As Good as Dead

by Holly Jackson

  “And what did you used to talk about?” said Pip.

  “Everything. Anything. She was like my sounding board, and I hope I was one for her too, although she didn’t talk about herself much. We talked about Julia, about the DT Killer, how my parents were, et cetera. She died the same night Billy Karras killed Tara Yates, did you know that?”

  Pip gave her a slight nod.

  “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.”

  Pip’s eyes flicked side to side as her mind tried to catch up with this unexpected path, splintering from DT back to Andie Bell again. Another connection: her dad’s company, and now this friendship with Harriet Hunter. Had the police known about this convergence at the time, this strange link between two ongoing cases? If it was an email account Andie’s family knew about, then Detective Hawkins must have learned about it after her disappearance, unless…

  “D-do you know the email address Andie first used to contact you?” she said, her chair creaking as she leaned forward.

  “Oh yeah,” Harriet said, reaching into the pocket of her jacket, slung over the chair. “It was a weird one, all random letters and numbers. I initially thought it was an automated bot or something.” She swiped at her phone. “I starred the emails after she died, so I’d never lose them. Here, this is them, before we exchanged numbers.”

  She slid her phone across the table, the Gmail app open, with a row of emails lined up the screen. Sent from A2B3FV96@gmail.com, with the subject line: Hi.

  Pip scanned down the previews of each message, reading them out in Andie’s voice, bringing her back to life. Hello Harriet, you don’t know me but my name is Andie Bell. I go to Fairview High, but I think we both know Chris Parks…. Hi Harriet, thanks for getting back to me and for not thinking I’m a creepy weirdo for reaching out, I’m so sorry about your sister. I have a sister too…. All the way down to the last one: Hey HH, would you want to talk on the phone instead of emailing, or even meet up some time….

  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.

  “I’m glad you found out the truth of what happened to her,” Harriet interrupted her thoughts. “And that your podcast was kind to her. Andie was a complicated girl, I think. But she saved me.”

  Even more complicated now, Pip thought, scribbling down Andie’s email address. 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?

  “Are you going to talk to him?” Harriet asked, bringing Pip’s attention back to the room, this table, the microphones set out in front of them. “Are you going to talk to Billy Karras?”

  Pip paused, ran her finger across the plastic of her headphones, round and round her neck. “I hope I get to speak to the DT Killer, yes,” she answered. She’d meant it to be tactful, so she didn’t have to lie to Harriet, but there was something else beneath those words. Something creeping and ominous. A dark promise. To herself, or to him?

  “Listen,” Pip said, clicking the stop button on her recording software. “We’re running out of time for today. Do you think we can schedule another interview soon, where you can talk more about Julia, what she was like? You’ve given me lots to go on today for my research, so thank you for that.”

  “I have?” Harriet said, the skin above her nose crinkling in confusion.

  She had, but she didn’t know it. She’d given Pip a lead, in the most unlikely of places.

  “Yes, it’s been very informative,” Pip said, unplugging the microphones, those two letters, HH, still playing on her mind, sounding them out in Andie’s voice, a voice she’d never even heard.

  She and Harriet shook hands again as they said goodbye, and Pip hoped she hadn’t noticed the tremor in her hands, the shiver that had made itself at home beneath her skin. And as Pip pushed the coffee shop door—holding it open for Harriet—the cold wind hit her, and so did one realization, tangible and heavy. That, even after all this time, Andie Bell still had one mystery left in her yet.

  File Name:

  Andie planner photo March 10–16 2014.jpg

  Pip found it, the itch at the back of her head, the one that scraped forward and back, sounding like two hissed letters. HH.

  She stared at the file open in front of her. Andie planner photo March 10–16 2014.jpg. A photo she’d copied and pasted into Capstone Project Log–Entry 25 last year. One of the photos she’d taken of Andie’s school planner when she and Ravi broke into the Bell house, just under a year ago, searching for a burner phone they’d never find.

  The full photo, the original before Pip had cropped it, showed more of Andie’s cluttered desk. A makeup case with a pale-purple hairbrush resting on top, her blond hairs still wound around the bristles. Beside it was a Fairview High academic planner for the year 2013–2014, open to this mid-March week, a little more than a month before Andie had died.

  And there it was. HH scribbled in on this Saturday, and in the other photos they’d taken: the weeks before and after. Pip thought she’d worked out Andie’s code at the time. That HH referred to “Howie’s house,” just as TS meant the train station parking lot, where Andie would meet Howie Bowers to pick up a new stash or drop off money. But she’d been wrong. HH had nothing to do with Howie Bowers. HH meant Harriet Hunter. Whether it was a phone call or a meet-up, it was hard to say. But it had been Harriet all along, and here was proof. Andie reaching out to the sister of the DT Killer’s fourth victim.

  The itch in Pip’s head became an ache, sharpening at her temples as she tried to understand what this meant. The idea thrashed against her as she tried to make it make sense. What did Andie Bell have to do with all this, with DT?

  There was only one place she might find the answers. Andie’s email address, one Pip suspected had been a secret. Andie had had lots of those in her short life.

  Pip finally looked away from the planner page, opening her browser instead. She logged out of her account on Gmail, and then clicked sign in again.

  She typed in Andie’s address A2B3FV96@gmail.com and then paused, her mouse hovering over the password box. There was no way she’d be able to guess it. She guided the mouse instead to the prompt that said Forgotten password?

  A new screen popped up, asking Pip to Enter the last password you remember. The cursor blinked in the input box, mocking her. She traced her fingers down the trackpad, skipping over the password box to the Try a different question button.

  Another option blinked up on-screen, offering to send a code to the recovery email address AndieBell96@gmail.com. Pip’s stomach lurched: so Andie did have another email address, likely her main one. The one people knew about. But Pip didn’t have access to that one either, so she couldn’t recover the verification code. Andie’s secret email address might just remain a secret forever.

  But hope wasn’t all gone yet. There was another option, another Try a different question at the bottom of the page. She clicked it, closing her eyes for a half second, begging the machine to please please please work.

  When she reopened them, the page had changed again.

  Answer the security question you added to your account:

  Name of first hamster?

  Below it was another input box, asking Pip to Enter your answer.

  That was it. There were no other options, no try again buttons on the screen. She had reached the end. Stalemate.

  And how on earth was she supposed to find out the name of the Bells’ first hamster? A hamster that, presumably, exi
sted pre–social media. She couldn’t exactly knock on their door again to ask Jason; he’d told her to leave them alone for good.

  Wait a second.

  Pip’s heart kicked against her chest. She grabbed her phone to check the day. It was Wednesday. Tomorrow at four p.m., Becca Bell would call her from prison, like she did every Thursday.

  Yes. Becca was the solution. She would know the hamster Andie had been referring to here. And Pip could ask her if she knew anything about Andie’s second email address, and why she might have needed one.

  But four p.m. tomorrow was twenty-five hours away. Twenty-five hours felt like an entire lifetime, which it might be. Hers. Pip didn’t know how much time was left, only DT knew that, or the person pretending to be him. A race against a timer she couldn’t see. But there was nothing she could do about it except wait.

  Becca would know.

  And in the meantime, she could chase the other open leads. Send follow-up messages to those ex–Green Scene employees about the security alarm. Arrange an interview with the now-retired Lieutenant Nolan. He’d replied to her email this morning saying he would be happy to discuss the DT case for her podcast. There were still things Pip could do, moves she could play against him in these next twenty-five hours.

  Her hands were shaking now. Oh no. Next would come the blood, leaking from the lifelines across her palm. Not now, please not now. She needed to calm down, slow down, take a break from being inside her own head. Maybe she should go out for a run? Or…She glanced at the second drawer down in her desk. Or maybe both?

  The half pill was bitter on her tongue as she dry-swallowed it, tried to chase it down with air. Breathe, just breathe. But now she couldn’t breathe because there were only two and a half pills left in the small clear bag and she needed more, she needed them, or she wouldn’t sleep at all, and if she didn’t sleep then she wouldn’t be able to think, and if she couldn’t think then she wouldn’t win.

  She didn’t want to. Last time was supposed to be it, she’d promised. But she needed them now, to save herself. And then she’d never need them again. That was the deal she made as she picked up the first burner phone in the line and turned it on, the Nokia symbol lighting up the screen.

  She navigated to her messages, to the only number saved in any of these phones. She sent Luke Eaton just three words: I need more.

  Pip laughed at herself then, hollow and dark, as she realized this very thing in her hands was yet another link back to Andie Bell. Walking in her footsteps, six years behind. And maybe secret hidden phones weren’t the only things she and Andie Bell would share.

  Luke replied within seconds.

  Last time again is it? Ill tell you when I have them.

  There was a flash of rage up the skin of her neck. Pip bit down on her lower lip until it hurt, as she held down the off button and returned the phone and Luke to their secret compartment at the bottom of her drawer. Luke was wrong. This was different; this really would be the last time.

  The Xanax hadn’t kicked in yet, though; her heart was still hummingbird-fast in her chest, no matter what bargain she tried to make with it. She could go for a run. She should go for a run. It might help her think, help her work out what Andie’s connection to Harriet Hunter and DT was.

  She wandered over to her bed and the window behind it, glancing through the glass at the afternoon sky beyond. It didn’t look much like summer. It was a slow, churning gray, and there were spots on the driveway from another bout of rain. Never mind, she liked running in the rain. And there were worse things someone could find on their driveway, like five headless stick figures, coming for her. There’d been no more; Pip checked every time she left the house.

  But there was something else out there now, a flash of movement pulling at Pip’s gaze. A person, jogging on the sidewalk past their house, past their driveway. It was only three seconds before they were gone, out of sight again, but three seconds were all Pip needed to know exactly who it was. Blue water bottle gripped in one hand. Blond hair pushed back from his angular face. One quick glance over his shoulder at her house. He knew. He knew this was where she lived.

  Pip saw red again, an eruption of violence behind her eyes as her mind showed her all the ways she might kill Max Hastings. None of them was bad enough; he deserved much worse. She cycled through them all, her thoughts chasing him down the road, until a sound brought her back to the room.

  Her phone, vibrating against the desk.

  She stared at it.

  Fuck.

  Was it No Caller ID? DT? Was this it, the moment she found out who was doing this to her? The CallTrapper app ready and waiting to go, to turn the disembodied breath into a real person, into a name. She didn’t need to learn what Andie Bell’s connection to all this was; the final answer would be in front of her.

  Quick. She’d hesitated too long already. She darted across the room to pick up the phone.

  No, it wasn’t No Caller ID. There was a sequence of numbers scrolling above the incoming call: a cell phone number she didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?” she said, holding the phone too tight against her ear.

  “Hello,” said a deep, crackling voice down the line. “Hi, Pip. It’s me, Detective Richard Hawkins.”

  Pip’s chest loosened around her too-fast heart. Not DT.

  “O-oh,” she said, recovering. “Detective Hawkins.”

  “You were expecting someone else,” he said with a sniff.

  “I was.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disturb you.” Now a cough. Another sniff. “It’s just that, well, I have some news, and I thought it best to call you right away. I know you’d want to know.”

  News? About the stalker he didn’t believe in? Had they made the connection to DT on their end too? She felt a new lightness then, starting from her gut and working up, bare heels lifting from the carpet. He believed her, he believed her, he believed—

  “It’s about Charlie Green,” he said, filling the silence.

  Oh. She sank again.

  “Wh-what…” Pip began.

  “We’ve got him,” Hawkins said. “He was just arrested. He had managed to make it to Canada. Interpol has him now. But we’ve got him. He’ll be extradited back and officially charged tomorrow.”

  She was still sinking. How was she still sinking? There was only so deep she could go, until she fell right through the ground into nothing.

  “I—I,” she stuttered. Sinking. Shrinking. Watching her feet so they couldn’t disappear down through the carpet.

  “You don’t have to worry anymore. We’ve got him,” Hawkins said again, his voice softening. “Are you OK?”

  No, she wasn’t. She didn’t understand what he wanted from her. Did he want her to thank him? No, this wasn’t what she wanted. Charlie didn’t belong in a cage; how could he help her from a cage, tell her what was right and wrong, what to do to fix it all? Why would she want this? Should she want this? Is that how a normal person would be feeling right now, instead of this black hole inside and her bones caving in around it?

  “Pip? There’s nothing to be scared of anymore. He can’t get to you.”

  She wanted to scream at him, tell him that Charlie Green was never a danger to her, but Hawkins wouldn’t believe her. He never believed her. But maybe it wouldn’t matter, maybe there was still a way here to fix herself, to safely step off this spiral before it reached its end. Because that was where this was all heading, she could feel it, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. But maybe Charlie could.

  “C-can I…,” she began, hesitating. “Can I please talk to him?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “To Charlie,” she said, louder now. “Can I please talk to Charlie? I’d really like to speak to him. I—I need to speak to him.”

  A sound came down the line, a croak of disbelief from Hawkins’s throat. “Well, um…,�
� he said, “I’m afraid that that won’t be possible, Pip. You’re the only eyewitness to a murder he allegedly committed. And if there’s a trial, obviously you’ll be called as the prosecution’s lead witness. So, I’m afraid it’s not going to be possible for you to talk to him, no.”

  Pip sank even farther, bones fusing with the structure of the house. Hawkins’s answer was a physical thing, sharp and lodged inside her chest. She should have known.

  “OK, that’s fine,” she said quietly. It wasn’t fine, it was anything but fine.

  “How’s the…how’s that other thing going?” Hawkins asked, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “The stalker you came to me about. Have there been any other incidents?”

  “Oh, no,” Pip said flatly. “Nothing else. That’s all sorted now. That’s fine, thank you.”

  “OK, well, I just wanted to let you know about Charlie Green, before you saw it in the press tomorrow.” Hawkins cleared his throat. “And I hope you’re doing better.”

  “I’m fine,” Pip said, and she hardly had the energy to even pretend, her words coming out in a flat line. “Thanks for your call, Detective Hawkins.” She lowered the phone, her thumb finding the red button.

  Charlie was caught. It was over. The one possible salvation she’d had left, other than this dangerous game against DT. At least she could officially cross Charlie’s name from the list of people who might hate her enough to want her to disappear. She’d always known it wasn’t him, and now it really couldn’t have been: he’d been in Canada all this time.