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

by Holly Jackson

“That security alarm you were so interested in?” He paused. “It was Tara Yates who set it off. Yes,” he added, studying her eyes. “You misread that one, didn’t you? It was Tara who set it off. She was tied up in here, in this very room.” He glanced around the storeroom, filling it with dark memories that Pip couldn’t see. “This is where they all were. Where they died. But Tara, she somehow managed to break free of the tape on her wrists when I left her. Was moving around and set off the alarm. I’d forgotten to disable it correctly, see.”

Andie flashed into her mind, her ghost sitting beside her, holding Pip’s hand. Poor Andie. She’d known what her father was. Had to come home every day to a house where a monster lived. Died trying to get away from him, to protect her sister from him.

A hairbrush. But not just a hairbrush. The purple paddle hairbrush on Andie’s desk—the one in the corner of the photos Pip and Ravi took—it had belonged to Melissa Denny, Jason’s second victim. The trophy he took from her, to relive her death. He’d given it to his teenage daughter; probably got a dark thrill from watching her use it. Sick fuck.

Ugh took you long enough. Really if she had been sleeping everything would’ve been fine. Her parents kind of suck though

“Yes, I’m getting to those, don’t worry,” Jason said, shuffling toward her feet. “Always worrying. Always nagging, all of you. So loud.”

Uh all of who??

Well,” he clapped his hands again, “it wasn’t an accident. I killed your dog, Pip. See, destiny moves in mysterious ways, doesn’t it? Binding us together all the way back then. And now you’re here.”

HOLY FUCK WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT

“I know,” Pip said, cutting Ravi off. “I know who the killer is. I know who’s going to have killed Jason Bell.” “What?” Ravi stared at her. “Who?” It was inevitable. Full circle. The end was the beginning and the beginning was the end. Back to the very start, to the origin, to set it all right. “Max Hastings,” she said.

Ugh idk I’m sorry the story kinda lost me. This seems stupid.

Ravi nodded, eyes darting left to right as he ran it through his head again. “Yes. This is going to work, Pip. You’re going to be OK.” She might, she just might. But they hadn’t even started yet, and time was ticking away from them.

This is so stupid. I’m going to be so annoyed if this is how the third one ends. The first and second book were so good and then there’s this crazed mania. There’s more than enough evidence linking Jason. Just examining his house would reveal all the trophies. And then there’s Pip’s DNA in his car.

Cara nodded, and the look in her eyes was different now, sadder. It still looked like fear, but not for herself. For the friend standing in front of her, unraveling. The friend she’d known twice as long as she hadn’t. Friends who would die for each other, kill for each other, and Pip would be the first one to lean on that.

I just don’t understand how she’s going to prove that Billy is innocent. And I just don’t really care about her covering up this murder. She’s being a horrible friend.

Well, what had Pip expected, involving them in this? Asking too much of them.

“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?”

But the plan had forgotten Billy. Survival had taken over, survival and revenge, and protecting Ravi and the others from the plan. But Billy needed to be saved from Jason Bell as much as she did, and Pip had left him behind, made him secondary.

Yup you really did

“I suppose if you were ever involved in anything like this,” he said, the after-laugh smile still on his face, “you’d know exactly how to get away with it.”