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September 21, 2024 - March 12, 2025
He caught her staring: at the fall of his dark hair, at the dimpled line in his chin where her little finger fit, at his dark eyes and the flame dancing inside them from her mom’s new Autumn Spice candle. His eyes were always bright somehow, dazzling, like they were lit from within. Ravi Singh
“Hey, perve.” Ravi grinned across the sofa. “What are you staring at?”
“Ah, this is the extended family, Josh. Much more scary. Cousins and even, dare I say it, the aunties,” Ravi said dramatically, haunting the word with his waggling fingers.
He studied her for a lingering moment, the laugh playing silently across his face. “I can’t believe you’ve been secretly taking notes.” And in one fluid movement, Ravi stood up, scooped his arms under her, and lifted her up. He swung her around while she protested, saying, “Under that big, tough exterior we’ve got ourselves a cute little weirdo over here.” “Pip’s not cute.” Josh’s necessary input.
“I should head off. Not everyone has to get up at disgusting o’clock tomorrow morning for their internship at a law firm. But my girlfriend’s probably going to need a good lawyer one day, so…” He winked at her. The very same thing he’d said after she told him how the mediation went.
“Right, goodbye, Joshua,” he said, nudging him with his foot. “My favorite human being.” “Really?” Josh beamed up at him. “What’s Pip, then?” “Ah, she’s a close second,”
How could both positions be both wrong and right at the very same time? An impossible contradiction that she would never settle. It was her undoing, her fatal flaw, the hill she would die and decay on.
“But I can’t—” “You’re Pippa Fitz-Amobi”—he smiled, brushed the flyaway hairs from her eyes—“there’s nothing you can’t do. Even if it’s biting your tongue and asking Detective Hawkins for help.”
Hawkins said. “But this is the kind of thing that happens when you make yourself a public figure.” “Make myself a public figure?” Pip stood a step back, to keep the fire away from Hawkins. “I didn’t make myself a public figure, Hawkins, that happened because I had to do your job for you.
Maybe justice can only ever be found outside of the law, outside of police stations like this, outside of people like you who say you understand but you never do.”
“I see,” he said, “not even a glance back, or one of your scornful looks. Not a hug, not a kiss. Not an Oh, Ravi, darling, you look devilishly handsome today and you smell like a spring dream. Oh, Pip, my dear, you are too kind to notice. It’s a new deodorant I’m trying.”
“Hey, that’s not true.” Ravi held her hands even tighter in his. “I believe you. I will always believe you, whatever it is. That’s my job, OK?” He held her eyes, and that was good because hers suddenly felt wet and heavy, too heavy to hold alone. “It’s me and you, Trouble. Team Ravi and Pip.
“We’re going out for a walk. Oh, what a fantastic idea, Ravi, you’re so smart and handsome. Oh, Pip, I know I am, but do try to keep it in your pants, your father is downstairs.”
Thinking back on it now, maybe that’s the moment Pip knew. Had it been a tightening in her gut, or maybe that drunk feeling behind the eyes, or could it have been that glow below her skin? She hadn’t realized it at the time, hadn’t known what it was, but maybe some part of her had already decided she would love him. Right then.
Pip could feel Ravi’s arm tensing against hers. He hated confrontation, hated it, and even so, Pip knew he would go to war for her if she ever asked.
“Anything?” Pip smiled at Ravi. “Yes, anything you want,” he said. “This is a full-on cheer-up-Pip day. No true crime documentaries, though. Those are banned.” “And what if I said I really wanted a Scrabble tournament?” she said, sticking her finger through his sweater into his ribs, their steps clumsily winding in and out of each other’s across the drive. “I’d say, game on, bitch.
“I don’t want to argue,” she said quietly. “No, hey, no.” He bent down until his eyes were level with hers. “We’re not arguing. I’m just worried about you, OK? I want to keep you safe. I love you, always will. No matter how many times you almost give me a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.
You’re my person. My little one. My Sarge. And I’m supposed to protect you.”
He’d get away with it. They always got away with it. Him. Max Hastings. Above the law because the law was wrong. A legion of dead girls and dead-eyed girls left behind them. “They won’t believe me,” Pip told herself, in her own voice now. “They never believe us.”
“It doesn’t matter what the truth is,” Pip said. “What matters is a narrative they will find acceptable.
don’t trust them, Ravi. I trusted the police before and they’ve let me down every single time.
Nat was the one who truly mattered. They hadn’t believed her as many times as they hadn’t believed Pip; that unthinkable violence of not-believing.
Machines didn’t lie, only people did.
Pip asked, leaning forward to press her forehead against his, in the way he always did to her. To take on half her headaches, or half her nerves, he said. And here, Pip took on half his fear, because it was the ordinary kind, and she could handle it. It worked, Ravi’s face relaxing a little as she pulled away.
“I don’t want you to,” Ravi said quietly. “I don’t want you to go.” “If it’s a choice between me and you, I choose you,” Pip whispered. “But I choose you too,” Ravi said.
“I can’t lose you,” Ravi said. “I wasn’t going to let you do this. I sat on my bed after you called and I did that thing I do when I’m nervous or scared or unsure about something. I asked myself, What would Pip do? What would she do in this situation? So, that’s what I did. I came up with a plan. Was it reckless? Probably. Bravery to the point of stupidity, that’s you. But I thought it through and I didn’t overthink it. I acted, like you do. It’s what you would have done, Pip.” He breathed, shoulders rising and falling with it. “It’s what you would have done, and you would have done it for me,
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