Holly Jackson - Good Girl, Bad Blood – The Sunday Times bestseller and sequel to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

First published in Great Britain in 2020

by Egmont UK Limited

2 Minster Court, 10th floor, London EC3R 7BB

Text copyright © 2020 Holly Jackson

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

Illustration here © Priscilla Coleman

ISBN 978 1 4052 9777 6

www.egmontbooks.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

For Ben,

and for every

version of you these

last ten years.

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Egmont UK Limited 2 Minster Court, 10th floor, London EC3R 7BB Text copyright © 2020 Holly Jackson The moral rights of the author have been asserted Illustration here © Priscilla Coleman ISBN 978 1 4052 9777 6 www.egmontbooks.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

Dedication For Ben, and for every version of you these last ten years.

Map

After and Before

One Month Later

THURSDAY: One

Two

FRIDAY: Three

SATURDAY: Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

MONDAY 3 DAYS MISSING: Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

TUESDAY 4 DAYS MISSING: Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

THURSDAY: 6 DAYS MISSING: Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

FRIDAY 7 DAYS MISSING: Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

SUNDAY 16 DAYS LATER: Forty-Two

SATURDAY 6 DAYS LATER: Forty-Three

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Back series promotional page

About the Author

After and Before

You think you’d know what a killer sounds like.

That their lies would have a different texture; some barely perceptible shift. A voice that thickens, grows sharp and uneven as the truth slips beneath the jagged edges. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Everyone thinks they’d know, if it came down to it. But Pip hadn’t.

‘ It’s such a tragedy what happened in the end .’

Sitting across from him, looking into his kind, crinkled eyes, her phone between them recording every sound and sniff and throat-clearing huff. She’d believed it all, every word.

Pip traced her fingers across the mousepad, skipping the audio file back again.

‘ It’s such a tragedy what happened in the end .’

Elliot Ward’s voice rang out from the speakers once more, filling her darkened bedroom. Filling her head.

Stop. Click. Repeat.

‘ It’s such a tragedy what happened in the end .’

She’d listened to it maybe a hundred times. Maybe even a thousand. And there was nothing, no giveaway, no change as he slipped between lies and half-truths. The man she’d once looked to as an almost-father. But then, Pip had lied too, hadn’t she? And she could tell herself she’d done it to protect the people she loved, but wasn’t that the exact same reason Elliot gave? Pip ignored that voice in her head; the truth was out, most of it, and that’s the thing she clung to.

She kept going, on to the other part that made her hairs stand on end.

‘ And do you think Sal killed Andie ?’ asked Pip’s voice from the past.

‘. . . he was such a lovely kid. But, considering the evidence, I don’t see how he couldn’t have done it. So, as wrong as it feels, I guess I think he must have. There’s no other explanation –’

Pip’s door pushed inward with a slap.

‘What are you doing?’ interrupted a voice from right now, one that lifted with a smirk because he knew damn well what she was doing.

‘You scared me, Ravi,’ she said, annoyed, darting forward to pause the audio. Ravi didn’t need to hear Elliot Ward’s voice, not ever again.

‘You’re sitting here in the dark listening to that, but I’m the scary one?’ Ravi said, flicking on the light switch, the yellow glow reflecting off the dark hair swept across his forehead. He pulled that face, the one that always got her, and Pip smiled because it was impossible not to.

She wheeled back from her desk. ‘How did you get in anyway?’

‘Your parents and Josh were on their way out, with a very impressive looking lemon tart.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘They’re on neighbourly welcome duties. A young couple have just moved into the Chens’ house down the street. Mum did the deal. The Greens . . . or maybe the Browns, can’t remember.’

It was strange, thinking of another family living in that house, new lives reshaping to fill its old spaces. Pip’s friend Zach Chen had always lived there, four doors down, ever since Pip had moved here aged five. It wasn’t a real goodbye; she still saw Zach at school every day, but his parents had decided they could no longer live in this town, not after all that trouble . Pip was certain they considered her a large part of all that trouble .

‘Dinner’s seven thirty by the way,’ Ravi said, his voice suddenly skipping clumsily over the words. Pip looked at him; he was wearing his nicest shirt tucked in at the front, and . . . were those new shoes? She could smell aftershave too, as he stepped towards her, but he stopped short, didn’t kiss her on the forehead nor run a hand through her hair. Instead he went to sit on her bed, fiddling with his hands.