Chap­ter 21 of We Solve Mur­ders opens with François Lou­bet loung­ing in his lav­ish office, nurs­ing a glass of import­ed whiskey, when his phone chimes with an unex­pect­ed email. The mes­sage comes from Rob Ken­na, his trust­ed mur­der-bro­ker, a man whose effi­cien­cy in han­dling such mat­ters makes him indis­pens­able in François’s world. Ken­na, in his usu­al casu­al tone, informs him that Amy Wheel­er has suc­cess­ful­ly evad­ed cap­ture and is now on the move in South Car­oli­na. He assures François that his oper­a­tives are already track­ing her, but some­thing about the email unset­tles him. Though Ken­na has nev­er let him down before, François is not the type to leave mat­ters of life and death entire­ly in some­one else’s hands.

As he rereads the mes­sage, he con­sid­ers whether he should per­son­al­ly inter­vene or allow Ken­na to man­age the sit­u­a­tion. His reliance on inter­me­di­aries has always served him well, but the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of a loose end like Amy leaves him uneasy. He absent­mind­ed­ly swirls his drink, con­tem­plat­ing just how much he real­ly knows about this woman who has sud­den­ly become his pri­ma­ry con­cern. Strange­ly, while he is aware of her name, pro­fes­sion, and even her blood type, he real­izes he has no idea what she actu­al­ly looks like. The absur­di­ty of the sit­u­a­tion amus­es him—how can he fear a woman he would­n’t even rec­og­nize if she were stand­ing next to him?

The thought lingers, and François con­sid­ers the irony of know­ing someone’s med­ical details with­out ever hav­ing seen their face. A wicked smirk forms as he imag­ines sub­mit­ting a for­mal com­plaint to Ken­na for not pro­vid­ing a “com­plete pack­age” of infor­ma­tion. His humor is a defense mech­a­nism, a way to bal­ance the dark real­i­ties of his pro­fes­sion with the mun­dan­i­ty of every­day life. But under­neath the lev­i­ty, there’s a nag­ging feel­ing that Amy Wheel­er may be more resource­ful than antic­i­pat­ed. After all, few peo­ple suc­cess­ful­ly slip through the grasp of hired killers with­out some lev­el of cun­ning or luck.

François’s mind drifts to the broad­er impli­ca­tions of Amy’s escape. If she man­ages to sur­vive long enough, could she dis­rupt the intri­cate web of alliances and secrets he has care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed? He has no rea­son to believe she knows the full extent of what’s at stake, but uncer­tain­ty is some­thing he can­not afford. The men Ken­na hired are pro­fes­sion­als, but mis­takes hap­pen, and Amy seems to be the type who thrives in high-pres­sure sit­u­a­tions. His instincts tell him not to under­es­ti­mate her, despite his lack of knowl­edge about her phys­i­cal traits.

Rest­less, he taps his fin­gers against his desk, con­tem­plat­ing his next move. Trust­ing Ken­na is one option, but François knows that true pow­er lies in keep­ing mul­ti­ple lay­ers of con­trol. He won­ders if a direct approach—sending in his own people—would be nec­es­sary to ensure the job is done right. The prob­lem is, draw­ing more atten­tion to the sit­u­a­tion increas­es risk, some­thing he has spent his entire career avoid­ing. With the stakes so high, how­ev­er, play­ing it safe may no longer be an option.

For a moment, François allows him­self to imag­ine how Amy might be react­ing to all of this. Is she scared? Is she aware of just how dan­ger­ous the forces pur­su­ing her are? Or is she some­one who thrives in chaos, adapt­ing quick­ly and plot­ting her next move just as he is? The unknowns both­er him more than they should, and that alone con­vinces him to take a more active role in resolv­ing this prob­lem.

Return­ing his focus to Kenna’s email, he drafts a sim­ple but firm response, request­ing more fre­quent updates and an assur­ance that there will be no fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions. He decides that if Amy is still alive in twen­ty-four hours, he will take mat­ters into his own hands. After all, he didn’t build his empire by leav­ing things to chance. With that, he fin­ish­es his whiskey and leans back, watch­ing the sun dip below the hori­zon, know­ing that by this time tomor­row, Amy Wheeler’s fate will be sealed—one way or anoth­er.