Chap­ter 38 of We Solve Mur­ders begins with Eddie sit­ting in a stark inter­ro­ga­tion room, the air thick with ten­sion as he awaits his fate. His patience wears thin as he con­tem­plates the sit­u­a­tion, but the arrival of Car­los, a bureau­crat famil­iar with the sys­tem, pro­vides an unex­pect­ed reprieve. Car­los, who exudes a casu­al con­fi­dence, explains that Eddie’s pro­longed deten­tion isn’t due to any new charges but rather a tech­ni­cal delay caused by the out­dat­ed com­put­er sys­tem. This infor­ma­tion does lit­tle to ease Eddie’s frus­tra­tion, but Carlos’s calm demeanor and famil­iar­i­ty with Eddie’s past make the encounter less adver­sar­i­al than expect­ed. It becomes clear that Car­los is no stranger to deal­ing with peo­ple like Eddie—those who oper­ate on the fringes of legal­i­ty yet know how to nav­i­gate the sys­tem to their advan­tage. Despite his past run-ins with the law, Eddie isn’t reck­less; he knows when to push back and when to coop­er­ate, and this seems to be one of those moments that requires patience.

The con­ver­sa­tion shifts as Car­los, see­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for small talk, brings up Eddie’s past in a way that feels odd­ly con­ver­sa­tion­al rather than accusato­ry. He men­tions that Eddie has been through sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions before, not­ing the famil­iar­i­ty of his name in police records. Eddie, though wary, engages in the dis­cus­sion, real­iz­ing that Car­los isn’t out to make things worse for him. Instead, Car­los appears amused by the absur­di­ty of bureau­cra­cy, even mak­ing a joke about how some­times the sys­tem works against itself. As they exchange words, Eddie begins to see Car­los not as an obsta­cle but as a poten­tial asset in his cur­rent predica­ment. When Eddie asks if he can call Car­los by his first name, the offi­cial grins and nods, mark­ing the start of a ten­ta­tive under­stand­ing between the two men. This unex­pect­ed cama­raderie offers Eddie a brief moment of relief, though he remains cau­tious about ful­ly trust­ing any­one in a sit­u­a­tion as del­i­cate as his own.

Things take a more intrigu­ing turn when Car­los casu­al­ly drops a name that imme­di­ate­ly cap­tures Eddie’s full attention—Rosie D’Antonio. Eddie perks up at the men­tion of the writer, know­ing that her move­ments are tied to some­thing big­ger than mere coin­ci­dence. Car­los informs him that Rosie is cur­rent­ly board­ing a pri­vate jet, set to depart with­in min­utes, send­ing Eddie’s mind into over­drive. The plane’s iden­ti­fi­er, TC-816, is relayed with casu­al effi­cien­cy, but to Eddie, it might as well be a tick­ing clock count­ing down his chance to inter­cept her before she gets too far ahead. He quick­ly process­es his options, con­sid­er­ing how best to close the gap between them with­out draw­ing too much atten­tion to him­self. His instincts tell him that Rosie isn’t trav­el­ing alone, and when Car­los con­firms that she is accom­pa­nied by anoth­er woman en route to Hawaii, his deter­mi­na­tion solid­i­fies. There’s no time to hesitate—if he wants to find her, he needs to act imme­di­ate­ly.

Car­los, now invest­ed in the sit­u­a­tion, offers to help Eddie book a last-minute flight, guid­ing him toward the char­ter desk where he can secure a pri­vate plane. The sud­den shift from bureau­crat­ic indif­fer­ence to help­ful ally sur­pris­es Eddie, but he isn’t about to ques­tion his good for­tune. Instead, he decides to take full advan­tage of Carlos’s assis­tance, know­ing that every sec­ond counts. As they make their way across the ter­mi­nal, Eddie con­sid­ers how much he is will­ing to pay to ensure he reach­es Hawaii before Rosie and Amy dis­ap­pear from his radar. He men­tal­ly cal­cu­lates the cost, con­clud­ing that what­ev­er the price, it’s a nec­es­sary expense. In a rare moment of gen­eros­i­ty, Eddie decides to com­pen­sate Car­los hand­some­ly for his help, rec­og­niz­ing that hav­ing an insid­er on his side might prove use­ful beyond just this one encounter.

The chap­ter clos­es with Eddie secur­ing a flight, set­ting the stage for a high-stakes pur­suit that promis­es more twists and turns ahead. As his plane pre­pares for take­off, he glances out the win­dow, aware that Rosie and Amy are clos­er than they real­ize. Their paths are about to con­verge, and with each pass­ing moment, the ten­sion builds. Eddie isn’t just chas­ing after answers—he’s chas­ing after the truth, and as the wheels lift off the ground, he knows that what lies ahead will be any­thing but sim­ple. His relent­less pur­suit under­scores just how entan­gled he has become in the mys­tery, and as the hori­zon stretch­es before him, the real ques­tion remains: will he reach them in time, or is he already too late?