A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #3
As Good As Dead
by Holly Jackson
Contents
Twenty-Six
Overview
Pip regains consciousness bound in the trunk of her abductor’s car and methodically tries to increase her survival odds by leaving DNA and fingerprints. She plans to force a crash but is instead taken to a second location. There, the DT Killer is revealed to be Jason Bell, upending Pip’s assumptions and escalating the danger.
Summary
Pip awakens disoriented and bound with duct tape in the trunk of a car, realizing she has been abducted by the DT Killer. She fights rising panic by assessing facts and recalling a survival rule: avoid a second location. Accepting grim odds, she decides to act rather than succumb to fear.
Without her phone or bag, Pip resolves to help future investigators: she rubs her scalp and face against the trunk carpet to shed hair and blood, scrapes her knuckles, and presses her fingertips repeatedly onto the car’s plastic surfaces to leave identifiable prints.
Clinging to thoughts of Ravi and loved ones, Pip imagines Ravi urging her to fight. She formulates a plan to force a crash before reaching the destination by breaking into the passenger area and disrupting the driver, since surviving a crash seems likelier than surviving a second location.
The car briefly stops and moves again before finally halting on gravel; the handbrake clicks. Terrified, Pip curls up as the trunk opens. The cargo cover retracts, and the abductor’s face is revealed in daylight: it is Jason Bell, not the suspect she expected. The chapter ends with this revelation at the second location, heightening the threat.
Who Appears
- Pippa Fitz-Amobi (Pip)Protagonist; abducted, bound in a car trunk; leaves evidence, plans crash, confronts impending death.
- Jason BellRevealed as the DT Killer when he opens the trunk at the second location.
- Ravi SinghPip’s boyfriend; appears in Pip’s thoughts, motivating her to keep fighting.