‘Hey,’ she said breathlessly, skipping down the stairs. ‘Just had to shower because I’m heading out and went on a run earlier.’ The lie came out too fast, she needed to slow it down, remember to breathe.
Her mum turned her head against the backrest of the sofa, looking at her. ‘I thought you were going to Ravi’s for dinner and staying over.’
‘A sleepover,’ Joshua’s voice added, though Pip couldn’t see him beyond the couch.
‘Change of plans,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘Ravi had to go see his cousin, so I’m hanging out with Cara instead.’
‘No one asked me about any sleepover,’ added her dad.
Pip’s mum narrowed her eyes, studying her face. Could she see, could she tell what was hiding just beneath the make-up? Or was there something different in Pip’s eyes, that haunted faraway look? She’d left the house still her mum’s little girl, and she’d returned as someone who knew what it was to die violently, to cross over that line and somehow come back from it. And not only that; she was a killer now. Had that changed her, in her mother’s eyes? In her own? Reshaped her?
‘You haven’t had an argument, have you?’ she asked.
‘What?’ Pip said, confused. ‘Me and Ravi? No, we’re fine.’ She attempted a light-hearted sniff, dismissing the idea. How she wished for anything as normal, as quiet, as an argument with her boyfriend. ‘I’m just grabbing a snack from the kitchen then heading out.’
‘OK sweetie,’ her mum said, like she didn’t believe her. But that was fine; if her mum wanted to believe she and Ravi had had an argument, that was fine. Good, even. Far better than anything near the truth; that Pip had murdered a serial killer and was now, at this very moment, heading out to frame a rapist for the crime she’d committed.
In the kitchen, Pip opened the wide drawer at the top of the island, the drawer where her mum kept the foil and baking paper, and the plastic sandwich bags. Pip grabbed four of the resealable sandwich bags, and two of the larger plastic freezer bags, stuffing them on top of her rucksack. From the bits-and-bobs drawer on the other side of the kitchen, Pip retrieved the candle lighter and packed it in too.
And now for the last item on the list, which wasn’t really a specific item, more a problem to be dealt with. Pip thought inspiration would have struck her by now, but she was coming up empty. The Hastings family had fitted two security cameras either side of their front door, since Pip vandalized their house months ago, after the verdict. She needed something to deal with those cameras, but what?
Pip opened the door into the garage, the air cold in here, almost nice against her skin, still adrenaline-hot. She surveyed the room, her eyes flicking over her parents’ bikes, to her dad’s toolkit, to the mirrored dresser that her mum kept insisting they’d find room for. What could Pip use to disable those cameras? Her eyes lingered over her dad’s toolkit, pulling her over, across the room. She opened the lid and looked inside. There was a small hammer lying on top. She supposed she could sneak up and break the cameras, but that would make a sound, might alert Max inside. Or those wire-cutters, if the cameras had exposed wiring. But she’d been hoping for something less permanent, something that better fitted the narrative.
Her eyes caught on something else, head-height on the shelf above the toolbox, staring at her in that way inanimate objects sometimes did. Pip’s breath caught in her throat, and she sighed, because it was perfect.
A near-full roll of grey duct tape.
That was exactly what she needed.
‘Fucking duct tape,’ Pip muttered to herself, grabbing it and shoving it inside her bag.
She left the garage and froze in the doorway. Her dad was in the kitchen, half inside the fridge, picking at the leftovers and watching her.
‘What are you doing in there?’ he asked, lines criss-crossing his forehead.
‘Oh, um… looking for my blue Converse,’ Pip said, thinking on her feet. ‘What are you doing in there?’
‘They’re in the rack by the door,’ he said, indicating down the hall with his head. ‘I’m just getting your mother a glass of wine.’
‘Oh, and the wine’s kept under that plate of chicken?’ Pip said, walking past, shouldering her bag.
‘Yes. I’ll have to heroically eat my way to it,’ he replied. ‘What time will you be home?’
‘Half eleven-ish,’ Pip said, calling bye to her mum and Josh, her mum telling her not to stay out too late because they were heading to Legoland in the morning, and there was a small whoop of excitement from Josh. Pip said she wouldn’t, the normalness of the scene like a punch in her gut, doubling her over, making it hard to even look at her family. Would she ever belong in a scene like this again, after what she did? Normal was all she’d wanted, what all of this was for, but was it now out of reach forever? It definitely would be, if she went down for Jason’s murder.