A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #1) - Holly Jackson Page 0,102

and stopped. She stared down at them, her head whirring as the thought overturned and became conscious.

‘Wait,’ she said aloud, thumbing back on to her recent calls list.

She gazed at the entry right at the top, from when Naomi called her yesterday. On her temporary number. Pip’s eyes traced the digits, a feeling both dreadful and strange curdling in her chest.

She jumped out of her chair so fast that it whirled and crashed into the desk. With her phone in hand she dropped to her knees and pulled the murder board out from its hiding place under her bed. Her eyes darted straight to the Andie section, and to the trajectory of printed pages around her smiling face.

She found it. The page from Andie’s school planner. The scribbled-out phone number and her log entry beside it. She held out her phone, looking from Naomi’s temporary number to the scribble.

07700900476

It wasn’t one of the twelve combinations she had written out. But it very nearly was. She’d thought that the third last digit had to be a 7 or a 9. But what if that was just a loopy scribble? What if it was really a 4?

She slumped back on the floor. There was no way to be absolutely certain, no way to unscribble the number and see it for what it was. But it would be one unbelievable pigs-flying hell-freezing-over coincidence if Naomi’s old SIM just happened to have a number that similar to the one Andie wrote in her planner. It had to be the same number, just had to.

And what did this mean, if anything? Wasn’t this now an irrelevant lead, just Andie copying down the phone number of her boyfriend’s best friend? The number was unrelated and could be discarded as a clue.

Then why did she have that sinking feeling in her gut?

Because if Max was a strong contender, then Naomi was even more so. Naomi knew about the hit-and-run. Naomi had access to the phone numbers of Max, Millie and Jake. Naomi had Pip’s number. Naomi could have left Max’s house while Millie slept and intercepted Andie before 12:45. Naomi had been the closest to Sal. Naomi knew where Pip and Cara were camping in the woods. Naomi knew which woods Pip walked Barney in, the same ones Sal died in.

Naomi already had a lot to lose because of the truths Pip had uncovered. But what if there was even more to it than that? What if she was involved in Andie and Sal’s deaths?

Pip was getting ahead of herself, her tired brain running off and tripping her up. It was just a phone number Andie wrote down; it didn’t tie Naomi to anything else. But there was something that could she realized when she caught up with her brain.

Since taking Naomi off the Persons of Interest list, she’d received another printed note from the killer: the one in her locker. At the start of term, Pip had set up Cara’s laptop to record everything that came through the Wards’ printer.

If Naomi was involved in this, Pip now had a sure way to find out.

Thirty-Nine

Naomi had a knife and Pip stepped back.

‘Be careful,’ she said.

‘Oh no!’ Naomi shook her head. ‘The eyes are uneven.’

She spun the pumpkin round so Pip and Cara could see its face.

‘Looks a bit like Trump,’ Cara cackled.

‘It’s supposed to be an evil cat.’ Naomi placed her knife down next to the bowl of pumpkin innards.

‘Don’t give up the day job,’ Cara said, wiping pumpkin goo from her hands and sauntering over to the cupboard.

‘I don’t have a day job.’

‘Oh, for god’s sake,’ Cara grumbled, on tiptoes looking through the cupboard. ‘Where have those two packets of biscuits gone? I was literally with Dad two days ago when we bought them.’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t eaten them.’ Naomi came over to admire Pip’s pumpkin. ‘What on earth is yours, Pip?’

‘Sauron’s eye,’ she said quietly.

‘Or a vagina on fire,’ Cara said, grabbing a banana instead.

‘Now that is scary,’ Naomi laughed.

No, this was.

Naomi had had the pumpkins and knives laid out and ready for when Cara and Pip got in from school. Pip hadn’t had a chance to sneak off yet.

‘Naomi,’ she said, ‘thanks for ringing me the other day. I got that email from your friend’s cousin about the Cambridge exam. It was very helpful.’

‘Oh good,’ she smiled. ‘No worries.’

‘So when will your phone be fixed?’

‘Tomorrow actually, the shop says. It’s taken bloody long enough.’

Pip nodded, tensing her chin in what she hoped was