As Good as Dead

by Holly Jackson

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s me,” said Connor’s voice on the other end.

  “Everything OK?” Pip asked him, and she could hear Naomi behind her, asking Cara what the fuck was going on.

  “Yes. All good,” Connor said, slightly breathless. “Jamie’s driving us to Norwalk now. The phone is in place, behind that first rock. We didn’t go in the gate, didn’t even look. All good.”

  “Thank you,” Pip said, her chest releasing slightly. “Thank you, Co—” She almost said his name, stopping herself before it was too late with a glance up at Cara and Naomi. They shouldn’t know who else was involved, that kept them safer. All of them. “This is the last time we talk about this. It never happened, understand? Never mention it, not on the phone, not in texts, not even to each other. Never.”

  “I know, bu—”

  Pip spoke over him.

  “I’m going to hang up now. And I want you to destroy that phone. Snap it in half, and the SIM card too. Then dump it in a public garbage can.”

  “Yeah, yeah, OK, we will,” Connor said, and then to his brother: “Jamie, she’s telling us to break the phone, throw it in the trash while we’re out.”

  She heard Jamie’s distant voice over the sound of moving wheels.

  “Consider it done.”

  “I have to go now,” Pip said. “Bye.” Bye. Such a normal word for such an un-normal conversation.

  Pip cut off the call and lowered the phone, turning slowly to look at Cara and Naomi, gathered behind her, an identical look of confusion and fear in their eyes.

  “What the fuck?” Cara said. “What’s going on? Who were you talking to? What phone is that?”

  Pip sighed. There was a time she’d told Cara everything, every mundane detail of her day, and now she could tell her nothing. Nothing except her part. A wedge between them that had never been there before. Solid, unspeakable.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Pip said.

  “Pip, are you OK?” Naomi stepped in now. “You’re scaring us.”

  “Sorry, I—” Pip’s voice croaked away from her. She couldn’t do this now. She wanted to explain, but the plan wouldn’t let her. She had to make another call. Right now. “I’ll explain in a minute, as much as I can, but first I need to call someone else. Can I use your landline?”

  Cara blinked at her, Naomi’s eyebrows drawing down to eclipse her eyes.

  “I’m confused,” Cara said.

  “It’ll be two minutes, then I’ll explain. Can I use the phone?”

  They nodded, slow and unsure.

  Pip hurried past them to the kitchen, hearing their steps as they followed her in here. She dropped her backpack onto one of the dining chairs and unzipped the front pocket, pulling out Christopher Epps’s business card. She grabbed the Wards’ landline handset and typed in his cell phone number, memorizing three digits at a time.

  Cara and Naomi were watching her as she raised the phone, ringing in her ears.

  A crackling sound down the line, someone clearing their throat.

  “Hello?” Epps said, an uncertainty in his tone, the uncertainty of an unknown number at night.

  “Hi, Christopher Epps?” Pip said, ironing out the rasp in her voice. “It’s me, Pip Fitz-Amobi.”

  “Oh.” He sounded surprised. “Oh,” he said it again, reclaiming control, another clearing of his throat. “Right.”

  “Sorry,” Pip said, “I know it’s a Saturday evening, and it’s getting late. But when you gave me your card, you said to call anytime.”

  “Yes, I did say that, didn’t I?” Epps said. “So, what can I do for you, Miss Fitz-Amobi?”

  “Well.” Pip coughed lightly. “I did what you said to me after the mediation meeting. Went away and thought about it for a couple of weeks, when things weren’t so emotional.”

  “Right? And have you come to any conclusions?”

  “Yes,” Pip said, hating what she was about to say, imagining the triumphant look on Epps’s arrogant face. But he had no idea what the real reason for this call was. “So, I’ve thought about it, a lot, and I think you’re right that it’s in everyone’s best interest to avoid a court case. So, I think I’m going to take the deal you offered. The seven thousand dollars damages.”

  “That’s very good to hear, Miss Fitz-Amobi. But it wasn’t just the seven thousand, remember?” Epps said, overenunciating his words like he was talking to a small child. “The most important part of the deal was the public apology and a statement issued, recanting the libelous claims, and explaining that the voice recording you posted was fabricated. My client won’t accept any deal without those.”

  “Yes,” Pip said, gritting her teeth. “I remember, thank you. I’ll do all of that. The money, the public apology, recant the statement and the voice recording. I’ll do it all. I just want this to be over now.”

  She heard a satisfied sniff down the line. “Well, I have to say, I think you’re making the correct decision here. This works out the best for everyone involved. Thank you for being so mature about it.”

  Pip’s grip tightened around the phone, cutting into her hand, red flashing behind her eyes until she blinked it away. “No, sure, and thank you for talking some sense into me,” she said, recoiling at her own voice. “So, I guess you can now tell Max that I accept the deal.”

  “Yes, I will,” Epps said. “He will be very pleased to hear it. And on Monday, I shall give your lawyer a call and get everything rolling. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good,” Pip said; a meaningless word, just as empty as “fine.”

  “All right, well you have a good evening, now, Miss Fitz-Amobi.”

  “You too.”

  The line cut out. She imagined Epps, beyond the beeps of the dead tone, miles away, now scrolling through his phone to find another number. Because he wasn’t just the family lawyer; he was a family friend. And he was going to do exactly what Pip wanted him to.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Cara stared at her, eyes stretched too wide. The face had grown around them, but they were the same eyes of the nervous six-year-old she’d been when they first met. “Why the fuck did you just accept that deal? What the hell is going on?”

  “I know, I know,” Pip said, hands up either side of her, in surrender. “I know none of this makes any sense. Something happened, and I’m in trouble, but there’s a way out of it. All I can tell you is what I need you to do. For your own safety.”

  “What happened?” Cara said, desperation stretching her voice.

  “She can’t tell us,” Naomi said, turning to her sister, her eyes reshaping with understanding. “She can’t tell us because she wants us to have plausible deniability.”

  Cara turned back to Pip. “S-something bad?” she asked.

  Pip nodded.

  “But it’s going to be OK, I can make it OK, I can fix it. I just need your help with this part. Will you help me?”

  A clicking sound in Cara’s throat. “Of course I’ll help you,” she said quietly. “You know I’d kill for you. But—”

  “It’s nothing bad,” Pip cut her off, glancing down at the burner phone. “Look it’s just turned nine-forty-three p.m. See?” she said, showing them the time. “Don’t look at me, look at the time, Cara. See? You never have to lie, ever. All that’s happened is I came over a few minutes ago, made that call to Max’s lawyer from your landline, because I lost my phone.”

  “You lost your phone?” Cara said.

  “That’s not the something bad,” Pip replied.

  “Yeah, no shit,” Cara said through a nervous laugh.

  “What do you need us to do?” Naomi asked, lips folded in a determined line. “If it has anything to do with Max Hastings, you know I’m in.”

  Pip didn’t answer that, didn’t want them to know more than they had to. But she was glad Naomi wa
s here with them. It felt right somehow. Full circle.

  “You just need to come with me. In the car. Be with me for a couple of hours, so I’m with you guys and not anywhere else.”

  They understood, or close to it, Pip could tell from the shift in their faces.

  “An alibi.” Cara spoke the unspoken thing.

  Pip tilted her head up and down, the tiniest of movements, not quite a nod.

  “You never have to lie,” she said. “About any of it, any of the details, ever. All you ever need to say, need to know, is exactly what we’re going to do. You’re not doing anything wrong, anything illegal. You’re hanging out with your friend, that’s all, and that’s all you know. It’s nine-forty-four and you just need to come with me.”

  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.

  “Where are we going?” Naomi asked.

  Pip exhaled and gave them a strained smile. She rezipped her bag and threw it over her shoulders.

  “We’re going to McDonald’s,” she said.

  They didn’t talk much during the drive. Didn’t know what to say, what they were allowed to say, or even how much to move. Cara sat in the passenger seat, her hands tucked in between her legs, shoulders arched and stiff, taking up as little space as she could.

  Naomi was in the back, sitting up too straight, her back not even touching the seat. Pip glanced in the rearview mirror and saw streaks of headlights and streetlights striped over Naomi’s face, bringing life back into her eyes.

  Pip concentrated on the road instead of the silence. She was on I-95, southbound, trying to hit as many traffic cameras as possible. This time she wanted them to see her; that was the whole point. Airtight, ironclad. If it came to it, the police could follow the route Pip and her car had taken, through the eyes of all these cameras, retrace her steps. Proof she was right here and not somewhere else, killing a man.

  “How’s Steph?” Pip said when the quiet in the car got a little too loud. She’d turned the radio off a while ago; it was too eerie, too aggressively normal in what was the most un-normal drive the three of them would ever take.

  “Um.” Cara gave a small cough, watching out the window. “Yeah, she’s good.” That was it, silence again. Well, what had Pip expected, involving them in this? Asking too much of them.

  Pip’s eyes drew up, catching sight of the McDonald’s logo on the sign up ahead, her headlights lighting up the golden M until it glowed. It was in Darien Service Plaza, that’s why she and Ravi had picked it. Cameras everywhere.

  Pip exited the highway and pulled into the service plaza, into the huge parking lot that was still heaving with people and cars, even though it had just passed ten.

  She rolled forward, waiting for a space near the front, right by the huge gray-and-white building. Pulled in, turned off the car.

  The silence was even louder now that the engine wasn’t hiding it. Saved by a group of men, clearly drunk, squawking as they stumbled in front of the car and through the entrance doors into the well-lit building.

  “Started early,” Cara said, nodding at the group, reaching out across the silence.

  Pip grabbed at it, with both hands.

  “Sounds like my kind of night out,” she said. “In bed by eleven.”

  “My kind of night out too,” Cara said, turning around, a small smile on her face. “If it ends in fries.”

  Pip laughed then, a guttural, hollow laugh that split open into a cough. She was so glad they were here with her, even though she hated herself for having to ask. “I’m sorry for this,” she said, staring forward at the other groups of people. People on long trips away, or long trips home, or not-very-long trips either way. People on family visits with small, sleepy children, or nights out, or even nights in, picking up food on the way. Normal people living their normal lives. And then the three of them in this car.

  “Don’t be,” Naomi spoke up now, resting a hand on Pip’s shoulder. “You’d do it for us.”

  And Naomi was right: she would, and she had. She’d kept the secret of the hit-and-run Naomi had been involved in. Pip had found another way to clear Sal’s name so Cara didn’t lose her father and her sister at the same time. But that didn’t make her feel any better about what she’d asked of them now. The kind of favor you hoped would never need returning.

  But hadn’t Pip realized yet? Everything was returning, that full circle, dragging them all back around again.

  “Exactly,” Cara said, pressing her finger lightly to the badly covered graze on Pip’s cheekbone, as though touching it would tell her what had happened, the thing she’d never know for sure. “We just want you to be OK. Just tell us what to do. Lead the way and tell us what to do.”

  “That’s the thing,” Pip said. “We don’t need to do anything, really. Just act normal. Happy.” She sniffed. “Like something bad hasn’t happened.”

  “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.

  “Thank you,” Pip said, knowing deep down how inadequate those two words were. “Let’s go.”

  Pip opened the door and stepped out, taking the backpack that Cara was handing across to her. She shouldered it and looked around. There was a tall streetlight behind her, lighting up the parking lot with an industrial yellow glow. Halfway up the pole, Pip could see two dark cameras, one pointed their way. Pip made sure to look up, study the stars for a second, so the camera could capture her face. A million, million lights in the gaping blackness of the sky.

  “OK,” Naomi said, shutting the back door and gathering her cardigan around herself.

  Pip locked the car and they walked together, the three of them, through the automatic doors and into the service plaza.

  It still had that buzz, that same energy all rest stops had: that clash of those too heavy-eyed and those too wired, the nearly-theres and the just-beguns. Pip wasn’t either of them. The end wasn’t in sight yet, this long night would be longer still, but she was past the middle of the plan, leaving the checked boxes behind in the back of her mind. Burying them deep. She just had to keep going. One foot in front of the other. Two hours until she had to meet Ravi.

  “This way,” she said, leading Cara and Naomi over to the McDonald’s at the back end of the cavernous building.

  The drunk men were already there, at a table in the middle. Still squawking, but around mouthfuls of fries now.

  Pip picked a booth close to them, but not too close, dumping her bag down on one chair. She opened it to pull out her wallet, and then zipped it back up before Naomi and Cara saw anything they shouldn’t.

  “Sit,” Pip said to them, smiling for the cameras that she couldn’t see but knew would be here somewhere. Cara and Naomi slid themselves along the shiny, plastic-covered booth, the material screaming against their clothes. “I’ll get the food. What do you guys want to eat?”

  The sisters looked at each other.

  “Well, we already ate dinner, at home,” Cara said tentatively.

  Pip nodded. “So, just fries for you, Naomi. I don’t think there’s a vegetarian option, sorry. And chicken nuggets for Cara, of course, don’t even need to ask. Cokes?”

  They nodded.

  “OK, perfect. Be back in a sec.”

  Pip strolled past the table of drunk men, wallet swinging from her hand, up to the counter. There was a line, three people in front of her. Pip stared ahead, clocking the security cameras posted on the ceiling behind the registers. She sidestepped a few inch
es so they had a good view of her, waiting in line. She tried to act normal, natural, like she didn’t know she was being watched. And she couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what normal was for her now: an act. A lie.

  Pip stuttered when it was her turn at the front, smiling at the cashier to cover the hesitation. She didn’t want to eat, just as much as Cara and Naomi didn’t. But it didn’t matter what she wanted. This was all a show, a performance for the cameras, a believable narrative in the traces she was leaving behind.

  “Hi.” She smiled, recovering. “Can I please have two chicken nugget meals, both with Cokes. And a large fries and…um, another Coke, please.”

  “Yep, sure,” the cashier said, plugging something into the screen in front of him. “Want any sauces with that?”

  “Um…just ketchup, please.”

  “Sure,” he said, scratching his head beneath his cap. “Is that everything?”

  Pip nodded, trying not to glance up at the camera behind the cashier’s head as he called the order to a colleague. Because she would be looking directly into the eyes of the detective who might be watching this footage in the weeks to come, daring them not to believe her this time. It would likely be Hawkins, wouldn’t it? Jason was from Fairview, so his murder would probably be dealt with by the Fairview Police Department. A new game with new players: her against Detective Hawkins, and Max Hastings was her offering.

  “Hello?” The cashier stared at her, narrowing his eyes. “I said that comes to sixteen dollars, forty-seven cents”

  “Sorry.” Pip unzipped her wallet.

  “Paying by card?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, almost too forceful, straying out of character for a moment. Of course she had to pay by card: she had to leave an indisputable trace of her being here at this time. She pulled out her debit card and tapped it against the contactless card reader. It beeped and the cashier handed her a receipt. She should keep that too, she thought, folding it neatly and tucking it inside her wallet.

  “It’ll just be a minute,” the cashier said, gesturing her aside so he could take the order of the man standing behind her.