The Reynoldses’ house on Cedar Way looked like a face. Pip had always thought so, ever since she was little. It still did now, as she walked up the path towards its toothy front door, windows staring down at her. The steadfast guardian of the family inside. The house shouldn’t let her in, it should turn her away. But the people inside wouldn’t, Pip knew it in her gut.
She knocked, hard, watching the outline of someone approach through the stained-glass of the door.
‘Hell—Oh, hi Pip,’ Jamie said, a wide smile stretching into his face as he pulled the door open. ‘Didn’t know you were coming round. The three of us were just going to order pizza, if you want to join?’
Pip’s voice stalled in her throat. She didn’t know how to begin, but she didn’t have to, because Nat appeared in the hallway behind Jamie, the ceiling lights gliding off her white-blonde hair, making it glow.
‘Pip,’ she said, walking over, slotting in beside Jamie. ‘Are you OK? Ravi called me a while ago and said he couldn’t get hold of you. He said you were coming round to my house to talk to me about something, but you never showed.’ Her eyes narrowed, flicking across Pip’s face. Nat might see behind the mask; she’d had to learn to wear one herself. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked again, confusion making way for concern.
‘Um…’ Pip said, her voice still gravelly and raw in her throat. ‘I –’
‘Oh, hey, Pip,’ said a new voice, one she knew well. Connor had emerged from the kitchen, eyes flicking from the gathering at the door and down to his phone. ‘We were just going to order pizza if –’
‘Connor, shush,’ Jamie cut him off, and Pip could see the same look in his eyes as Nat’s. They knew. They could tell. They could read it on her face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her. ‘Are you OK?’
Connor sidled in behind, staring at her too.
‘Um.’ Pip took a breath to steady herself. ‘No. No, I’m not OK.’ ‘What’s –’ Nat began.
‘Something’s happened. Something bad,’ Pip said, glancing down and noticing that her fingers were shaking. They were clean, but blood was leaking out the ends, and she didn’t know if it was Stanley’s or Jason Bell’s or her own. She hid them inside her pocket, alongside the bag of powder and one burner phone. ‘And… I need to ask you for help. All of you. And you can say no, you can say no to me and I promise I will understand.’
‘Yeah, anything,’ Connor said, his eyes picking up on her fear, darkening with it.
‘No, Connor, wait,’ Pip said, glancing between the three of them. Three of the people she’d thought would look for her if she disappeared. Three people she’d been with through the fire and back. And she realized, then, that those same people, the ones who would look for you when you disappeared, they were the same people you could turn to, if you needed to get away with murder. ‘You can’t say yes yet, because you don’t… you don’t…’ She paused. ‘I need to ask you for your help, but you can never ask me why, or what happened. And I can never tell you.’
They all stared at her.
‘Never,’ Pip reiterated. ‘You have to have plausible deniability. You can never know why. But, it’s… it’s something I think we all want. Make someone pay, get what they deserved all along. But you can never know, you can never…’
Nat stepped forward, over the threshold, and placed her hand on Pip’s shoulder. Her grip tight and warm and quieting.
‘Pip,’ she said gently, eyes hooking on. ‘Do you need us to call the police?’
‘No,’ Pip sniffed. ‘Not the police. Ever.’
‘What do you mean make someone pay?’ Connor asked. ‘Do you mean Max, Max Hastings?’
Nat stiffened, passing it down through the bone in Pip’s shoulder. Pip lifted her head and nodded, ever so slightly.
‘Put him away, forever,’ she whispered, pulling out one hand and resting it on top of Nat’s, stealing its warmth. ‘If it works. But you can never know,
I can’t tell you, and you can never tell anyone –’
‘I’ll do it,’ Jamie said, his face hardening, a determined set to his jaw. ‘I’ll do it, whatever it is. You saved me, Pip. You saved me, so I’ll save you. I don’t need to know why. Only that you need my help, and you have it. Anything to put him away.’ His gaze softened as his eyes moved from Pip to the back of Nat’s head.
‘Yes,’ Connor nodded, dark blonde hair falling into his freckled face. A face she’d watch grow up, shifting with the years, just as he had with her. ‘Me too. You were there when I needed you.’ He stretched out his angular arms in an awkward shrug. ‘Of course I’ll help.’
Pip felt her eyes filling up as she glanced between the Reynolds brothers. Two faces she’d known as far as memory would take her, two players in the history of who she was. Part of her wished they’d said no, for their own sake. But she’d make sure they were safe. The plan would work, and if it didn’t, she would be the only one to pay. Her silent promise to them all. This never happened; Pip never stood at their door and asked them for help. None of them were here right now.
Pip’s gaze trailed over to Nat, seeing her own face reflected in the brilliant blue orbs of Nat’s eyes. Nat was the one who truly mattered. They hadn’t believed her as many times as they hadn’t believed Pip; that unthinkable violence of not-believing. They shared that darkness, and Pip had taken on Nat’s scream that day, the day of the verdict, as though it were hers, binding them together. They looked at each other, past the masks.
‘Will this get you into trouble?’ Nat asked. ‘I’m already in trouble,’ Pip replied quietly.
Nat breathed in, slowly. She let go of Pip’s shoulder and took her hand instead, gripping hard, fingers interlocked in hers.
‘What do you need us to do?’ she said.
