She had meant to throw it out.
That’s what she told herself. The murder board needed to be thrown out because it was finished. It was time to dismantle the Andie Bell scaffolding and see what remained of the Pip beneath. She’d made a good start, unpinning some of the pages and putting them in piles by a garbage bag.
And then, without realizing what she was doing or how it happened, she’d found herself looking through it all again: rereading log entries, tracing her finger across the red string, staring into the suspects’ photos.
She’d been so sure she was done. But with half a second and a fleeting glance, Andie had found a way to suck her in again.
Pip was supposed to be getting dressed for the carnival, but instead, she was on her knees, hunched over the murder board. Some of it really did go in the trash bag: all the clues that had pointed to Elliot Ward. Everything about the Ivy House Inn, the phone number in the planner, the hit-and-run, Sal’s stolen alibi, Andie’s nude photo that Max found at the back of a classroom, and the printed notes and texts from Unknown.
But the board also needed things added, because she knew more about Andie’s whereabouts on the night she disappeared now. She grabbed a printout of a map of Fairview and started scribbling.
Andie went to the Wards’ house and left not long after with a potentially serious head injury. Pip circled the Wards’ house on Hillside. Mr. Ward had said it was around ten-ish, but he must have been slightly off with that guess. His and Becca Bell’s estimates of time didn’t match, yet Becca’s was backed up by security footage: Andie had driven past the camera at 10:40 p.m. That’s when she must have headed to the Wards’ house. Pip drew a dotted line and scribbled in the time. Mr. Ward had to be mistaken, she realized. Otherwise, it meant that Andie had returned home with an injured head before leaving again. And if that had been the case, Becca would have told the police those details. So Becca Bell was no longer the last person to see Andie alive, Elliot Ward was.
But then…Pip chewed the end of the pen, thinking. Mr. Ward said that Andie hadn’t driven to his house; he thought she’d walked. And looking at the map, Pip saw why that made sense. The Bells’ and the Wards’ houses were very close; on foot you just had to cut through the church and over the pedestrian bridge. It was probably a quicker walk than a drive. Pip scratched her head. But that didn’t fit: Andie’s car was picked up by that surveillance camera, so she must have driven. Maybe she’d parked somewhere near Mr. Ward’s but not near enough for him to notice.
So how did Andie go from that point into nonexistence? From Hillside to her blood in the trunk of her car, ditched near Howie’s house?
Pip tapped her pen against the map, eyes flitting from Howie to Max to Nat to Daniel to Jason. There had been two different killers in Fairview: one who thought he’d killed Andie and then murdered Sal to cover it up, and another who’d actually killed Andie Bell. And which of these faces staring up at her could it be?
Two killers, and yet only one of them had tried to get Pip to stop, which meant that…
Wait.
Pip held her face as she closed her eyes to think, thoughts firing off and then coming back, altered. And Mr. Ward’s face, just as Pip said she’d never forgive him for killing Barney. It had crumpled, his brows tensed. But maybe it hadn’t been remorse on his face at all. Maybe it was confusion.
And the words he’d spoken, Pip finished his sentence in her head: Pip, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t—kill Barney.
Pip swore under her breath. She upturned the trash bag, scattering papers all around her, hunting through the mess. She found them; the notes from the camping trip and her locker in one hand, the printed texts from Unknown in the other.
They were from two different people. It was so obvious now, looking at them.
The differences weren’t only in form, it was in their tone. In the printed notes, Mr. Ward had called her “Pippa,” and the threats were subtle, implied. But Unknown called her a “Stupid bitch,” and the threats weren’t only implied: they’d made her smash her laptop, and then they’d killed her dog.
She let out her too-full breath.
Two different people. Elliot Ward wasn’t Unknown and he hadn’t killed Barney. No, that had been Andie’s real killer.
“Pip, come on! They’ll be lighting the fireworks soon,” her dad called upstairs.
She bounded over to her door and opened it a crack. “Um, you guys go on ahead. I’ll meet you there.”
“What? No. Get down here, Pips.”
“I’m just…I just want to try to call Cara a few more times, Dad. I really need to talk to her. I won’t be long. Please. I’ll find you there.”
“OK, pickle,” he called.
“I’ll leave in twenty minutes, I promise,” she said.
“OK, call me if you can’t find us.”
The front door crashed shut, and Pip sat back beside the murder board, the messages from Unknown shaking in her hands. She scanned through her log entries, trying to work out when she had received the texts. The first had come just after she found Howie Bowers, after she and Ravi had spoken to him and learned about Andie’s dealing. And then Barney had been taken in the week of fall break. A lot had happened just before that: She’d bumped into Stanley Forbes twice, she’d gone to see Becca, and she’d spoken to Daniel at the police meeting.
Fuck. She scrunched up the pieces of paper and threw them across the room. There were just too many suspects still. And now that Elliot’s secrets were out and Sal was to be exonerated, would the killer be looking for revenge? Would they make good on their threats? Should Pip really be in the house on her own?
She scowled down at all their photos. She drew a big X through Jason Bell’s face with a blue marker. It couldn’t be him. She’d seen the look on his face in the car, after the detective must have called them. Both he and Dawn: crying, angry, confused. And something else in their eyes; the smallest glimmer of hope alongside their tears. Maybe, even though they’d been told the girl wasn’t Andie, some small part of them had hoped it would still be their daughter. Mr. Bell couldn’t have faked that reaction. The truth was in his face.
The truth was in the face….
Pip picked up a photo of the Bell family, and she stared into those eyes.
It didn’t come all at once but in little blips, lighting up across her memory.
Then the pieces dropped, falling into place.
She grabbed all the relevant pages from the murder board. Log entry 3: the interview with Stanley Forbes. Entry 10: the first interview with Emma Hutton. Entry 20: the interview with Jess Walker about the Bells; 21 about Max buying drugs from Andie; 23 about Howie and what he supplied her with. Entry 28 and 29 about drink-spiking at calamities. The paper on which Ravi had written: WHO COULD HAVE TAKEN THE BURNER PHONE??? in large capital letters. And the time Mr. Ward said Andie left his house.
She looked them over and she knew who it was.
The killer had a face and a name.
The last person to see Andie alive.
But there was just one last thing to confirm. Pip pulled out her phone, scrolled down her contacts, and dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Max?” she said. “I’m going to ask you a question.”
“I’m not interested. See, you were wrong about me. I’ve heard what happened, that it was Mr. Ward.”
“Good,” Pip said, “then you know that right now I have a lot of credibility with the police. I told Mr. Ward to cover up the hit-and-run, but if you don’t answer my question, I’ll call the police and tell them everything.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would. Naomi’s life is already destroyed; don’t think that will stop me anymore,” she bluffed.
“What do you want?” he spat.
Pip paused. She put the phone on speaker and opened her recording app. She pressed record and sniffed loudly to hide the beep.
“Max, at a calamity party in March 2014,” she said, “did you drug and rape Becca Bell?”
“What? No, I fucking didn’t.”
“MAX!” Pip roared down the phone. “Do not lie to me or I swear to god I will ruin you! Did you put Rohypnol in Becca’s drink and have sex with her?”
He coughed. “Yes, but, like…it wasn’t rape. She didn’t say no.”
“Because you drugged her, you vile rapist gargoyle!” Pip shouted. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
She hung up, stopped the recording, and pressed the lock button. Her sharp eyes stared back at her from the darkened screen.
The last person to see Andie alive? It had been Becca. It had always been Becca.
Pip’s reflection blinked back at her, and the decision was made.