Good Girl, Bad Blood

This summary section includes “Wednesday 5 Days Missing,” “Thursday 6 Days Missing” (Chapters 27-30).

Pip sends out word asking for volunteers to comb Jamie’s possible last known locations. Eighty-eight students turn out to help. On the abandoned farm property where Andie Bell’s body was hidden for so many years, the search party finds the yellow-handled knife missing from the Reynoldses’ kitchen. This proves that Jamie was here. Pip immediately calls the police. While waiting for their arrival, she and her friends investigate the farmhouse. Apparently, it’s being used by teens who go there regularly to smoke marijuana. Pip speculates that they might have seen something on the night that Jamie disappeared, so she proposes staking out the spot at midnight to see who turns up.

By this time, two police officers arrive. One is Nat’s brother, Daniel da Silva, who dislikes Pip as much as his sister does. The other officer is the somewhat more sympathetic Soraya Bouzidi. She promises to bag the knife for evidence, even though Daniel accuses Pip of planting it herself. When Pip mentions Jamie’s involvement with a catfish named Layla Mead, Daniel registers shock, suggesting that he has also been in communication with her, even though he denies it. Later, Pip speculates that her history teacher, Jamie, and Daniel all fit a certain type that Layla must have been targeting. Because Jamie lied about his age, he initially fit the profile of white males with brown hair, aged 29-30.

Late that night, Pip, Ravi, Connor, and Cara go back to the old farmhouse and find a car already parked there. When they go inside to confront the squatters, the trespassers turn out to be three high school juniors smoking pot. One of them, named Robin, says that he’s a drug mule for a local dealer who is expected to arrive any minute to pick up his supply. Robin warns the investigators to leave: The dealer is already in a bad mood because someone who owed him $900 didn’t pay up. The squatters say they weren’t in the house the night Jamie disappeared.

A few minutes later, another car approaches. Pip goes out on the porch to see if she can spot the dealer, but he quickly drives away. Pip and her crew jump into their car to follow him, but the dealer gets away. Pip identifies his car as a white BMW that resembles the car that Nat’s boyfriend, Luke, drives. He’s very likely the dealer.

The following morning, as Pip is getting ready for school, a news broadcast announces that a body fitting Jamie’s description has been found near the interstate. Pip immediately goes to the Reynolds home. Arthur is on the phone with the police trying to find out if the body is his son’s. He breaks down in tears when he hears that it isn’t Jamie. At this point, Arthur agrees to be interviewed for Pip’s podcast. He says he remained uninvolved in the investigation because he thought that Jamie wasn’t in any danger. He’s since changed his mind. He also discloses that Jamie wanted to borrow $900 from him, but Arthur refused. Pip starts to draw a connection between Jamie’s need for that exact amount and drug dealer Luke’s loss that same week.

Before going to school, Pip stops by Nat’s house again to ask if she really saw Jamie after the memorial. She still hotly denies this. She also denies ever hearing Jamie talk about someone named Layla Mead. Pip hints that Luke and Jamie might have been involved in a loan shark arrangement and that Luke may know something about Jamie’s disappearance. Nat denies this and tells Pip to stop bothering them.

As Pip walks to school, she gets the feeling that someone is watching her. Ravi catches up to give her more bad news. The Max Hastings trial is over, and he’s been acquitted. Pip immediately returns to Nat’s house to tell her, because Nat was one of the women Max drugged and raped. She is just as upset about the verdict as Pip is.

Later, back at school, Pip begins to figure out who’s lying and who isn’t. In the cafeteria, she confronts Tom Nowak and accuses him of giving a false report of seeing Jamie entering Nat’s house the night he disappeared. She concludes that he wanted internet fame and warns him never to mess with her investigations again. That same afternoon, Cara shows Pip an online article speculating that the second season of Pip’s podcast is a complete fabrication. The writer believes that Pip is working in collusion with Connor and Jamie to stage a crime that never happened.

Once the story circulates about Pip’s hoax podcast, the other students start gossiping about her. Pip is already furious at being considered a liar because of the Max Hastings acquittal. When one of her schoolmates accuses her to her face, she threatens him physically and gets herself suspended from class for three days.