Chap­ter 35 of We Solve Mur­ders opens with Steve wak­ing up in a unique­ly designed tree­house, sit­u­at­ed with­in the serene land­scape of South Carolina’s expan­sive for­est. The tran­quil­i­ty of the place, with its lush trees and soft rustling leaves, offers a brief escape from the ten­sion of the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion. The morn­ing sun­light fil­ters through the canopy, cast­ing dap­pled shad­ows on the wood­en walls of the tree­house. Steve, still grog­gy from the pre­vi­ous night’s exhaust­ing work, sits at a bam­boo table where he’s going through doc­u­ments from Scrog­gie’s com­put­er, hop­ing to uncov­er some­thing that might bring clar­i­ty to the sit­u­a­tion. His com­pan­ion, Barb, moves about the kitch­enette, blend­ing smooth­ies and mak­ing healthy con­coc­tions. When Steve jok­ing­ly asks for a beer, Barb firm­ly refus­es, sug­gest­ing that they need clear minds if they are to solve the mys­tery. Her healthy liv­ing lifestyle seems to con­trast sharply with Steve’s more laid-back approach, but they share a com­fort­able cama­raderie as they exchange friend­ly ban­ter about their con­trast­ing habits.

Soon, Rosie and Amy arrive, and after some casu­al greet­ings, they delve into the details of the inves­ti­ga­tion. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly turns seri­ous as they dis­cuss the series of mur­ders con­nect­ed to influ­encers like Andrew Fair­banks, Bel­la Sanchez, and Mark Gooch. All three vic­tims had been asso­ci­at­ed with Max­i­mum Impact, a pow­er­ful media agency that con­trols the careers of many influ­en­tial fig­ures in the online world. As the group pieces togeth­er the time­line of events, Steve rais­es con­cerns about the prox­im­i­ty of Amy to each of the crime scenes. He notes that she was in close prox­im­i­ty to all the loca­tions around the time of the mur­ders, adding a lay­er of sus­pi­cion to her involve­ment. Rosie sug­gests that the mur­ders could be con­nect­ed to Max­i­mum Impact, but the ques­tion remains—what is the motive behind tar­get­ing these par­tic­u­lar indi­vid­u­als? Amy, under­stand­ably on edge, asks whether Steve had found any cru­cial evi­dence on Scroggie’s com­put­er, hop­ing for some­thing that could break the case wide open.

Steve’s response is both sur­pris­ing and unset­tling. He reveals that Scrog­gie had been in con­tact with some­one who had sent explic­it instruc­tions relat­ed to the mur­ders, along with a blood sam­ple, which Scrog­gie had been asked to place at the crime scenes to frame some­one for the mur­ders. The rev­e­la­tion sends a shock­wave through the group, espe­cial­ly when Amy starts to pan­ic at the thought that her own blood might have been tak­en and used as part of the plan. This opens a hor­ri­fy­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty: some­one with access to her blood from pre­vi­ous drug tests, con­duct­ed by Max­i­mum Impact, could have stolen her DNA and plant­ed it at the crime scenes to mis­lead the inves­ti­ga­tion. Rosie quick­ly adds that the mur­der­er might have used these blood sam­ples inten­tion­al­ly, link­ing Amy to the scenes with­out her knowl­edge. The con­ver­sa­tion grows more urgent as they real­ize the depth of the con­spir­a­cy they are unwit­ting­ly involved in, and how eas­i­ly they could be framed for some­thing they didn’t do. This real­iza­tion push­es them into action, know­ing that time is run­ning out to uncov­er the truth and clear Amy’s name before it’s too late.

With mount­ing pres­sure and increas­ing dan­ger, the trio begins to for­mu­late their next steps. Steve sug­gests that their best course of action would be to leave South Car­oli­na and take the inves­ti­ga­tion to St. Lucia, where they believe more answers might be hid­den. Amy, though hes­i­tant at first, reluc­tant­ly agrees, under­stand­ing that the sit­u­a­tion is becom­ing more dire by the minute. The prospect of mov­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion to a new loca­tion brings a renewed sense of urgency, but it also forces them to con­sid­er the grow­ing threats that seem to be clos­ing in on them. Just as they begin to final­ize their plans, Steve’s phone buzzes with a mes­sage from Car­los. The mes­sage relays alarm­ing news—Eddie Flood, the man sent to kill Amy, is active­ly search­ing for her. The news sends shock­waves through the group, as they real­ize that Eddie’s pur­suit of Amy could be more dan­ger­ous than they ini­tial­ly thought. The chap­ter con­cludes with a sense of ris­ing ten­sion, leav­ing the group unsure of what their next move will be but cer­tain that their inves­ti­ga­tion is now a race against time to uncov­er the truth and sur­vive the mount­ing threats sur­round­ing them.