Kill Joy: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder Novella

Also by Holly Jackson

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Good Girl, Bad Blood

As Good as Dead

Kill Joy (a Good Girl’s Guide to Murder novella)

Five Survive

The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Not Quite Dead Yet

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2022 by Holly Jackson

Cover photograph copyright © 2023 by Vera Lair/Stocksy; blood image copyright © 2023 by LoveTheWind/Getty Images; other images used under license from Shutterstock.com

Interior art used by license from Shutterstock.com

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder excerpt text © 2019 by Holly Jackson. Cover art © 2020 by Christine Blackburne.

Five Survive excerpt text © 2022 by Holly Jackson. Cover art © 2022 by Christine Blackburne.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published by Farshore, London, England, in 2021.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

GetUnderlined.com

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Trade Paperback ISBN 9780593426210

Ebook ISBN 9780593426234

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Please note that no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

ep_prh_6.9a_153807293_c0_r2

Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

About the Author

Excerpt from A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Excerpt from Five Survive

_153807293_

Dedicated to Mary Celia Collis

1925–2020

Dear Celia Bourne, (AKA Pip Fitz-Amobi)

You are cordially invited to come dine with me to celebrate my 74th birthday. The whole family will be in attendance for the weekend, and I expect you to be here too. It will be a night to remember.

Where: At Remy Manor on Joy—my private island off the west coast of Scotland. Remember, the boat only leaves the mainland once a day at 12:00 p.m. sharp and the journey takes two hours. (But actually just at Connor’s house.)

When: This weekend (Next Saturday at 7:30 p.m.)

Yours sincerely,

Reginald Remy

(but actually it’s from me, Connor)

Please open this invitation for additional information.

YOUR CHARACTER

For this murder mystery game you will be playing the role of:

Celia Bourne

You are the twenty-nine-year-old niece of Reginald Remy, the patriarch of the Remy family and owner of the Remy Hotels and Casinos empire in London. You are an orphan; your parents died when you were young and you have never been truly welcomed into the Remy family, despite them being your only living relatives. You are bitter about this and the fact that the incredibly wealthy Reginald Remy has never offered to help you out financially. You currently work in London, as a governess to a well-off family.

Costume Suggestions

Get ready to go back in time, to 1924, and dive into the Roaring Twenties. A drop-waist evening dress should do the trick. Accessorize with a headband and a feather boa.

OTHER CHARACTERS

Robert Bobby Remy

the elder son of Reginald Remy—will be played by: Ant Lowe

Ralph Remy

the younger son of Reginald Remy—will be played by: Zach Chen

Lizzie Remy

the wife of Ralph Remy—will be played by: Lauren Gibson

Humphrey Todd

the butler at Remy Manor—will be played by: Connor Reynolds

Dora Key

the cook at Remy Manor—will be played by: Cara Ward

Prepare yourself for an unforgettable night of murder and mystery.

One

A smear of red across her thumb pressed into the hollows and spirals of her skin. Pip studied it like a maze. It could be blood, if she squinted. It wasn’t, but she could trick her eyes if she wanted to. It was Ruby Woo, the red lipstick her mom had insisted she wear to complete the 1920s look. Pip kept forgetting about it and accidentally touching her mouth: another smudge there on her little finger. Bloodstains everywhere, standing out against her pale skin.

They pulled up outside the Reynoldses’ house. Pip had always thought the house looked like a face, the windows staring down at her.

We’re here, pickle, her dad said needlessly from the front of the car. He turned to her, a wide smile on his face, creasing his black skin and the gray-flecked beard he was trying out for summer, much to her mom’s dismay. "Have fun. I’m sure it’ll be a night to die for."

Pip groaned. How long had he been planning to say that? Zach, beside her, gave a polite laugh. Zach was her neighbor; the Chens lived four doors down from the Amobis, so Pip and Zach were always in and out of each other’s cars, getting rides to and back together. Pip had her own car now, since she’d turned seventeen, but it was in the shop this weekend. Almost like her dad had planned it so they’d have to suffer through his terrible murder-based jokes.

Any more? Pip said, wrapping the black feather boa around her arms, making them look even whiter. She opened the door, pausing to roll her eyes at him.

"Oh, if looks could kill," her dad said with a little too much flair.

There was always one more. OK, goodbye, Dad, she said, stepping out, Zach mirroring her on the other side, thanking Mr. Amobi for the lift.

Have fun, Pip’s dad called. "You both look dressed to kill!"

And another. Annoyingly, Pip couldn’t help but laugh at that one.

Oh, and, Pip, her dad said, dropping the act, Cara’s dad is giving you a lift back. If you get home before Mom and I are back from the movie, will you let the dog out?

Yes, yes. She waved him off, walking up to the front door side by side with Zach. He looked slightly ridiculous, in a red blazer with navy stripes, crisp white pants, and a black bow tie, with a straw boater hat covering his straight dark hair. His little name badge read Ralph Remy.

Ready, Ralph? she asked, pressing the doorbell. And then again. She was impatient to get this over and done with. Sure, she hadn’t seen her friends all together in weeks, and maybe this would be fun. But she had work waiting for her at home, and fun, after all, was just a waste of time. Still, she could pretend well enough, and pretending wasn’t lying.

After you, Celia Bourne. Zach smiled, and she could tell he was excited. Maybe she’d have to pretend a little better, arranging a grin on her face too.

It was Connor who opened the door, except he didn’t exactly look like Connor Reynolds anymore. He’d put some kind of colored wax in his normally dark blond hair. It was now gray, and pasted neatly back from his face. There were brown wiggly face-paint lines around his eyes: a poor attempt at wrinkles. He was wearing a black tuxedo—it had to have been borrowed from his dad—and a matching white waistcoat and bow tie, with a napkin folded over one arm.

Good evening. Connor bowed low, some of his gray hair unsticking and flopping forward with him. Welcome back to Remy Manor. I’m the butler, Humphrey Todd, he said, emphasis on the hump.

There was a squeal as Lauren appeared in the hallway behind Connor. She was wearing a red flapper dress, the tassels on the hem skimming her knees. A bell-shaped hat hid most of her ginger hair, and there was a string of pearls wrapped around her neck, knocking against her Lizzie Remy badge. Is that my husband? she said excitedly, bounding forward and dragging poor Zach into the house after her.

I see everyone’s already far too excited, Pip said, following Connor down the hall.

Ah, well, it’s good you’ve arrived to bring us all back down, he teased her.

She widened her grin and pretended even harder.

Your parents home? she asked.

No, they’re away for the weekend. And Jamie’s out. House to ourselves.

Connor’s brother, Jamie, was six years older than them, but he’d been living at home ever since he dropped out of college. Pip remembered back when it happened, how thick the tension had been in the Reynoldses’ house, how they’d all learned to tiptoe around it. Now it was one of those not-talked-about topics.

They arrived in the kitchen, where Lauren had towed Zach and was now handing him a drink. Cara and Ant were there too, with matching glasses of red wine. An improvement on whatever concoctions they usually made from half-full bottles in unguarded drinks cabinets.

’Ello, Madam Pip, Cara—Pip’s best friend—said in a terrible cockney accent, sidling forward to fiddle with Pip’s feather boa before letting it flop back against her garish emerald-green dress. Pip missed her normal overalls. How fancy.

Thrift store, Pip replied, taking in Cara’s costume. She was wearing a frumpy black dress with a long white cook’s apron, her dark blond hair covered by a gray bandanna. She had also gone for the face-paint-wrinkle look, slightly more subtle and effective than Connor’s. How old is your character supposed to be? Pip asked.

Oh, ancient, Cara said. Fifty-six.

You look eighty-six.

Ant snorted, and Pip turned to him finally. He might have looked the most outlandish of them all, dressed in a pin-striped suit that was far too baggy on his small frame, a glossy white tie, a black bowler hat, and a giant fake mustache stuck to his upper lip.

To freedom and summer, Ant said, holding up his wine for a moment before he took a sip. The mustache dipped into the liquid, droplets clinging to it as he re-emerged from the glass.

The freedom Ant meant was that they had all now finished their SATs; it was the end of June and the first time they’d all hung out like this—all six of them—in a while, despite living in the same town and attending the same school.

Well, yes, said Pip, except it’s not really summer, because we still have a month left of school. Plus there’s college applications coming up, and we have to pick our topics for the senior capstone project soon." OK, maybe she needed a little more practice pretending. She couldn’t help it; there’d been a twang of guilt in her chest as she left the house, reminding her that she really should have started work on that project today, even though she’d had her last exam only yesterday. Work breaks didn’t sit well with Pip Fitz-Amobi, and freedom didn’t feel very freeing.

Oh my god, do you ever take a night off? Lauren said, her eyes and thumbs down on her phone.

Ant jumped in. We can give you some homework if that will make you feel better.

You’ve probably already picked your topic anyway, Cara said, forgetting her accent.

I haven’t, Pip said. And that was the problem.

Fuck, Ant said in