
Rhys,” I hissed in its point­ed ear.
The rever­ber­a­tion of steel on bone barked into my hand.
Sil­very blood warmed my fin­gers. The Attor screamed.
I yanked out my dag­ger, blood fly­ing up, splat­ter­ing my face.
“This is for Clare.”
I plunged my blade in again, twist­ing.
Build­ings took form. The Sidra ran red, but the sky was empty—free of
sol­diers. So were the streets.
The Attor was scream­ing and hiss­ing, curs­ing and beg­ging, as I ripped
free the blade.
I could make out peo­ple; make out their shapes. The ground swelled up
to meet us. The Attor was buck­ing so vio­lent­ly it was all I could do to keep
it in my forge-hot grip. Burn­ing skin ripped away, car­ried above us.
“And this,” I breathed, lean­ing close to say the words into its ear, into its
rot­ted soul. I slid my dag­ger in a third time, rel­ish­ing the splin­ter­ing of
bones and flesh. “This is for me.”
I could count the cob­ble­stones. See Death beck­on­ing with open arms.
I kept my mouth beside its ear, close as a lover, as our reflec­tion in a pool
of blood became clear. “I’ll see you in hell,” I whis­pered, and left my blade
in its side.
Wind rip­pled the blood upon the cob­ble­stones mere inch­es away.
And I win­nowed out, leav­ing the Attor behind.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

C ONNOR CAME BACK TO LIFE on the rocky beach­es of Aldiz. It was
slow but steady, like a seed sprout­ing.
She liked play­ing Scrab­ble with Celia. As she’d promised, she ate
din­ner with me every night, some­times even com­ing down to the
kitchen ear­ly to help me make tor­tillas from scratch or my mother’s
cal­do gal­lego.
But it was Robert she grav­i­tat­ed toward.
Tall and broad, with a gen­tle beer bel­ly and sil­ver hair, Robert had
no idea what to do with a teenage girl at first. I think he was
intim­i­dat­ed by her. He was unsure what to say. So he gave her space,
maybe even more of a wide berth.
It was Con­nor who reached out, who asked him to teach her how to
play pok­er, asked him to tell her about finance, asked him if he want­ed
to go fish­ing.
He nev­er replaced Har­ry. No one could. But he did ease the pain, a
lit­tle bit. She asked his opin­ion about boys. She took the time to find
him the per­fect sweater on his birth­day.
He paint­ed her bed­room for her. He made her favorite bar­be­cue
ribs on the week­ends.
And slow­ly, Con­nor began to trust that the world was a rea­son­ably
safe place to open your heart to. I knew the wounds of los­ing her
father would nev­er tru­ly heal, that scar tis­sue was form­ing all through
her high school years. But I saw her stop par­ty­ing. I saw her start
get­ting As and Bs. And then, when she got into Stan­ford, I looked at
her and real­ized I had a daugh­ter with two feet placed firm­ly on the
ground and her head square­ly on her shoul­ders.
Celia, Robert, and I took Con­nor out for din­ner the night before she
and I left to take her to school. We were at a tiny restau­rant on the
water. Robert had bought her a present and wrapped it. It was a pok­er
set. He said, “Take everybody’s mon­ey, like you’ve been tak­ing mine
with all those flush­es.”
“And then you can help me invest it,” she said with dev­il­ish glee.
“Atta girl,” he said.
Robert always claimed that he mar­ried me because he would do
any­thing for Celia. But I think he did it, in at least some small part,
because it gave him a chance to have a fam­i­ly. He was nev­er going to
set­tle down with one woman. And Span­ish women proved to be just as
enchant­ed by him as Amer­i­can ones had been. But this sys­tem, this
fam­i­ly, was one he could be a part of, and I think he knew that when he
signed up.
Or maybe Robert mere­ly stum­bled into some­thing that worked for
him, unsure what he want­ed until he had it. Some peo­ple are lucky like
that. Me, I’ve always gone after what I want­ed with every­thing in me.
Oth­ers fall into hap­pi­ness. Some­times I wish I was like them. I’m sure
some­times they wish they were like me.
With Con­nor back in the Unit­ed States, com­ing home only dur­ing
school breaks, Celia and I had more time with each oth­er than we ever
had before. We did not have film shoots or gos­sip columns to wor­ry
about. We were almost nev­er recognized—and if peo­ple did rec­og­nize
one of us, they most­ly steered clear and kept it to them­selves.
There in Spain, I had the life I tru­ly want­ed. I felt at peace, again
wak­ing up every day see­ing Celia’s hair fanned on my pil­low. I
cher­ished every moment we had to our­selves, every sec­ond I spent
with my arms around her.
Our bed­room had an over­sized bal­cony that looked out onto the
ocean. Often the breeze from the water would rush into our room at
night. We would sit out there on lazy morn­ings, read­ing the news­pa­per
togeth­er, our fin­gers gray from the ink.
I even start­ed speak­ing Span­ish again. At first, I did it because it
was nec­es­sary. There were so many peo­ple we need­ed to con­verse
with, and I was the only one tru­ly pre­pared to do it. But I think the
neces­si­ty of it was good for me. Because I couldn’t wor­ry too much
about feel­ing inse­cure; I sim­ply had to get through the trans­ac­tion.
And then, over time, I found myself proud of how eas­i­ly it came to me.
The dialect was different—the Cuban Span­ish of my youth was not a
per­fect match for the Castil­ian of Spain—but years with­out the words
had not erased many of them from my mind.
I would often speak Span­ish even at home, mak­ing Celia and Robert
piece togeth­er what I was say­ing from their own lim­it­ed knowl­edge. I
loved shar­ing it with them. I loved being able to show a part of myself
that I had long buried. I was hap­py to find that when I dug it up, that
part was still there, wait­ing for me.
But of course, no mat­ter how per­fect the days seemed, there was
one ache loom­ing over us night after night.
Celia was not well. Her health was dete­ri­o­rat­ing. She did not have
much time.
“I know I shouldn’t,” Celia said to me one night as we lay togeth­er
in the dark, nei­ther of us yet sleep­ing. “But some­times I get so mad at
us for all the years we lost. For all the time we wast­ed.”
I grabbed her hand. “I know,” I said. “Me too.”
“If you love some­one enough, you should be able to over­come
any­thing,” she said. “And we have always loved each oth­er so much,
more than I ever thought I could be loved, more than I ever thought I
could love. So why . . . why couldn’t we over­come it?”
“We did,” I said, turn­ing toward her. “We’re here.”
She shook her head. “But the years,” she said.
“We’re stub­born,” I said. “And we weren’t exact­ly giv­en the tools to
suc­ceed. We’re both used to being the one who calls the shots. We
both have a ten­den­cy to think the world revolves around us . . .”
“And we’ve had to hide that we’re gay,” she said. “Or, rather, I’m
gay. You’re bisex­u­al.”
I smiled in the dark and squeezed her hand.
“The world hasn’t made that easy,” she said.
“I think both of us want­ed more than was real­is­tic. I’m sure we
could have made it work, the two of us, in a small town. You could have
been a teacher. I could have been a nurse. We could have made it
eas­i­er on our­selves that way.”
I could feel Celia shak­ing her head next to me. “But that’s not who
we are, that’s not who we have ever been or could ever be.”
I nod­ded. “I think being yourself—your true, entire self—is always
going to feel like you’re swim­ming upstream.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But if the last few years with you have been any
indi­ca­tion, I think it also feels like tak­ing your bra off at the end of the
day.”
I laughed. “I love you,” I said. “Don’t ever leave me.”
But when she said, “I love you, too. I nev­er will,” we both knew she
was mak­ing a promise she couldn’t keep.
I couldn’t stand the thought of los­ing her again, los­ing her in a
deep­er way than I’d ever lost her before. I couldn’t bear the idea that I
would be for­ev­er with­out her, with no tie to her.
“Will you mar­ry me?” I said.
She laughed, and I stopped her.
“I’m not kid­ding! I want to mar­ry you. For once and for all. Don’t I
deserve that? Sev­en mar­riages in, shouldn’t I final­ly get to mar­ry the
love of my life?”
“I don’t think it works that way, sweet­heart,” she said. “And need I
remind you, I’d be steal­ing my brother’s wife.”
“I’m seri­ous, Celia.”
“So am I, Eve­lyn. There’s no way for us to mar­ry.”
“All a mar­riage is is a promise.”
“If you say so,” she said. “You’re the expert.”
“Let’s get mar­ried right here and now. Me and you. In this bed. You
don’t even have to put on a white night­gown.”
“What are you talk­ing about?”
“I’m talk­ing about a spir­i­tu­al promise, between the two of us, for the
rest of our lives.”
When Celia didn’t say any­thing, I knew that she was think­ing about
it. She was think­ing about whether it could mean any­thing, the two of
us there in that bed.
“Here’s what we will do,” I said, try­ing to con­vince her. “We will
look each oth­er in the eye, and we will hold hands, and we will say
what’s in our hearts, and we will promise to be there for each oth­er.
We don’t need any gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments or wit­ness­es or reli­gious
approval. It doesn’t mat­ter that I’m already legal­ly mar­ried, because we
both know that when I was mar­ry­ing Robert, I was doing it to be with
you. We don’t need any­body else’s rules. We just need each oth­er.”
She was qui­et. She sighed. And then she said, “OK. I’m in.”
“Real­ly?” I was sur­prised at just how mean­ing­ful this moment was
becom­ing.
“Yeah,” she said. “I want to mar­ry you. I’ve always want­ed to mar­ry
you. I just  .  .  . it nev­er occurred to me that we could. That we didn’t
need anyone’s approval.”
“We don’t,” I said.
“Then I do.”
I laughed and sat up in our bed. I turned on the light on my
night­stand. Celia sat up, too. We faced each oth­er and held hands.
“I think you should prob­a­bly per­form the cer­e­mo­ny,” she said.
“I sup­pose I have been in more wed­dings,” I joked.
She laughed, and I laughed with her. We were in our mid­fifties,
gid­dy at the idea of final­ly doing what we should have done years ago.
“OK,” I said. “No more laugh­ing. We’re gonna do it.”
“OK,” she said, smil­ing. “I’m ready.”
I breathed in. I looked at her. She had crow’s‑feet around her eyes.
She had laugh lines around her mouth. Her hair was mussed from the
pil­low. She was wear­ing an old New York Giants T‑shirt with a hole in
the shoul­der. Con­ven­tion be damned, she nev­er looked more beau­ti­ful.
“Dear­ly beloved,” I said. “I sup­pose that’s just us.”
“OK,” Celia said. “I fol­low.”
“We are gath­ered here today to cel­e­brate the union of . . . us.”
“Great.”
“Two peo­ple who come togeth­er to spend the rest of their lives with
each oth­er.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you, Celia, take me, Eve­lyn, to be your wed­ded wife? In
sick­ness and in health, for rich­er and for poor­er, till death do us part,
as long as we both shall live?”
She smiled at me. “I do.”
“And do I, Eve­lyn, take you, Celia, to be my wed­ded wife? In
sick­ness and in health and all the oth­er stuff? I do.” I real­ized there
was a slight hic­cup. “Wait, we don’t have rings.”