Chap­ter 34 of We Solve Mur­ders opens with Eddie Flood step­ping off the plane into the humid, swel­ter­ing air of South Car­oli­na, the weight of his mis­sion already press­ing heav­i­ly on his chest. His mis­sion is sim­ple yet dead­ly: he has been hired for thir­ty thou­sand pounds to elim­i­nate a woman, but Eddie knows there is more lurk­ing beneath the sur­face. While Rob Ken­na, his asso­ciate, is aware of the deal, Eddie keeps the full extent of the job to him­self, know­ing that secrets are essen­tial for sur­vival in their line of work. His suit­case is care­ful­ly packed with an assort­ment of disguises—tourist clothes for blend­ing in, busi­ness attire for pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and mil­i­tary fatigues for a more aggres­sive approach, if nec­es­sary. Along with these, his lap­top, loaded with infor­ma­tion on bul­let wounds and their after­math, serves as both a tool for research and a grim reminder of what lies ahead.

Inside the air­port ter­mi­nal, Eddie moves swift­ly, his eyes scan­ning the envi­ron­ment, alert for any­thing that seems out of place. Two cus­toms offi­cers stand at their posts—one is a wiry white man with a neat­ly trimmed mus­tache, and the oth­er is a tall, robust black man named Car­los Moss, who stands with a con­fi­dent air, clear­ly accus­tomed to author­i­ty. Eddie, smooth and con­fi­dent as always, approach­es the pair, hand­ing over his pass­port and engag­ing in light con­ver­sa­tion. He casu­al­ly men­tions that he is a fan of the local author Rosie D’Antonio, hop­ing to slip in some casu­al ques­tions about her life in the area. How­ev­er, beneath the pleas­antries, Eddie is qui­et­ly prob­ing Car­los for any use­ful infor­ma­tion about Rosie, try­ing to gauge if she’s a poten­tial lead or sim­ply anoth­er dis­trac­tion. Car­los, how­ev­er, is more guard­ed than Eddie antic­i­pat­ed, offer­ing only polite respons­es and refus­ing to be swayed by Eddie’s charm.

Despite Eddie’s attempts to bond over shared inter­ests, Car­los remains unaf­fect­ed. He informs Eddie that, due to rou­tine pro­to­col, a ran­dom secu­ri­ty check is nec­es­sary. To Eddie, this feels like both an incon­ve­nience and an oppor­tu­ni­ty. He knows that Car­los could prove use­ful if per­suad­ed, so he decides to take the risk of offer­ing mon­ey in exchange for infor­ma­tion. The cus­toms offi­cer leads Eddie to a side room, which resem­bles an inter­ro­ga­tion room more than a secu­ri­ty check­point. The ster­ile, cold envi­ron­ment imme­di­ate­ly puts Eddie on edge as he begins cal­cu­lat­ing his next move. As Car­los locks the door behind him and steps out, Eddie is left alone with his thoughts. He con­sid­ers his next steps care­ful­ly, know­ing that this could be a piv­otal moment in his mis­sion. Reach­ing into his pock­et, Eddie pulls out a roll of cash, esti­mat­ing that offer­ing three hun­dred dol­lars to Car­los might be enough to coax him into shar­ing some use­ful details. If not, Eddie is pre­pared to up the ante—after all, he’s been in tight spots before and has learned the art of nego­ti­at­ing under pres­sure.

As the min­utes tick by, Eddie’s mind races with the impli­ca­tions of his sit­u­a­tion. The mis­sion to kill the woman is becom­ing more com­pli­cat­ed, and the unknown details sur­round­ing her are start­ing to weigh on him. What was ini­tial­ly a straight­for­ward assign­ment is now tan­gled in lay­ers of mys­tery, and Eddie can’t afford to make any mis­steps. He pulls out his lap­top again, scan­ning through research he com­piled dur­ing the flight. The infor­ma­tion on the blood sam­ples, the mys­te­ri­ous fig­ures involved, and the poten­tial con­nec­tions to big­ger play­ers start to inter­twine, cre­at­ing a more dan­ger­ous web than Eddie antic­i­pat­ed. His heart races as he con­tem­plates the stakes, real­iz­ing that this mis­sion could end up being far more per­ilous than orig­i­nal­ly thought. When Car­los final­ly returns to the room, Eddie knows the next few min­utes will deter­mine the out­come of his mis­sion and whether he’ll walk away with the infor­ma­tion he needs. Every word, every ges­ture, will have to be cal­cu­lat­ed perfectly—Eddie isn’t just try­ing to make a deal; he’s posi­tion­ing him­self to sur­vive.