As Good as Dead

by Holly Jackson

  Pip tried the sentence out again, filling herself with his voice, analyzing it from every angle, staring into every gap and intake of breath.

  It was a joke, on the surface, that was all. But he hadn’t said it like that. More stuttering, more uncertain, breathy from the laugh to take the sting out of it.

  He knew.

  No, he couldn’t know. They had their killer. He had no evidence and she had an alibi.

  OK, well, if he didn’t know, then there was a small part of him, tiny, minuscule, even, the part he might lock away at the back of his mind, and that part had its doubts. It was ridiculous, it was nonsensical, Pip had an ironclad alibi somewhere else and the case against Max was strong. But was it too strong—just a little too easy and a little too clumsy? asked the small voice in the back of his head. A lingering suspicion he didn’t know he could trust. That’s what he’d been studying her eyes for, searching for traces of that doubt.

  Max had been arrested and charged and the police were reinvestigating the DT Killer case. Billy Karras would be released. Pip had survived. She was free and safe, and so was everyone she cared about. Ravi had laughed and cried and held her too tight when she told him. But…but if that was winning, why did it not feel like it? Why was she still sinking?

  I’ll come find you when I’m done, the Hawkins in her head told her. She knew what he’d meant at the time, that he would come get her for their talk when he was finished processing Max. But that’s not what he meant in this echo in her head. It was a promise. A threat. I’ll come find you when I’m done.

  He knew or he didn’t, he suspected or he didn’t, he thought and he overthought, and he shook it off and he came back to it. It didn’t matter which; somewhere, somehow, the idea was in his head, however small, however ridiculous and irrational. It was there. Hawkins had let her in for one second and she’d seen it planted there.

  She and Hawkins, the last ones standing, staring at each other from their opposite corners. He hadn’t picked up on the truth before, with Sal Singh and Andie Bell, or with Jamie Reynolds’s disappearance. But Pip had grown and changed, and maybe Hawkins had too. And that one thought, that one small doubt hiding at the back of his head, was her undoing.

  Pip cried and she cried until she was empty, because she knew. She couldn’t rest, she couldn’t have her normal life back, the one thing she wanted above all else. The one thing all of this had been for. That was it, the price she’d have to pay. She spent hours talking it through with herself, running scenarios, asking ifs and whens, and she only saw one way through this, one way to keep everyone safe from her. One more plan.

  She knew what had to be done. But it might just kill her to do it.

  The sun lit up his eyes as he glanced back at her, dappled through the rising trees. Or maybe it was the other way, Pip wondered, maybe Ravi’s eyes lit up the sun. A crooked smile creased his face.

  “Sarge?” Ravi said lightly, trampling the early fallen leaves of Lodge Wood, the sound crisp and fresh, sounding like home, and beginnings and endings.

  “Sorry.” Pip caught up to him, stepping in time with his feet. “What did you say?”

  “I said…” He drew out the word, nudging her in the ribs. “What time are your parents taking you tomorrow?” He waited. “To Columbia?” he reminded her. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  “Oh, um, early, I think,” Pip said, shaking her head, bringing herself back. “Probably leave by ten.”

  She didn’t know how to do it, how to say it, how to even begin. There weren’t words for this, a pain that hummed through every part of her, stuck through her chest as her ribs caved in around it. Cracking bones and blood-wet hands, and a hurt that was worse than all of that.

  “Cool,” Ravi said. “I’ll come round before, help your dad load up the car.”

  Pip’s lip threatened to go, her throat tightened, cutting her off. Ravi didn’t see, picking their way through the woods, off the path. Exploring, he’d said, the two of them, Team Ravi and Pip, off in the wild.

  “When should I come visit?” he said, ducking under a branch, holding it up for her without looking back. “Originally it was meant to be next weekend, so what about the weekend after? We could go out for dinner or something.”

  She couldn’t, she couldn’t do it. And she couldn’t take another step after him.

  Her eyes spilled over, fast and hard, a knot in her chest that would never go.

  “Ravi,” she said quietly.

  He heard it in her voice. He whipped around, his eyes wide, eyebrows lowered.

  “Hey, hey.” He came back, sliding his hands up her arms. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He pulled her into him, wrapped her in his arms, one hand on the back of her head, holding her to his chest.

  “No.” Pip twisted away, stepping back from him, and her body felt like it was peeling away from her, back to him, choosing him over her. “Ravi, it’s…You can’t come tomorrow morning to help load up the car. You can’t come visit me. You can’t, we can’t…” Her voice cracked, broken in half by the shudder in her chest.

  “Pip, what are you—”

  “This is the last time,” she said. “This is the last time we can see each other.”

  The wind played through the trees, blowing her hair across her face, strands sticking to the tears.

  The light was gone from Ravi’s eyes, now darkened by fear.

  “What are you talking about? No, it’s not,” he said, his voice growing, fighting the whistling of the trees.

  “It’s the only way,” Pip said. “The only way to keep you safe from me.”

  “I don’t need to be safe from you,” he said. “It’s over. We did it. Max has been charged. We’re free.”

  “We aren’t,” she cried. “Hawkins knows, or he suspects. What he said to me outside the station. The idea is there, in his head.”

  “So?” Ravi said, angry now. “It doesn’t matter. They’ve charged Max; they have all the evidence. There’s none against you. Hawkins can think whatever he wants, it doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.”

  “Why?” he shouted, voice desperate and clawing. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because.” Pip’s voice picked up too, thick with tears. “Because it isn’t over. We didn’t think it through all the way to the very end. There has to be a trial first, Ravi. A jury of twelve peers has to find Max guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And if they do, then it will be over, truly over, and we’ll be free. Hawkins won’t have a reason to keep looking. It’s near impossible to overturn a conviction once it’s made; just look at the statistics, at Billy Karras. That’s when we’re free.”

  “Yes, and that’s going to happen,” he said.

  “We can’t know that.” She sniffed, wiping her face on her sleeve. “He got away with it once before. And what if the jury finds him not guilty? What happens then? The case returns to the police to be reinvestigated. They have to have a killer. And who do you think will be the very first person Detective Hawkins looks into if Max is found to be innocent? It will be me, Ravi, he’ll come for me, and everyone who helped me. Because that’s the truth and that’s his job.”

  “No!” Ravi shouted.

  “Yes.” Pip’s breath stuttered. “If the trial doesn’t go the right way, I’m going down. And I’m not having you go down with me, or any of the others.”

  “That’s not your choice!” he said, his voice catching, eyes glazing.

  “Yes, it is. You went to Hawkins about the headphones, which ties you into everything. But I know how to get you out.”

  “No, Pip, I’m not listening.” He dropped his eyes.

  “If the verdict is not guilty, if the police ever come back to talk to you about it, you tell them I made you do it.”

  “No.”

  “Under duress. I threatened you. I made you take the fall for the hea
dphones to save me. You suspected what I’d done to Jason. You were scared for your life.”

  “No, Pip. Stop talking!”

  “You did it under duress, Ravi,” she pleaded. “That’s the phrase you have to use. Under duress. You were afraid for your life if you didn’t do what I said.”

  “No! No one will believe that!”

  “Make them!” she shouted back. “You have to make them believe it.”

  “No.” Tears overran his eyes, catching at the crack in his lips. “I don’t want to. I don’t want this.”

  “You tell them we haven’t had any contact since I left for college. It will be the truth. You got away from me. We haven’t spoken, haven’t seen each other, no communication. But you were still scared what would happen if you told the police the truth. What I would do to you.”

  “Shut up, Pip. Stop it,” he cried, cupping his hands over his face.

  “We can’t see each other. We can’t have any contact at all, otherwise the duress angle won’t work, the police will check our phone records. You’re afraid of me, that’s what it has to look like. So we can’t be together anymore,” she said, and the thing stuck through her chest cracked open, a thousand cuts.

  “No.” Ravi sobbed into his hands. “No, this can’t be it. There must be something we can…” His hands dropped to his sides, a glint of hope in his eyes. “We can get married.”

  “What?”

  “We can get married,” he said, taking a shuddering sniff and a step toward her. “Spousal privilege. We can’t be made to give evidence against each other if we are co-accused. We could get married.”

  “No.”

  “We can,” he said, the hope growing in his eyes. “We could do that.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?!” he said, the desperation back in his voice, the hope gone in a blink.

  “Because you didn’t kill a man, Ravi. I did!” Pip took his hand, slid her fingers through his in the way they always belonged, gripping tight. “That won’t save you from this, that just ties you to me and whatever happens to me. If it gets to that point, they might not need our testimony to put us both away. That is unacceptable. Do you think Sal would want this for you? Do you think he’d want everyone to think you’d played a part in killing someone, just like they thought of him?”

  “Stop it,” he said, squeezing her hand too hard. “Stop trying to make me—”

  “It’s not just from you.” She spoke across him, squeezing back. “It’s everyone. Cara, Nat, Connor, I have to cut myself off from everyone I care about, everyone who helped me. To protect them. Even my family; I can’t have the police thinking they aided or abetted me in any way, I can’t have that. I need to go away from everyone, on my own. Cut off from everyone, until the trial. And even after, if the jury—”

  “No,” he said, but the fight was gone from his voice now, the tears falling faster.

  “I’m a ticking time bomb, Ravi. I can’t have the people I love near me when it goes off. Especially not you.”

  “If it goes off,” he said.

  “If,” she agreed, reaching up to catch one of his tears. “Until the trial. And if it goes our way, if the jury finds Max guilty, then I can get it all back. My life. My family. You. We can find each other again, I promise. If that’s still what you want.”

  Ravi pressed his cheek into her hand.

  “That could be months and months from now,” he said. “Years, even. It’s a murder case—they can take years to go to trial.”

  “Then that’s how long I have to wait,” Pip cried. “And if, after the wait, the jury finds him not guilty, you tell Hawkins you did it under duress. You weren’t ever at the scene, you didn’t know for sure I’d killed Jason, but I made you tell him about the headphones. I made you. Say it, Ravi.”

  “Under duress,” he said quietly, his face breaking in half. “I don’t want this.” He sobbed, his hand shaking in hers. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t care, I don’t care what happens, I don’t want to not see you again, not speak to you. I don’t want to wait for the trial. I love you. I can’t…I can’t. You’re my Pip and I’m your Ravi. We’re a team. I don’t want this.”

  Pip folded herself into him, tucking her face into that place it used to belong at the base of his neck. Her home, but it couldn’t be, not anymore. His head fell against her shoulder and she held it there, her hand running through the back of his hair, slipping through her fingers.

  “I don’t want this either,” she said, and it hurt so much she didn’t think she could breathe. Nothing would heal this. Not time. Not space. Nothing. “I love you so much,” she whispered. “That’s why I have to do this, why I have to go and not come back. You would do it for me,” she said. “You know you would.” An echo of Ravi’s words when he’d saved her, just as he’d saved her back in that storeroom, without knowing it. Now Pip had to save him back; that was her choice. And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was the right one to make. Maybe the other choices she’d made hadn’t been, maybe every decision up to this point had been wrong or bad, untraveled paths and other lives. This choice was the worst of them all, hurt the most, but it was right, it was good.

  Ravi bawled into her shoulder and Pip stroked his hair, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “I should go,” she said eventually.

  “No! No!” Ravi grabbed her tighter, wouldn’t let her go, burying his face in her coat. “No, don’t go,” he begged her. “Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go.”

  But one of them had to be the first to leave. The first to take that last look. The first one to say it for the final time.

  It had to be her.

  Pip unwrapped herself from him, let him go. She pushed up onto her toes, pressed her forehead against his, in the way he always did to her. She wished she could take half of it from him, the hurt. Take half of everything bad, leave room for some good.

  “I love you,” she said, stepping back.

  “I love you.”

  She looked into his eyes and he looked back into hers.

  Pip turned, and she walked away.

  Ravi broke behind her, crying out into the trees, the wind carrying his sobs over to her, trying to pull her back. She kept going. Ten steps. Eleven. Her foot hesitated on the next step. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do this. This couldn’t be the last time. Pip looked back, over her shoulder, through the trees. Ravi was on his knees in the leaves, face hidden, bawling into his hands. It hurt more than anything, to see him that way, and her chest opened up, reaching out to him, trying to drive her back. Hold him, take the hurt away and let him take hers.

  She wanted to go back. She wanted to run to him, fall into him, be Team Ravi and Pip and nothing more. Tell him she loved him in all those secret ways they had, hear him speak all those names he had for her in his butter-soft voice. But she couldn’t, that wasn’t fair. He couldn’t be her person and she couldn’t be his, right now. Pip had to be the strong one, the one to walk away when neither of them wanted to. The one who chose.

  Pip looked at him one last time, then she tore her eyes away, stared ahead. The way forward was blurry, her eyes filling, tears streaming down her face. Maybe she’d see him again, maybe she wouldn’t, but she couldn’t look back again, she couldn’t or she wouldn’t have the strength to go.

  She walked away, a howl on the wind that could have been Ravi or the trees, she was too far to know. She left, and she didn’t look back.

  Day eighty-nine.

  Pip counted them, every single day, marking them off in her mind.

  An early December day in New York and the sun was already fading from the sky, staining it the pink of washed blood.

  Pip gathered her coat around her and pushed on, walking the streets, block after block, again and again. In eleven days she’d be here again and it would be one hundred days
since. It felt like longer.

  No trial date set yet; in fact, she’d heard nothing for a while. Only something small yesterday: Maria Karras emailed her a photo of a grinning Billy decorating a Christmas tree, wearing a garish red sweater covered in reindeer. Pip had smiled back at him through the screen. Day thirty-one: that’s when they’d released Billy Karras, all charges dropped.

  Day thirty-three had been the day the news broke about Jason Bell being the DT Killer.

  “Hey, isn’t that the guy from your town?” someone had asked her in the common room of their dorms, the news on the TV in the background. Most people didn’t talk to Pip, she kept herself to herself, but really she was keeping herself away from everyone else.

  “Yeah, it is,” Pip had said, turning up the sound.

  Jason Bell hadn’t just been the DT Killer, he’d also been the South Shore Stalker, a rapist who’d operated in that area of the city from 1992 to 1996, connected by DNA evidence. Pip worked it out: 1996 was the year Andie Bell had been born. Jason stopped when his first daughter was born and they’d moved from New York to Fairview. The DT Killer claimed his first victim when Andie was fifteen, when she’d first started to look like the woman she might become. Maybe that’s why her father had done it. He stopped when she died, well, almost, but no one else would ever know about his sixth victim. Andie’s entire life had been bookended by the monster living in her home, by his violence. She hadn’t survived him, but Pip had, and Andie could come with her, wherever she went.

  Pip turned the corner, cars shushing past her, readjusting her book-heavy backpack on her shoulders. Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. Pip pulled it out and stared down at the screen.

  Her dad was calling.

  A knot in her gut and a hole in her heart. Pip pressed the side button to ignore the call, let it ring out in her pocket. She’d text him tomorrow, say sorry she’d missed his call, she’d been busy, maybe tell him she’d been in the library. Increase the gaps between every phone call until they were long, long stretches, weeks between, then months. Texts unread and unanswered. She’d have to think of something for Christmas, like she had for Thanksgiving, some reason she couldn’t go back to town. Pip knew it would break their hearts, it was breaking hers, but this was the only way. Separation. She was the danger, and she had to keep them away from her, in case any of it rubbed off on them.