51 pages • 1 hour read
Holly JacksonAs Good As Dead
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
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Important Quotes
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 22-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapters 22-25 Summary
That evening, Pip shows Andie’s correspondence to Ravi. Since his brother was killed because of his involvement with Andie, the message hits him hard. Pip says of Andie, “Andie didn’t survive. It wasn’t DT who killed her, but it was everything she tried to do to escape him that did. Howie Bowers. Max Hastings. Elliot Ward. Becca. This is why it all happened. Everything. Full circle” (182). The DT Killer is at the center of the crimes that Pip has been investigating for two years.
Pip next interviews Detective Nolan, a retired officer who took Billy’s confession. He is still convinced that the young man is the DT Killer and that Billy only pretended to find the victim’s body to insert himself into the investigation. Nolan casually mentions that he briefly suspected a young officer from Fairview who also became unusually curious about the case— Daniel Da Silva.
Exhausted, Pip falls asleep at her desk that night and is awakened by the sound of her printer. It spews out a message from her stalker: “Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? P.s. I learned this trick from you, season 1 episode 5. Ready for my next trick?” (194). Shortly afterward, Pip’s Bluetooth speakers start blasting rock music, awakening the entire family. Pip realizes that the stalker must be right outside if he could link into her Wi-Fi: “DT had been here. Right here. Now he was gone in the dark. And she, she was his number six” (198).
By Saturday, Pip’s nerves are raw, and her Xanax dealer still hasn’t responded to her texts. At three o’clock, she decides to confront Nat about Daniel’s possible involvement in the DT murders. When she pauses outside Nat’s house, her cell phone rings. It’s another call from her stalker. She sends the anonymous number to CallTracker but doesn’t recognize the number the app finds. When the stalker calls again, Pip picks up and says:
‘You want to know who would look for me if I disappeared. But I have a question for you instead.’ She paused. Another breath down the line. He was waiting. ‘Who will visit you when you’re in a cage?’ she asked. ‘Because that’s where you’re going’ (204).
The caller hangs up. Pip continues to walk down the street, oblivious to everything now that she’s gone on the offensive. She pauses to dial the stalker’s number, but she hears a phone ringing behind her. Before she can react, the stalker gets her in a chokehold and knocks her out.
Part 1, Chapters 26-27 Summary
When Pip awakens, she finds herself in the trunk of the stalker’s car. Her hands and feet are bound with duct tape, as is her mouth. She knows the stalker must be taking her to the secondary location where he will kill her. Pip’s first thought is to leave as much DNA evidence in the trunk as possible, so she begins rubbing her face and hair against the carpet. Her skin is almost bleeding by the time she finishes. Next, Pip thinks of a way to break through the cargo area and hurl herself at the driver, forcing him to lose control of the vehicle. Before she can execute this plan, the car stops. Pip knows they have reached the secondary location. When the trunk opens, she sees the face of the DT Killer. It’s Jason Bell, Andie’s father.
When Jason drags Pip out of the trunk, she realizes he is leading her into the Green Scene warehouse: “The complex off a tiny country road in the middle of nowhere in Weston. Jason was right; no one would hear her scream” (218). Jason props Pip against the front pole of standing shelves and secures her hands and feet to the metal pole that supports the shelving unit. Jason admonishes Pip not to scream or call for help: “Too loud, all of you. Speaking out of turn. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to listen to me. That’s all. Listen and do what you’re told. How is that so hard?” (224). Then, he wraps more duct tape around her entire head, leaving only her nostrils free to allow her to breathe. As he works, he explains all the ways that her two previous podcast cases dovetailed with his own activities.
Part 1, Chapters 28-29 Summary
Now unable to see anything, Pip fights a rising sense of panic. She hears Jason leave and lock the door behind him. From reading the forensic reports of his previous victims, Pip knows that the DT Killer usually leaves his victims for a short time before he kills them. This gives her a chance to escape. Imagining Ravi with her to offer comfort and guidance, Pip begins to formulate a plan. She feels behind her for the screw that connects each shelf, hoping that she can use it to cut through the duct tape. Though the process is painfully slow, she loosens the fastener. Just as she is about to use it to cut the tape, she drops the screw.
Pip is initially overwhelmed with despair until she feels the shelf behind her collapsing and separating from its support. This allows her to slip her wrists off the pole. Then, she realizes that if she topples the entire shelving unit, she can slip her feet out from the bottom of the pole. Again, the effort is laborious, but she succeeds. Finally, she slips her hands forward, unties herself, and unwinds the duct tape from her face. It is nearly dark outside, and Jason is likely to return soon. All the doors are locked, but Pip spies a narrow overhead window. Using a hammer, she shatters the glass and slips through. As she makes a break for freedom, the thought occurs to her that nobody will believe her story:
They always got away with it. Him. Max Hastings. Above the law because the law was wrong. A legion of dead girls and dead-eyed girls left behind them. ‘They won’t believe me,’ Pip told herself, in her own voice now. ‘They never believe us’ (245).
Making a fateful decision, Pip decides to go back and break the circle once and for all. She hears Jason’s car returning. She watches as he unlocks the warehouse door and steps inside the threshold. Too shocked by her escape to notice, Jason doesn’t hear Pip sneaking up behind him: “Her arm knew what to do. Pip pulled it back and swung the hammer. It found the base of his skull. A sickening crunch of metal on bone” (246). Pip keeps on swinging the hammer until Jason Bell is dead.
Chapters 22-29 Analysis
Pip continues her investigation of the DT Killer, now convinced that Billy Karras is innocent. At the same time, the stalker escalates his intimidation and threats to make Pip disappear. As the battle between Pip and the DT Killer reaches its culmination, the novel focuses heavily on the theme of The Struggle to Be Heard. Initially, that struggle is between Billy and Detective Nolan, who Pip interviews about the confession he extracted from Billy. Once again, the police only hear what they want to hear. Nolan insists that Billy is guilty and dismisses all testimony to the contrary. Pip also briefly contemplates the suppression of Andie Bell’s voice when she might have told the world about the serial killer’s identity.
The rest of the segment consists of a battle to be heard between Pip and her stalker. His move to blast rock music through Pip’s Bluetooth speakers is an obvious attempt to make her listen to him and acknowledge his control of the situation. Pip then turns the tables by picking up on one of his calls and threatening him with jail.
The upper hand changes yet again after the stalker captures Pip and reveals his identity. While Jason is wrapping Pip’s mouth in duct tape to keep her from contradicting him, he gets the opportunity to vent about how Pip deprived him of the last word:
Meddling in everyone’s business. In mine. I lost my second wife, the only woman who listened, because she listened to you instead. You were a test, just for me, and I knew I couldn’t fail it. My last one. Far too loud to let it be (224).
Pip briefly succumbs to panic at the suppression of her voice:
Pip tried to scream again, pushing the word ‘help’ against the duct tape, but it pushed it right back. A hopeless cry in the dark. But there was still a spark of herself inside of all that terror, and she was the only one here who could help (210).
Even after Pip escapes, she is still haunted by the knowledge that nobody will listen if she tells the truth about what happened. This is the real reason why she goes back to kill Jason: “Break the circle. It was hers to break, here and now. And there was only one way to do that. Pip turned, grass bunching, clinging to the white soles of her shoes. And she walked back” (245). Pip’s decision here also marks her desire to prevent Justice Denied. She has seen how the system works—or doesn’t—so she knows that the police and investigators will doubt his guilt. Knowing she will not be heard, she takes matters into her own hands to achieve justice.
This section also reveals the depth of Pure Evil found in Jason Bell. He engages in psychological torment by leaving hints in the form of dead pigeons and chalk figures. He escalates the abuse through email and phone messages and hijacking her speakers. His physical restraining of Pip is about power over his victims. Initially, he duct tapes Pip’s hands, feet, and mouth for the car ride to the warehouse, but later he duct tapes her entire head except for the nostrils. This over-the-top silencing reflects his desire to suppress her ability to do anything except listen. Finally, he leaves Pip in fear, panic, and darkness in the warehouse before he returns to kill her. In Jason’s sadism, Pip has found the pure evil she wished to cover on her podcast.
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