As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3)

by Holly Jackson

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.

Just one more.

Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? Ps. remember to always kill two birds with one stone.

Hand in hand: the boy with a dimple in his chin, and the dead girl walking.

And this time, she was the subject. If she got things wrong again, there would be no collateral, no blood on her hands. Only hers. But if she got it right, maybe this could be the thing to fix her. It couldn’t hurt to try.

“Oh, and,” she cut him off, her fingers gripping the handle too hard, like she might just bend the metal, leave her prints in it forever, “do me a favor. If I disappear, don’t look for me. Don’t even bother.”

Detective Richard Hawkins—Fuck him.

Is it normal for one person to have this many enemies? I’m the problem, aren’t I? How did it get so late already? I understand why they all hate me. I might hate me too.

Save herself to save herself.

“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.” A pause. “No, but seriously, what are you doing? Can you hear me? Am I a ghost? Pip?”

“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?”

“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.” She threw a pillow at him.

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. In a conversation about his dead brother and a murdered girl. It all came back to death, in the end. Oh, there you go, she’d gone and ruined it. The fence was down.

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. She didn’t need him now, though; she had this. Almost like she’d been waiting for this encounter, felt herself coming alive with it.

“Deserved to die, though, didn’t he, so I guess it all worked out nicely in the end.” He winked. He fucking winked at her.

Pip circled his hot palm with her trigger finger, one way then the other. She didn’t want to say, but maybe there was no such thing in Fairview. No fresh air. It was all tainted, every breath of it.

“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. It’s just…” He drew off, his voice guttering out. “It’s scary, to know that someone might want to hurt you, or make you scared. You’re my person. My little one. My Sarge. And I’m supposed to protect you.”

I love them. especially ravi

“You do protect me,” she said, holding his eyes. “Even when you’re not here.” He was her life raft, her cornerstone for what good truly meant. Didn’t he know that? “Yeah, OK, and that’s great,” he said, clicking finger guns at her. “But it’s not like I’m a muscleman with biceps the size of tree trunks and a secret Olympic-standard knife-throwing habit.”

Pressed a kiss into his cheek, brushing the side of his mouth. “You know brains always beat brawn, any day of the week.”

He straightened up. “Well, I just squatted for too long, so I probably have glutes of steel now anyway.”

Silly boy,”

“Everyone has my phone number.” “I damn well hope not,” he replied quickly, appalled.

“Oh right,” he said, chewing his lip. “We weren’t thinking about future stalkers slash serial killers at the time, were we?” “Hadn’t crossed our minds.” Ravi sighed, dropped his face into his cupped hands.

That, even after all this time, Andie Bell still had one mystery left in her yet.

“She was brave,” Ravi said in a small voice. “Reminds me of you a little bit.” A small smile to match the small voice. “The Singh brothers clearly have a type.”

Everything that had happened traced right back to him. All of it. Andie Bell knew who DT was and she was terrified, so she sold drugs for Howie Bowers to save up money to escape, to get far away from Fairview. She sold Rohypnol to Max Hastings, who then used those drugs to rape her little sister, Becca. Andie pursued Elliot Ward in her desperate plan to escape to Yale with Sal. Elliot thought he accidentally killed Andie, so he murdered Sal to cover it up, Ravi’s brother dead in the woods. But Elliot didn’t kill Andie, not really; it was Becca Bell, too angry and shocked at her sister’s role in her own tragedy that she froze and let Andie die from her head injury, choking on her own vomit. Five years went by and then Pip came along, uncovered all those truths. Elliot in prison, Becca in prison though she shouldn’t be, Max not in prison though he should be. And, most importantly, Howie Bowers in prison. Howie told his cellmate that he knew the real Child Brunswick. The cellmate told his cousin, who told a friend, who told a friend, who put the rumor online. Charlie Green read that rumor and came to Fairview. Layla Mead, wearing the face of Stella Chapman. Jamie Reynolds missing. Stanley Forbes with six holes blown in him, bleeding out on Pip’s hands. Three different stories, but one interconnected knot. And in the center of that writhing knot, grinning at her from the dark, was DT.

Insane. How does a person eveen think of this. Iv'e said it multiple times and i will say it again, holly the magician and genius you are

“Yeah, OK,” Pip said. “Sounds fun. Bye.” She hesitated by the front door. “Love you, Mom.”

She needed a plan. Pip always had a plan, even if she was going to die.

It wasn’t that she was going to die, but that she was very, very likely to die. An almost certainty, not enough left over for hope.

Pip was lucky. So lucky. Why hadn’t she ever stopped to think about how lucky she was? All those people who cared about her, whether she deserved them or not.

It was Jason Bell.

I knew it. Uhhhhhhhhhaahahhahahaaahauuu

But, oh god, she didn’t want to die.

She’d killed him. Broken the circle. He’d never hurt her and he’d never hurt anyone.

“It’s a choice between you or Max, and I choose you. I’m not losing you.”

“Fucking duct tape,”

Max was alone inside, and he had no idea she was coming for him. But she’d told him. She’d warned him all those months ago. Rapist. I will get you.

This was also revenge. This town wasn’t big enough for the both of them. This world wasn’t. One of them had to go, and Pip was going to give one hell of a fight.

forshadowing???:((

“Why, hello, quelle surprise, what are you doing here, muchacha?”

Uhh i love cara!!

“Our dad killed your boyfriend’s older brother and kept a girl in his attic for five years,” Cara said quickly with a glance back at Naomi. “You have yourself two experts at acting normal.” “At your service,” Naomi added.

“Happy heating,” Pip said,

“Yeah,” Pip whispered, looking down at him. Max Hastings. Her cornerstone. The upturned mirror by which she defined herself, everything he was and everything she wasn’t. “It sucks when someone puts something in your drink and then ruins your life, huh?”

Ravi walked her home, and they didn’t speak, they just held hands, like they’d given everything already and there were no words left. Only three of them, the only three that mattered as Ravi said goodbye at her front drive.

The first thing she did was cry. Dropped onto her bed and wrapped a pillow around her face, taking it away just as DT had. Silent, aching sobs that retched, tearing at her throat, unpicking threads in her chest, leaving them unraveled and bare. She cried and she let herself cry, a few minutes to grieve for the girl she could never be again. And then she pushed herself up, and pushed herself back together, because she wasn’t finished yet. An exhaustion like she’d never known before, stumbling across her carpet like a dead girl walking.

“Was my favorite sports bra, you fucker,”

That’s what a killer would do, and Pip couldn’t be one of those.

Until then, she just had to live, see if she remembered how to.

Pip finally slept.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Season 3: Who Killed Jason Bell? And she knew exactly who to interview first.

Josh must have stolen her black headphones again to play FIFA, but that was OK; he could take whatever he wanted from her. Just a week ago she thought she’d never see him again, thought she’d become the ghost he tried not to think about. He could take whatever he wanted, and Pip would love him back twice as hard.