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

by Holly Jackson

“It’s me and you, Trouble. Team Ravi and Pip.

You’re my person. My little one. My Sarge. And I’m supposed to protect you.”

Hot

“The trophies allow the killer to relive the thrill of the crime and to sustain his dark urges, lengthening the time before he feels compelled to kill again.” From Phillipa Brockfield, the killer took a necklace, which police describe as “a gold chain with an antique coin-style pendant.” It was a “lilac or light-purple paddle-shaped hairbrush” from Melissa Denny, which she carried everywhere in her purse. A “gold stainless-steel Casio watch” from Bethany Ingham, and now, from Julia Hunter, a “pair of rose-gold earrings with light-green stones.” Police are asking the public to keep an eye out for these items.

A gold chain for Dawn. A hairbrush for Andie and either the watch or earrings for Becca

This is a white man who could be anywhere between his early twenties to his mid-forties.

This man would seem to be perfectly normal, unremarkable—charming, even. He outwardly appears to be an upstanding member of society, with a good job where he’s used to a level of control, maybe a management position.

Ok what about the teacher that replaced Mr Ward?

I think it’s very likely he has a partner or a wife, and potentially even a family too, who have no idea about his secret life.

This might rule out the teacher I don’t think he had a family

This leads me to believe that our killer lives in a different nearby location, one that hasn’t yet come up in the investigation, his untouched buffer zone.

This man has very strong feelings about women—he hates them.

Kinda fits with Jason Bell

These victims are all attractive, educated, intelligent young women, and there is something there that this killer finds utterly intolerable. He sees these killings as his own personal mission.

If it’s Jason Bell maybe the victims remind him of his family

She talked about seeing some lines, chalk lines, I think, that looked like three stick figures, near the house. I never saw them and it was probably just our neighbor’s kids. Also, a couple of dead birds—pigeons—had been brought into the house through the cat flap.

“Three,” he hissed, bringing his three raised fingers even closer. “Three chalk stick figures. Julia was the fourth victim, Pip. Three before her. And now there have been five women killed, and there are five little stick figures outside your house right fucking now.”

The final victim of the DT Killer, Tara Yates, she was killed on April eighteenth, 2014.” He looked at her, the same glint of recognition in his eyes, mirroring back her own. She watched herself, the warped version of her trapped in the darks of his eyes. Well, one of them had to say it out loud. “The same night Andie Bell died,” she said.

And Jason Bell went missing for at least an hour from his dinner party. And he complained to Hawkins how upset he was about being targeted by Pip’s investigation. And the final victim. He wouldve stopped after Andie’s death

trying to bring Billy’s case to the attention of The Innocence Project so we can appeal the conviction…’ ”

The innocence project would be a great place for pip to work

“OK, never mind.” Ravi shrugged. “How about we sit here twiddling our thumbs instead, just wait and see how this whole stalker thing pans out? The passive approach. Never thought I’d see you opt for a passive anything, but we’ll just hang tight, kick back. No biggie.”

Maria must have recited that fact from the top of her head, and that’s when Pip fully realized: This was her entire life. Every breath and every thought dedicated to her son.

And the first victim, Phillipa Brockfield, her body was found on a golf course just outside Bridgeport.

GOLF COURSE? Doesn’t Jason Bell golf? Or maybe he just plays tennis lol

“So, all of these details tying Billy to the murders, they’re related to his job,” Pip said. “What’s the name of the company he worked for?”

He works in maintenance which kind of connects to janitorial which might be a connection to Dan da Silva - pretty loose though

it. A grinning photo of a suited man at the top, introducing the managing director and owner of Green Scene Ltd. and Clean Scene Ltd. It was Jason Bell.

OOF not looking great for Jason. We already know he sucks

Sometimes they age out, or they have life events going on that mean they don’t have the urge, or the time anymore. Say a new relationship, or maybe the birth of a child. So maybe that’s what happened here. Or maybe the killer saw an easy way out, after Billy’s arrest.”

… or the death of a child. And then he was triggered right back to it by Pips podcast

“Oh, sweetheart, please, thank you for taking the time.” Maria sniffed. “There’s no one I can talk to about this, no one who listens, so thank you for that.

Ugh she’s so cute I hope Billy is innocent

And that’s when she realized: Jason Bell wasn’t the only person she knew who was connected to Green Scene Ltd. There was someone else too: Daniel da Silva. Before he became a police officer, he’d worked at Jason Bell’s company for a couple of years. Maybe even worked directly with Billy Karras.

Literally I’m amazing called both of them out right away

Pip glanced at the screen as she picked up the phone. No Caller ID. “Hello?” she said. There was no answer down the other end. No voice, no sound, other than the faintest trace of static.

Oh GREAT

Please, I’m trying. I’m not a loner, I just don’t have many friends at the moment, maybe some of the guys at work. █​█​█​█​█​█​█, who used to work with me in Bethany’s team too, he’s actually a police officer now.

Daniel da Silva mentioned

Your van was captured driving to the site where Phillipa Brockfield’s body was dumped, on that same morning.

Two halves of the same truth: if Billy Karras was innocent, then the DT Killer was still out there. Out here. He was back. And Pip had one week left before he made her disappear.

She really needs to tell her parents and they really need to get on board. She’s solved two cases in the past year so she’s got some credibility

Dawn’s mouth flickered, as did her eyes, but she didn’t stop, looking instead at the sky while she slid her fingers beneath the gold chain of her necklace, fiddling the pendant back and forth so it caught the morning light.

Wasn’t one of the trophies a necklace? And a hairbrush was mentioned in the first book… was it purple? No color described but it says paddle hairbrush

“Last year, I spoke to one of Becca’s friends from high school, Jess Walker, and she told me that on April eighteenth, 2014—the night Andie went missing—you and Dawn were at a dinner party. But you had to leave at some point because the security alarm was going off at Green Scene; you had an alert on your phone, I assume.”

Interesting did they both leave early? It has to be either Jason or Dawn or both

“I didn’t see…” Jason trailed off. He glanced up at the sky behind her for a moment, and when he looked back at her, his face had changed, angry lines arranging themselves around his eyes.

“DT?” she said, eyeing some children squabbling across the street, recognizing one from Josh’s soccer team. “Are you the DT Killer?” A sound. It might have been the car driving past her, or it might have been a breath in her ear.

Could it be Dawn? She’s been pretty absent from the story. Could she have been targeting women she saw as a threat to her relationship with Jason? That would rule out the police sketch though. Unless the couple is working together. They did just get back together…

going so fast I couldn’t even attempt to read the license plate. It was a white car, though, I could see that.

Luke has a white bmw…

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

He worked as the janitor at school from 2010 to 2011, when he was around twenty years old. Then he started working at Green Scene at the end of 2011, and he stayed there until October-ish 2013, I think, when he started his police training. So, he was twenty-one when he started at Green Scene, and twenty-three when he left.”

Ok but he wasn’t in a position of power like the profile said. Not that it has to be right but just saying. And I guess you could say that rules Dawn out too because she wasn’t in a position of power - at least it doesn’t seem like that.

She couldn’t help but notice how much Harriet looked like Julia Hunter had, before the DT Killer stole her face and wrapped it up in tape. The same dark blond hair and full, arching eyebrows. Why was it that sisters looked so much alike when one of them was dead? Andie and Becca Bell. Now Julia and Harriet Hunter. Two younger sisters, carrying around a ghost wherever they went.

Dark blond hair like the Bell sisters

“Yeah, no”—her mouth flicked up sympathetically—“it kind of threw me too, came a little out of nowhere. It was after Julia died, a couple weeks after, and I got this email out of the blue from Andie. I didn’t know her before then. We were the same age, at different schools, but we had a few mutual friends. I think she got my email from my Facebook profile, back when everyone was on Facebook. Anyway, it was a really sweet message, saying how sorry she was about Julia, and if I ever needed someone to talk to, I could talk to her.”

Maybe Andie found out her dad is a murderer. But why would she keep the brush? Maybe she didn’t put that together?

“Weird, horrible coincidence,” Harriet said, biting her lip. “We talked about it so much, and she didn’t live to find out who he was. She was desperate to know too, I think, for my sake. And I feel terrible—I didn’t know about all the stuff going on in her life.”

Something stirred at the back of Pip’s mind, pushing her eyes back to those two letters: HH. She asked her mind what she was supposed to be seeing here; it was just Harriet’s initials.

Harriet was right: it was a strange email address, almost like it was obscure on purpose. Almost like it had been a secret. Maybe she’d made it for this very reason, just to reach out to Harriet Hunter. But why?

A makeup case with a pale-purple hairbrush resting on top,

She tried the third option—promotions—and the page filled with lines and lines of emails. All from the same sender: Self-Defense Tips. Andie must have subscribed to their email list at some point. She’d been getting the emails, one every week, long after she was already dead. Why was Andie looking at a self-defense newsletter?

“I mean, it changes everything, and it changes nothing,” she said. “Andie didn’t survive. It wasn’t DT who killed her, but it was everything she tried to do to escape him that did. Howie Bowers. Max Hastings. Elliot Ward. Becca. This is why it all happened. Everything. Full circle,” she added quietly. The beginning was the end and the end the beginning, and DT was both.

“Who is he?” Ravi said, running an unclicked pen down the laptop screen. “There’s no name, but there’s a lot of information, Pip. There must be a smoking gun here. So, it’s someone the whole Bell family knew, including Andie and Becca. Which makes sense with the connection to Jason’s company Green Scene, right?” “Someone who used to go over to their house, even have dinner with them,” Pip said, underscoring the line with her finger. She clicked her tongue as another old thought stirred, came back to life.

LITERALLY THE DAD

“Of course he’d find out. He’s practically one of them. One of what?” Pip ran the sentences through her head, tilting them to see them from a different angle. “A police officer, it sounds like. Not sure what the practically means.” “Maybe she meant a newly trained police officer, like Daniel da Silva was.” Ravi completed her thought.

No he’s buddy buddy with them. Jason plays tennis with Detective Hawkins

Three years now. Yes, it was 2017 when I left. I know: golfing, reliving my glory days, I’m a retired-cop cliché. I’ve even tried pottery-making, my wife made me.

He golfs - probably golfs with Jason Bell

It’s quite funny actually [laughs], but this was already on our minds because we had an officer from a nearby town who kept asking lots and lots of questions about the case. He wasn’t involved in the investigation, he was a newly trained officer, as I remember, but he was showing a little too much interest in what had happened and what we were doing, if you know what I mean. He was new and just very curious, I’m sure, but it certainly raised a couple of red flags.

I think it was Dari—oh, no, it was Fairview Police Department, I remember now.

DT had taken her. She was dead.

Ok we’re only halfway through what?!!

The situation was this: it was a Saturday, around four o’clock in the afternoon, and Pip was in the trunk of his car—the DT Killer. Daniel da Silva.

She needs some sleep obviously it’s not Daniel

She did know the answer, a knowledge that was bone-deep, a knowledge that would outlive her. Ravi would look for her. Her mom. Her dad. Her baby brother. Cara, more a sister than a friend. Naomi Ward. Connor Reynolds. Jamie Reynolds, just as she’d looked for him. Nat da Silva. Becca Bell, even. 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.

The DT Killer showed her his face. Showed her the glint in his smile. It wasn’t the face she thought she’d see. It was Jason Bell.

DUH