Chap­ter 89 of We Solve Mur­ders unfolds in the sleek, glass-walled board­room of a high-rise in the City of Lon­don, where Amy, Jeff Nolan, and Susan Knox, Jeff’s HR head, gath­er to review an impor­tant and omi­nous file. The ear­ly morn­ing light begins to seep into the room, illu­mi­nat­ing the dust motes that float in the air, sym­bol­iz­ing the weight of the rev­e­la­tions that will soon sur­face. As Amy leads the con­ver­sa­tion, she high­lights that the file con­tains details of thir­ty-five clients, each of whom has con­nec­tions to Vivid Viral, and was intro­duced to Max­i­mum Impact by Max High­field. In a chill­ing dis­cov­ery, the file also reveals evi­dence of pay­ments, each worth ten thou­sand dol­lars, made to Max’s account for every client. This find­ing rais­es imme­di­ate sus­pi­cions, as it becomes clear that Max’s deal­ings might be far more exten­sive and prob­lem­at­ic than any­one had ini­tial­ly imag­ined, adding anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to an already intri­cate inves­ti­ga­tion. The con­nec­tions between these clients and Max point toward some­thing far dark­er, and Amy and Jeff are now more deter­mined than ever to uncov­er the truth, no mat­ter the cost.

As Susan delves into the details of the inves­ti­ga­tion, she explains that the inquiry has spanned over two years, uncov­er­ing a web of names, with Court­ney Lewis emerg­ing as a cen­tral fig­ure in the case. Jeff, seek­ing fur­ther clar­i­ty, asks about the type of work these clients have been involved with, but Susan explains that these clients are low-val­ue and would not have required much assis­tance. Their trav­els didn’t seem to indi­cate any need for the ser­vices Max or his asso­ciates might have pro­vid­ed. The lack of mean­ing­ful data and action­able leads is frus­trat­ing, as the file is com­prised only of names, num­bers, and address­es, leav­ing them with no con­crete evi­dence to pur­sue. It becomes evi­dent that any valu­able infor­ma­tion must have been fil­tered through Vivid Viral, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is lit­tle to con­nect the dots. This real­iza­tion serves to increase the ten­sion in the room, with Amy, Jeff, and Susan all feel­ing the frus­tra­tion of work­ing with such lim­it­ed resources. The sit­u­a­tion starts to feel like a puz­zle with miss­ing pieces, and the more they try to solve it, the more elu­sive the answers become.

In a sud­den shift of thought, Jeff begins to won­der aloud if Max might have had some kind of help, prompt­ing Amy to ask who could pos­si­bly assist some­one as reck­less and unpre­dictable as Max High­field. Jeff sug­gests that the key to under­stand­ing this may lie in the first name list­ed in the file, which he con­nects to Max’s activ­i­ties. He reveals that the per­son tied to this name was intro­duced to him short­ly after Max returned from San Fran­cis­co, a place where Amy Wheel­er had been employed as a close-pro­tec­tion offi­cer. The moment this con­nec­tion is made, Amy feels a sharp sense of real­iza­tion, as she begins to under­stand how her past work for François Lou­bet could be intri­cate­ly tied to the case they are cur­rent­ly inves­ti­gat­ing. The tim­ing of Max’s return and the intro­duc­tion of the indi­vid­u­als in the file line up with her pre­vi­ous work, some­thing that she hadn’t ini­tial­ly real­ized was so close­ly con­nect­ed to her present cir­cum­stances. As this real­iza­tion set­tles in, Amy is forced to reck­on with the unset­tling truth that her past actions have led her direct­ly into the heart of the com­plex case they are work­ing to solve.

The ten­sion in the room ris­es sharply as the impli­ca­tions of these con­nec­tions become more appar­ent. Jeff and Susan both acknowl­edge the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion as the puz­zle pieces begin to fit togeth­er in a way they hadn’t antic­i­pat­ed. Amy, mean­while, is left to grap­ple with the real­iza­tion that she has been unwit­ting­ly involved in mul­ti­ple facets of the inves­ti­ga­tion, both from her per­son­al his­to­ry and her cur­rent role in the case. She under­stands that her past actions and asso­ci­a­tions with François Lou­bet have been far more sig­nif­i­cant than she ever thought, and they have deeply impact­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion. The dis­cov­ery that her pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ry is now inter­wo­ven with the com­plex web of the case adds anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to the sit­u­a­tion. The chap­ter ends on a cliffhang­er, leav­ing read­ers with a sense of fore­bod­ing and sus­pense. As the con­nec­tions between Max High­field, Vivid Viral, and the clients unfold, the larg­er con­spir­a­cy begins to take shape, hint­ing at even dark­er rev­e­la­tions to come. The sus­pense builds as Amy, Jeff, and Susan are now on the brink of uncov­er­ing a truth that will shake the foun­da­tions of every­thing they thought they knew. The intri­cate web of deceit, betray­al, and long-hid­den con­nec­tions draws clos­er to being ful­ly exposed, and the char­ac­ters are left to con­front the dan­ger­ous truths that have been buried beneath lay­ers of secre­cy.