Kill Joy (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #0.5) — Chapter no 12

“So how was it?” Elliot Ward asked from the front of the car. Mr.

Ward filled several roles in Pip’s life: Cara’s dad and her history teacher. Her favorite teacher, really, but don’t tell him that. She was at the Wards’ house so often he had probably come to see her as a bonus daughter. She even had a Pip mug that lived over there.

“Yeah, really fun,” Cara replied from the front. “Pip’s in a semi- sulk because she guessed it wrong.”

“Ah, Pip,” Mr. Ward said. “Probably something wrong with the game, then, huh?” he teased, looking back quickly to smile at her and Zach sitting in the back.

“Oh my god, do not even get her started,” Cara said, licking her finger to start wiping away her wrinkles.

“I preferred your theory anyway,” Zach said to her across the dark backseat.

Pip gave him a closed-mouth smile. She supposed it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t the murderer and that the writers at Kill Joy Games were incompetent hacks. Bobby Remy as the killer? she sniffed. It was just way too easy. OK, maybe she wasn’t quite over it yet.

“So, exams all finished now,” Elliot said, turning onto the main road. “Excited for your freedom, guys?”

“Oh yes,” Zach said. “Got a pile of PlayStation games waiting for me.”

“No shit, Sherlock” was Cara’s contribution. “Though Pip isn’t.

Already talking about your senior capstone project, aren’t ya?”

“No rest for the wicked,” she quipped.

“Have you picked your topic, yet, Pip?” Elliot asked.

“Not yet,” she said to the back of his head. “But I will. Soon.”

They were approaching an intersection, the left turn signal blinking to go down Pip and Zach’s road.

The car jolted suddenly.

Pip and Zach jerked forward against their seat belts as the car stalled.

“Dad?” Cara said, her voice edged with concern, staring across at him. He was focused on a point above her, outside the window.

“Yes, yep.” He shook his head. “Sorry, kids, just thought I saw… someone. Got distracted. Very sorry.” He turned the key in the ignition, restarting the car. “Maybe I need to come along to some of your driving lessons, Cara,” he laughed as the car peeled away.

Pip turned to her window, straining to make out the dark street beyond. Mr. Ward had seen someone; somebody was walking past the car right now. Just another shadow until he passed under the orange glow of a streetlight.

And for a second Pip saw it too, what Mr. Ward must have seen.

His face. The face she knew from all the news coverage about the case, from her own fading memories. Sal Singh. Except it couldn’t be; he was dead. Five years dead.

It was his younger brother, Ravi Singh. They looked so much alike from just the right angle. Pip didn’t know Ravi, but like everyone else in Fairview, she knew of him.

It must have been so hard for him, living in this small town that was still so obsessed with its own small-town murder. They couldn’t

get away from it, no matter how many years passed; the town and those deaths came hand in hand, forever tied together. The Andie Bell case. Murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh. There’d never been a trial, but that was the story, what everyone believed. It was neat, done, put to bed. It’s the boyfriend, it’s always the boyfriend, people would say. So neat and so…so easy. Pip narrowed her eyes. Too easy, maybe.

She turned as far as her neck would allow, watching Ravi as he walked away. He quickened his pace and the car drove on, splitting

them apart.

Then he was gone, lost to the night.

But something else stayed behind.

“Actually,” Pip said, “I think I know what I’m going to do my project on.”