by Sara Shepard
Mike winced. “You were in a car crash last summer and you didn’t tell me?”
Hanna shrugged. “I couldn’t risk telling anyone. I’m sorry.”
She kept going with the story. When she got to the part where they’d concluded that A was Ali, Mike looked confused. “Are you sure? I thought she didn’t survive that fire.”
“Emily left the door open for her. She got out.” Then she lowered her eyes and explained the Tabitha part of it, too—how they’d feared Ali had followed them to Jamaica and was going to hurt them. “Tabitha followed us to the roof of the resort,” she told Mike. “And then she went after Aria. After that, everything happened so fast—Aria shot forward, there was a scuffle, and suddenly Tabitha was tumbling over the railing. She was alive after the fall, though—we’re sure of it. But when we ran down there, she was gone. We didn’t kill her, but someone is making sure it looks like we did.”
“Jesus,” Mike whispered, his eyes wide. “I was on that trip with you. I saw that girl. How could you have kept this from me?”
“I’m sorry,” Hanna said quietly. “I was just so scared. I wanted to pretend it had never happened at all. But when we started getting new notes . . .” She trailed off and covered her face with her hands.
Mike sat on the stone wall that surrounded Hanna’s house and stared into the distance. After a while, he said, “Let me get this straight. It was Ali—or her helper—who murdered that Gayle woman, too?”
Hanna nodded, thinking of Gayle Riggs, the wealthy woman who had wanted Emily’s baby. A had killed her.
“And it was A who set off that bomb in the boiler room of the ship?” Mike’s voice squeaked. Hanna nodded again, and Mike made a gurgling sound at the back of his throat. “And it was A who really killed Tabitha?”
“We’re almost positive, yes.”
“So, basically, Ali has tried to kill you and my sister, like, six times by now, and she’s framing you for shit that she did. We need to find this bitch. Now.”
Hanna glanced worriedly around the yard. “Spencer and Emily seem to think it’s a bad idea. The last time we looked for Ali, Noel ended up in the hospital.”
Mike kicked at loose gravel in the flower bed. “So we’re just supposed to sit around?”
Hanna peeked through the trees, hating how secluded her mother’s property was. Anybody could spy on them at close range, and they’d never know. “I’m just afraid that if we get any closer to where they are or who her helper is, someone else is going to get hurt. Maybe you. Maybe me.”
Mike’s icy blue eyes narrowed. “I promise you, Hanna, that she will never, ever get you. She’ll have to get through me first. I’ll stand guard outside your bedroom if I have to. Stay by your side at every class. I’ll even come into your dressing room at Otter if you want.”
Hanna gave him a playful shove. “You’d love coming into my dressing room at Otter.”
“Of course I would.” Mike leaned in and gave Hanna a gentle kiss on the nose.
Hanna tilted her head up and kissed his lips. Something broke inside her. Salty tears flooded down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you figured it out,” she whispered in his ear.
“I’m glad, too,” Mike said.
They kissed again, long and deep. Mike moved his hands up and down her back. She took small steps toward the side door, and in seconds, they were inside and lying on her mom’s couch in the den, making out furiously. The only thing Hanna wanted to think about was the feel of Mike’s lips on hers, the warmth of his hands, the weight of his body. She clung to him like he was a life raft, then found herself pulling her shirt over her head.
Goose bumps rose in her skin. Mike pulled off his shirt, too, revealing his strong chest and toned-from-lacrosse abs. He hesitated above her. Hanna knew, suddenly, what was going to happen next. It was something they’d danced around, teased each other about, plotted for weeks . . . but something they hadn’t exactly gotten around to. They would be each other’s firsts, after all, and they both seemed to realize how special the moment needed to be. But maybe here, in this empty house, on this terrible day, was exactly the right time.
Hanna undid the button of her jeans. Mike’s eyes slid down to watch. “Is this okay?” he whispered, his voice stretched taut.
“Yes,” Hanna said, a wave crashing inside her. She grabbed Mike hard and pulled him closer than she ever had before.
4
A MISSING GIRL
The moment Emily Fields burst out of the exit of Rosewood Day from picking up her assignments later that day, the unwelcome jeers began.
“Miss Fields! It’s Alyssa Gaden from the Philadelphia Sentinel! Do you have a moment?”
“Emily! Over here!”
Flashbulbs popped. Reporters shoved microphones at her face. Emily tried to scurry past them, but they followed her.
“Is it true you were the ones who found Noel Kahn in the storage shed behind the school?” the Sentinel woman shouted.
“Can you tell us what led you there?” a man screamed.
“Do you girls have a suicide pact?” another voice bleated. “Is that why you went out on that lifeboat?”
Emily winced. After the cruise ship had been bombed, everyone had evacuated on lifeboats. Emily and her friends had taken their own boat and sailed away from shore to bury Tabitha’s old necklace—A had managed to get it in Aria’s hands, and the girls didn’t want to be connected to it. But the lifeboat punctured out at sea, trapping them. A crew from the boat had rescued them, and the rumors had begun that they’d sailed out alone to die.
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder, forming a barricade between Emily and the reporters. “No comment, no comment, no comment.”
It was Principal Appleton. He draped an arm around Emily and hustled her up the slope to the student parking lot. “I’m so sorry, dear,” he said gently.
“Thanks,” Emily said gratefully.
Appleton left Emily at her car with a nod and a few encouraging words to hang in there. Emily slumped into the driver’s seat of the family’s Volvo wagon. For the past few years, she and her friends had been the target of media scrutiny—they even had a movie made about them called Pretty Little Killer. She was so, so, so sick of it.
If those crows on the telephone pole lift off in the next ten seconds, everything will be fine, Emily thought, staring at the wires by the trees. The birds didn’t move. More crows joined them, hunched, black smears against the gray sky.
Sighing, she pulled out her phone and checked her e-mail. The only one was from Hanna: Will you guys go to Graham’s funeral with me tomorrow? I need moral support.
Aria had agreed. Emily wrote and said she would go, too. She exited out of her e-mail program, then looked longingly at the wallpaper on her home screen. It was a shot of her and her girlfriend, Jordan Richards, on the deck of the cruise ship as it pulled away from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
She shut her eyes, quietly reliving the moment. She and Jordan had connected so quickly and intensely. Emily longed to talk to Jordan now, but Jordan was on the run from the FBI. In fact, they’d made plans to run away together, but A had called the Feds on the Preppy Thief. Now Jordan was hiding out somewhere in the Caribbean to escape arrest. If only Emily could contact her and arrange to meet up with her. What did she have here, after all? It would be the perfect escape from A. But there was no way to get in touch with Jordan.
Or was there?
She tapped the Twitter app. Need to talk, she wrote in a direct message to Jordan’s secret Twitter alias. It’s important.
She sent off the message and waited, figuring Jordan probably wouldn’t respond—she’d gotten back to Emily a few times, but she’d said over and over that it was really dangerous. But to her surprise, there was a new private message in her inbox within a minute. Is everything okay? Jordan wrote. I just saw that stuff on the news about that boy from Rosewood. He was your friend’s boyfriend, right?
Emily swallowed hard. He was, she wrote. But I’m okay, and so are my friend
s.
Good, Jordan said. I’m glad.
I miss you, Emily typed fast. I’m desperate to leave. Things super scary. Where are u?
A new message popped up after a moment. I wish I could tell you, but you know I can’t right now. It’s too risky.
Emily shifted her weight in the seat, peering through the windshield at a few kids traipsing up the hill to their cars. It had been a long shot, but she’d hoped Jordan would say yes. I’ll wait for you, she promised.
Good. I’ll wait for you, too.
Jordan signed the message with an XO. Emily exited out of the Twitter program and tucked her phone back into her backpack. She felt like she did whenever she had a bite of her mom’s macaroni and cheese—she could never have just a little. If only she and Jordan could talk for hours instead of seconds. If only she knew where Jordan was.
Her phone beeped. It was a Google Alert e-mail for The Preserve at Addison-Stevens, Ali’s mental hospital—Emily had set up the alerts a while ago, just in case any pertinent news popped up about escaped patients who could potentially be Ali’s secret boyfriend. This e-mail was a press release about a new therapy pool that had been built on the grounds. A picture had been included. Emily stared hard at the patients in the pool, their faces blurred. None of them had white-blond hair like Iris Taylor, the girl she’d busted out of The Preserve last week, chauffeuring her around Rosewood and asking her about Ali, who’d been Iris’s old roommate. As far as Emily knew, Iris had returned to The Preserve after the prom. The Preserve didn’t allow e-mail, texts, or phone calls, though, so Emily didn’t know how she’d settled back in.
Emily paused. Hanna had known Iris during a short stint at The Preserve, and she’d seemed incredibly creepy—maybe even on Ali’s team. But Emily had seen a different side of her—she was just a sad, insecure girl who needed someone to pay attention to her. In a world where nearly everyone Emily knew ended up not being what they seemed, it was nice that Iris had turned out to be not so bad. Suddenly, Emily kind of missed her.
A thought took shape in her mind. Maybe we could go to The Preserve, Hanna had suggested at the hospital. Figure out if there was a guy patient whose name started with N. Maybe Iris knew who that was. Delving back into the investigation scared Emily to death, but what if there was a vital clue sitting right under her nose?
She pulled out of the parking lot, charged with purpose. Instead of turning right, toward her family’s development, she took a left that led her down a winding back road, past the farmhouses and the ice-cream stand, and up the long hill. Traffic was light, and she arrived at The Preserve at Addison-Stevens sooner than she’d estimated. As her car climbed the steep hill to the fortlike hospital, all stone and brick and pointy turrets, an ambulance passed, going the other direction. Emily shivered, wondering who was inside—and why.
She parked and strolled into the lobby, glancing at the familiar planters and fountains. A man standing at the front desk smiled at her. “Good afternoon.”
Emily nodded shakily. “I’m here to see Iris Taylor. I’m a friend. Emily Fields.”
The man glanced at something on his screen, then frowned. “Iris is no longer a patient here.”
Emily cocked her head. “What does that mean?” Had Iris’s cruel parents checked her out? Had she been transferred to another hospital?
The man looked back and forth, then leaned toward her. “Since you’re a friend, you should know. She’s been missing from her bed since yesterday morning.”
Emily blinked hard. Missing? Iris had been miserable here—maybe she’d escaped, just like she’d escaped with Emily last week. But something on the man’s face seemed tense, as if he’d left something out. “I-is she okay?”
Another nurse came through the door just then, and the man clammed up. “It’s a private matter,” he said, glancing shiftily at the second nurse. “I’m sorry.”
Emily hitched forward. “Can you tell me if there was a male patient in the teenage wing a few years ago whose name started with N? He was friends with, um, Courtney DiLaurentis.”
The man’s lips twitched. He glanced at Emily for a split second and then at the nurse who was standing close by. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You can’t just let me look at a patient list for a second?” Emily pleaded. “It’s important.”
The second nurse cleared her throat loudly. The man gave her a helpless shrug.
Emily turned away, her mind spinning. Iris had seemed so optimistic about returning to The Preserve to recover for good. Why would she have left so soon?
A horrible thought struck her. Iris had given Emily and the others vital information about Ali. Did Ali know?
The automatic doors swished open, and Emily walked into the brick courtyard that led to the parking lot, her head spinning. Just as she passed the bench that bore the IN MEMORY OF TABITHA CLARK plaque, her phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket, hoping that somehow it was Iris, letting her know she was okay. But the text was from a jumble of letters and numbers. Emily’s heart fell.
Are you done sniffing around, Scooby-Doo? Everyone you involve in this will get hurt. Including YOU. —A
5
A SECRET UNEARTHED
On Tuesday afternoon, Aria walked with her head down to journalism, her last class of the day. A gust of wind whipped bits of freshly mown grass, gum wrappers, and a girl’s hair band across the Commons. For a second, when Aria looked up, she swore she saw Noel’s loping figure crossing the green.
But of course it wasn’t. At lunch today, she’d overheard a few lacrosse players mention that Noel had been released from the hospital and was chilling at home. Was he lonely? What was he watching on TV? Not that Aria would admit it to her friends, but she’d checked his Twitter incessantly. He hadn’t posted since prom night.
An ache filled her. She missed Noel like crazy. And she hated herself for it.
She also hated the strange looks people had been giving her all day. Like the way Sean Ackard was staring at her right now: sort of half pity, half fear. After a pause, Sean rushed up to her. “Here, Aria,” he said, pressing something into her hands.
Aria stared down at it. Rosewood Episcopal Youth Group Counseling for Troubled Teens.
“I’ve heard . . . ,” Sean began worriedly. “I just thought it might help.” He started to say something else, then seemed to think better of it and turned to hurry away.
Aria shut her eyes. The suicide-pact rumors again. They’d circled the school shortly after the Eco Cruise—everyone thought the girls had a death wish for heading out on a lifeboat without a proper captain. And now, for some reason, the rumors had come back with a vengeance.
Aria crumpled the flyer into a ball and turned to the barn. Just as she touched the brass doorknob, someone yanked her from behind and pulled her around the corner. She yelped in protest, only to see that it was her brother.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Mike said gruffly.
Aria lowered her eyes. Last night, when she got home from Wordsmith’s Books, where she’d been staring at the same paragraph of The Breakup Bible all night, she’d found a note in Mike’s handwriting on her bed: Hanna told me everything. We need to talk.
She’d called Hanna, furious. How could she have compromised Mike’s safety, especially after they’d agreed to keep quiet? But Hanna hadn’t answered her phone. A few minutes later, Mike had knocked on Aria’s door, but she’d thrown the covers over her head and feigned snoring. This morning, she’d ducked out of the house for an early yoga class before Mike woke up. But not even om and downward dog had been able to calm her racing thoughts.
“I get why you didn’t tell me anything,” Mike said in a low voice. “But I can help. I mean, if Noel hung out with her as much as you guys say he did, maybe I picked up something I don’t even realize.” He made a face. “I can’t believe he did that to you. That guy’s dead to me.”
Aria flinched, suddenly feeling defensive. She was grateful for her brother’s loyalty, but she hadn�
�t thought about Noel’s actions impacting his other relationships, too. “Look, you need to stay out of it. If this is Ali, we don’t know what she’s capable of.”
Mike furrowed his brow. “I’m not afraid of Ali. Bring it on.”
If Aria were in a different mind-set, she might have snickered. Mike’s attitude reminded her of when they were little and belonged to the Hollis outdoor pool. Mike, age five, would stand at the edge of the high diving board with his hands on his hips, proclaiming to everyone that nothing scared him. He’d never actually jump off the board, though. He’d climb back down the ladder, claiming he didn’t want to get wet and ruin his swim trunks.
Aria stared at a far-off riding mower as it made a crisscross pattern on the soccer field. Usually the scent of freshly mowed grass cheered her up, but not today. “You know what I really want? To run away. To be completely anonymous.”
“Do you really think Ali would let you do that?”
“No. And besides, everyone in this stupid country knows who I am.” Aria glanced up just as, right on cue, the Channel 4 news van pulled into the student lot. There was probably a camera aimed at her that very second.
Mike pushed his hands into his pockets. “People in other countries probably don’t, though.”
“So?”
His blue eyes met hers. “Look, I’m not saying you should go. But when I was in your room last night, I saw the pamphlet on your desk. The one about Amsterdam.”
It took Aria a few seconds to recall what he was talking about. It seemed like eons ago when she’d received the letter saying she was a finalist for an artist apprenticeship in Amsterdam. She’d written it off at the time, not wanting to be so far away from Noel.
