Charlie Green—It’s not him. I know it’s not him. He never intended to hurt me. He set that fire because he wanted me to leave Stanley there, to make sure he died. I know that’s why. Charlie wouldn’t want to hurt me: he looked out for me, helped me, even if he had his own reasons why. But the objective part of my brain knows he should be on the list because I am the only witness to him committing first-degree murder and he is still a fugitive. Without me to testify, would a jury find him guilty? Logic dictates he should be on here. But it isn’t him, I know it.
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.
Chalk dust on her fingers, gritty and dry. Except there wasn’t, because she was awake now, her eyes cracking open, dragging her from the dream. Her eyes felt gritty and dry, but her fingers were clean. Pip sat up.
It was still dark in her room.
Had she been asleep?
She must have been asleep, otherwise how had she dreamed?
It was all still there, thrumming around her head, like it had all been lived only moments before. But not lived, only imagined, right?
It had felt so real. The weight of it in her cupped hands. Still warm, keeping away the cold of the dark night. Its feathers so soft, so sleek against the cage of her fingers. Pip had locked eyes with it, or she would have if it had had a head. She hadn’t thought that strange at the time. That was the way it was supposed to be, as she carried the small dead pigeon across the driveway. So soft she almost didn’t want to let it go. But she had to, and rested the dead bird down on the brick driveway, shifting it so the space where its head should have been was pointing toward her bedroom window. Looking in through the gap in the curtains to watch Pip asleep in her bed. Both here and there.
But it hadn’t finished there. There was more to do before she could rest. Another task. The chalk had already been in her hand, not nearly as nice to hold as the dead pigeon. Where had it come from? Pip didn’t know, but she knew what she was supposed to do with it. She’d retraced her steps, remembering where the last ones had been. Then she stepped forward three times, toward the house, to find their new home.
Knees on the cold driveway, the chalk in her hand ground down to a stub, her fingers red and raw as she dragged it along the lines of the bricks. Downward legs. Upward body. Sideway arms. No head. She carried on until there were five stick figures, dancing together, slowly making their way to Pip asleep in her bed to ask her to join them.
Would she join them? She didn’t know, but she was finished, and the chalk had dropped from her hands with a tiny clatter. Chalk dust on her fingers, gritty and dry.
And then Pip had pulled herself out of the dream, studying her fingers to know what was real and what wasn’t. Her heart was fluttering, wing-beat fast, winding up the rest of her. She’d never sleep again now.
She checked the time. It was 4:32 a.m. She really should try to sleep; she’d only climbed into bed two hours ago. Time was always cruel to her in these early hours. She wouldn’t be able to do it, not without help.
Pip glanced through the darkness at the drawer in her desk. There was no point fighting it. She threw off her comforter, the cold air full of invisible jaws biting at her exposed skin. She rummaged through the drawer, prying up the false bottom, her fingers scrabbling below for the small plastic bag. Not many left now. She’d have to text Luke Eaton again soon, ask him for more, those burner phones lined up and ready.
What happened to one last time, then?
Pip swallowed the pill and bit her lip. These past months had been filled with one last times and just one mores. They weren’t lies; she’d truly meant them at the time. But she always lost in the end.
It didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter soon. Because she had the plan, the new plan, and after that she’d never lose again. Everything would go back to normal. And life had handed her exactly what she needed. Those chalk figures, those dead pigeons, and the person who’d left them there for her. It was a gift, and she should remember that, prove Hawkins wrong. One last case, and it had landed right on her doorstep. It was her against them this time. No Andie Bell, no Sal Singh, no Elliot Ward or Becca Bell, no Jamie Reynolds or Charlie Green or Stanley Forbes, and no Jane Doe. The game had changed.
Her against them.
Save herself to save herself.
There was a kind of thrill in it, watching someone when they didn’t know you were there. Invisible to them. Disappeared.
Ravi was walking up the drive to her house, she at her bedroom window where she’d been for hours, watching. His arms were swinging, his hair morning-messy, and a strange movement in his mouth like he was chewing the air. Or singing to himself. She’d never seen him do that before, never around her. This was a different Ravi, one who thought he was alone, unobserved. Pip studied him and all the subtle differences to the Ravi he was when he was around her. She smiled to herself, wondered what he was singing. Maybe she could love this Ravi just as much, but she’d miss that look in his eyes when he was looking back at her.
And then the moment was over. Pip faintly heard his familiar knock, long-short-long, but she couldn’t move, needed to stay here and watch the drive. Her dad was here anyway, he would let Ravi in. He liked his small moments of time alone with Ravi. He’d make some sort of inappropriate joke, segue into a conversation about football or Ravi’s internship, finishing off with an affectionate pat on the back. All while Ravi took off his shoes and neatly lined them up by the door, stuffing the laces inside too, and that special laugh he saved for her dad. That was it, what she wanted: to live those small, normal moments again. The scene would change, somehow, if she were there to disturb it.
Pip blinked, her eyes watering from staring too long at that spot on the driveway, the sun glaring through the window. She couldn’t look away; she might miss it.
She heard Ravi’s gentle tread up the steps, his clicking knees, and her heartbeat picked up. The good kind of fast heart, not like that other trigger-happy kind. No, don’t think about that now. Why did she have to ruin every nice moment?
“Hello, Sarge,” he said, the creaking sound of him pushing the door fully open. “Agent Ravi here, reporting for boyfriending duties.”
“Hello, Agent Ravi,” Pip said, her breath fogging up the glass in front of her. The smile was back, fighting her until she gave in.
“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?”
“Sorry,” she said, eyes straight. “I’m just…I’m watching the driveway.”
“You’re what?”
“Watching the drive,” she said, her own reflection getting in the way.
She felt a weight on the bed next to her, gravity pulling her toward him as Ravi lowered to his knees on the far side of the mattress, his elbows up on the windowsill and eyes to the glass, just as Pip’s were.
“Watching for what?” he said. Pip dared one fleeting look at him, at the sun lighting up his eyes.
“For…for the birds. The pigeons,” she said. “I’ve put bits of bread out there on the drive, in the same spot I found those pigeons. And I put little pieces of ham in the grass on either side of the drive too.”
“Right,” Ravi said, drawing out the word, confused. “And why have we done that?”
She gave him a quick jab with her elbow. Wasn’t it obvious? “Because,” she said, overemphasizing the word, “I’m trying to prove Hawki
ns wrong. It can’t be a neighbor’s cat. And I’ve laid the perfect bait to test that. Cats like ham, don’t they? He’s wrong, I’m not crazy.”
The harsh summer light through the crack in her curtains had woken her earlier than she’d planned, pulling her out of the after-pill fog. This experiment had seemed a good idea at the time, on three hours’ sleep, although now, checking in with Ravi’s uncertain eyes, she wasn’t sure. Lost her footing again.
She could feel his gaze on her, warm against her cheek. No, what was he doing? He should be watching out for the birds, helping her.
“Hey,” he said quietly, his voice hovering just above a whisper.
But Pip didn’t hear what he said next, because there was a dark shape in the sky, a winged shadow growing on the drive below. Pip’s eyes caught it as it swooped down, landing on its twig legs and hopping over to the scattered bread.
“No,” she breathed out. It wasn’t a pigeon. “Stupid crow,” she said, watching as it scooped up a small square of bread in its beak, and then another, the sun glinting off its sleek black feathers.
“At least it’s only one,” said Ravi. “Last thing we want is a murder out there. You know, a murder of crows.”
“We have plenty of that in Fairview already,” Pip replied as the bird helped itself to a third piece of bread. “Hey!” she shouted suddenly, surprising herself too, banging on the window with her fist. “Hey, go away! You’re ruining it!” Her knuckles hit against the glass so hard, she didn’t know which would crack first. “Go away!” The crow jumped into the air and flew off.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ravi said quickly, grabbing her hands away from the window, holding them tightly inside his grip. “Whoa, hey,” he said, shaking his head at her. His voice hard, but his thumb soft as he ran it against her wrist.
“Ravi, I can’t see the window, the birds,” she said, straining her neck to try to look outside and not at him.
“No, you don’t need to look outside.” He tucked his finger under her chin, guided it back. “Look at me, please. Pip.” He sighed. “This isn’t good for you. It really isn’t.”
“I’m just trying—”
“I know what you’re trying. I understand.”
“He didn’t believe me,” she said quietly. “Hawkins didn’t believe me. No one believes me.” Not even her sometimes, a new wave of doubts after her dream last night, wondering again whether it was possible she was doing this to herself.
“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. Someone left those birds for you, and the chalk; you don’t have to try to prove otherwise. Trust yourself.”
She shrugged.
“And Hawkins is an idiot, frankly,” Ravi said with a small smile. “If he hasn’t learned by now that you’re—annoyingly—always right, then he never will.”
“Never,” Pip repeated.
“It’s going to be OK,” he said, drawing lines in the valleys between her knuckles. “Everything will be OK, I promise.” He paused, staring at the space below her eyes a little too long. “Did you get much sleep last night?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“Right.” He clapped his hands together. “I think we need to get you out of the house. Come on. Up, up. Socks on.”
“Why?” she said, sinking into the bed as Ravi stood.
“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.
“Come on.” He dragged her out of bed by her ankles, giggling as she and the comforter slid to the floor. “Come on, Sporty Spice, you can put your sneakers on and run circles around me if you really want.”
“I already do,” Pip quipped, fighting her feet into a pair of discarded socks.
“Oooh, sick burn, Sarge.” He clapped her on the backside as she stood up. “Let’s go.”
It worked. Whatever Ravi was doing, it worked. Pip didn’t think about disappearing or dead birds or chalk lines or Detective Hawkins, not on the way down the stairs, not when her dad stopped them to ask her where all the wafer-thin ham had gone, not even as they walked down the driveway, Ravi’s fingers hooked onto her jeans, heading for the woods. No pigeons, no chalk, no six gunshots disguised in the beating of her heart. It was just the two of them. Team Ravi and Pip. No thoughts beyond the first inane things that came into her head. No deeper, no darker. Ravi was the fence in her head that kept it all back.
A grumpy-faced tree that she insisted looked like Ravi when he woke up.
Planning when he would first come to visit her at college; maybe the weekend after Orientation Week? Was she nervous to go? What books did she still need to buy?
They followed the winding path through the woods. Ravi re-created their first walk together beneath these same trees, a high-pitched impression of Pip as she took him through her initial theories on the Andie Bell case. Pip laughed. He’d remembered almost every word. Barney had been with them on that first walk, a golden flash through the trees. Herding them together. Tail wagging as Ravi had teased him with a stick. 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. 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’s attention was drawn up and away as a dog from here and now crashed through the undergrowth toward them, barking as it jumped up to plant its paws on her legs. A beagle. She recognized this dog, just as he had recognized her.
“Oh no,” she muttered, giving him one quick pat on the head, as the other sound reached them: a double set of footsteps. Two voices she knew.
Pip stopped as they walked around a knot of trees and finally came into view.
Ant-and-Lauren, arm in arm. Eyes in unison, widening when they realized it was her.
Pip didn’t imagine it. Lauren actually gasped, coughing into her hand to cover it. They stopped too. Ant and Lauren over there, Pip and Ravi back here.
“Rufus!” Lauren screamed, her wild voice echoing through the trees. “Rufus, come here! Get away from her!”
The dog turned and tilted his head.
“I’m not going to hurt your dog, Lauren,” Pip said, leveling her voice.
“Who knows with you,” Ant said darkly, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“Oh, come on.” Pip sniffed. One part of her itched to pet Rufus again, just to really set Lauren off. Go on, do it.
It was as though Lauren had read her mind and the glint in her eye. She screamed for the dog again until he bounded back over to her on his unsure little legs.
“No!” Lauren turned her voice on him now, giving him a one-fingered tap on the nose. “You don’t go up to strangers!”
“Ridiculous,” Pip said, with a hollow laugh, swapping a look with Ravi.
“What was that?” Ant barked, straightening up. Pointless, really, because Pip was still taller than him; she could take him. She already had once before, and she was stronger now.
“I said that your girlfriend was ridiculous. Should I repeat it a third time?” she said.
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 encounte
r, felt herself coming alive with it.
“Well, don’t talk about her like that.” Ant brought his hands back out, flexed them at his sides. “When are you leaving for college?”
“Why?” Pip said. “Are you waiting for me to…disappear?”
She studied their faces carefully. The wind whipped Lauren’s red hair across her forehead, strands catching across her narrowed eyes. She blinked. One side of Ant’s mouth pulled up in a sneer.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said.
“No, I know.” Pip nodded. “You must feel really embarrassed. You accused me, Connor, and Jamie of orchestrating his disappearance for money, just hours after we all found out a serial rapist walked free. Are you the ones who spoke to that reporter? I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. And now Jamie’s alive but another man is dead, and you must feel really quite stupid about the whole thing.”
“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.
The gun was back in Pip’s heart, pointing through her chest at Ant. Backbone curling and her teeth bared. “Don’t you ever say that again.” She pushed the words through her teeth, dark and dangerous. “Don’t you ever say that in front of me.”
Ravi retook her hand, but she didn’t feel it. She wasn’t in her body anymore, she was standing over there, that same hand around Ant’s throat. Tightening, tightening, squeezing it all out into Ravi’s fingers.
Ant seemed to sense this, taking one step back from her, almost tripping over the dog. Lauren hooked her arm through Ant’s again and locked their elbows together. A shield. But that wouldn’t stop Pip.
“We used to be friends. Do you really hate me enough to want me to die?” she said, the wind carrying her voice away from her.
As Good as Dead Page 9
