Chap­ter 20 of We Solve Mur­ders opens with Jeff speed­ing down iso­lat­ed back roads, his vehi­cle cut­ting through the dense night as he des­per­ate­ly tries to evade the unseen threats that are fol­low­ing him. His heart races as he speeds, glanc­ing ner­vous­ly over his shoul­der at the thought of who­ev­er might be lurk­ing behind. With his pulse quick­en­ing, he attempts to reach Amy, des­per­ate to warn her of the dan­ger they are both in, but the calls go unan­swered. Feel­ing the weight of the sit­u­a­tion press­ing down on him, Jeff leaves a voice­mail for Amy, the urgency in his voice pal­pa­ble as he speaks quick­ly, afraid that his time to warn her is run­ning out. The voice­mail con­veys a sense of pan­ic as Jeff details how Lou­bet, the fig­ure they have been deal­ing with, has been involved in illic­it activ­i­ties, using their clients as part of a mon­ey-smug­gling oper­a­tion. After con­fronting Lou­bet about his involve­ment in these crim­i­nal deal­ings, Jeff receives a chill­ing death threat, only to soon face two gun­men who attempt to kill him in Bruno’s estab­lish­ment. Real­iz­ing the immi­nent dan­ger, Jeff urgent­ly warns Amy that their com­mu­ni­ca­tion might be cut short and advis­es her to go off the grid, to find safe­ty and avoid being caught in the grow­ing web of dan­ger.

Jef­f’s voice on the voice­mail is filled with dread as he stress­es the neces­si­ty for both of them to hide and lay low while try­ing to uncov­er the full extent of the con­spir­a­cy they have unwit­ting­ly become entan­gled in. He urges Amy to seek a safe place, her safe­ty being his pri­ma­ry con­cern, while hint­ing that the con­spir­a­cy runs much deep­er than they had ever antic­i­pat­ed. In his mes­sage, Jeff men­tions a name, “Joe Blow,” linked to Max­i­mum Impact, a per­son whose con­nec­tion to the grow­ing tur­moil is unclear but sure­ly sig­nif­i­cant. The name sends a wave of fear through Jeff, and he con­tin­ues to empha­size the need for Amy to trust no one, warn­ing her to imme­di­ate­ly dis­pose of her phone, believ­ing their ene­mies have full access to their com­mu­ni­ca­tions. This esca­lat­ing para­noia under­scores the frag­ile nature of their sit­u­a­tion, with Jeff unable to trust any­one and feel­ing that even their most pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions are being mon­i­tored. The weight of his words becomes heav­ier as the real­i­ty sinks in: they are being hunt­ed, their every move being tracked, and any mis­take could be fatal.

With his urgent mes­sage com­plete, Jef­f’s fear and con­cern for Amy deep­en, and he knows that his next steps must be deci­sive and cal­cu­lat­ed. The weight of the infor­ma­tion he has just shared sinks in, and his mind races with the real­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion. Deter­mined to cut all ties with the out­side world and pre­vent any fur­ther track­ing, Jeff takes a dras­tic step—he removes the SIM card from his phone and smash­es the device, sev­er­ing all links to the life he had been liv­ing. This act of destruc­tion is sym­bol­ic, rep­re­sent­ing Jeff’s will­ing­ness to com­plete­ly dis­con­nect from the real­i­ty that has led them into such a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. He throws the bro­ken phone and SIM card out of the win­dow, the pieces scat­ter­ing in the night as he accel­er­ates deep­er into the unknown. His mind is set on sur­vival now, with no ties to the out­side world, and every step he takes is a step fur­ther into the dark­ness. Jeff’s deci­sion to destroy his phone sig­ni­fies his com­mit­ment to stay­ing one step ahead of the peo­ple who are hunt­ing him, as well as his desire to pro­tect Amy from the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of their ene­mies’ reach. The sever­i­ty of his actions reveals the depth of his resolve, and his grow­ing real­iza­tion that he and Amy are trapped in a web of dan­ger that they might not be able to escape from.

As he dri­ves into the night, the full weight of his choic­es and the risks they car­ry weigh heav­i­ly on him. The chap­ter leaves read­ers with a lin­ger­ing sense of uncer­tain­ty, as Jeff’s actions are marked by a final­i­ty that sug­gests there may be no turn­ing back. The urgency of his sit­u­a­tion, the destruc­tion of his phone, and the emo­tion­al bur­den of leav­ing Amy a mes­sage all under­score the grav­i­ty of the threat they face. The future is uncer­tain for both Jeff and Amy, and as the chap­ter draws to a close, read­ers are left with a deep sense of ten­sion and antic­i­pa­tion, won­der­ing if their efforts to sur­vive will be enough against the ever-encroach­ing dan­ger clos­ing in on them.