‘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 bending 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 9:43 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 was 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 there 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 9:44 p.m. 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, unravelling. 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 re-zipped her bag and threw it over her shoulders.
‘We’re going to McDonalds,’ she said.
They didn’t talk much on 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 rear-view 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’d driven the A-roads, trying to hit as many traffic cameras as possible. This time she wanted them to see her; that was the whole point. Air-tight, iron-clad. 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.