by Sara Shepard
“An Eating Club would be stupid not to invite me,” she said, pushing a lock of long blond hair over her shoulder.
“Absolutely.” Mrs. Hastings patted Spencer’s arm. Mr. Pennythistle gave an “Mm-hmm” of support.
When Spencer sat back again, a high-pitched, keening giggle echoed off the walls. She tensed and looked around, the hair on her arms standing on end. “Did you guys hear that?”
Wilden paused from his coffee and peered about the room. Mr. Pennythistle’s brow furrowed, then he tutted. “Bad windows. It’s just a draft.”
Then everyone went back to eating like nothing was amiss. But Spencer knew that noise wasn’t from a draft. It was the same laugh she’d been hearing for months. It was A.
3
THE BOY WHO GOT AWAY
Hanna Marin and her stepsister, Kate Randall, sat at a long table in the central corridor of the King James Mall. They tossed huge, irresistible, we’re-cute-and-we-know-it smiles at all the passersby.
“Are you registered to vote?” Hanna asked a middle-aged woman toting a bag from the artisanal cheese shop Quel Fromage!
“Want to come to Tom Marin’s town hall meeting Tuesday night?” Kate handed a flyer to a guy wearing a Banana Republic name tag.
“Vote for Tom Marin in the next election!” Hanna bellowed at a bunch of fashionable grandmothers checking out the Tiffany window display.
There was a lull in the crowd, and Kate turned to Hanna. “You should have been a cheerleader.”
“Nah, cheerleading isn’t my style,” Hanna said breezily.
It was seven o’clock on Saturday night, and they were trying to drum up interest for Mr. Marin’s senate run. He was gaining in the polls, and the hope was that the town hall meeting and fund-raiser he was holding the next week would give him an advantage over his competitor, Tucker Wilkinson. Hanna and Kate were the youth voices in the campaign, launching Twitter feeds and organizing flash mobs.
Kate fiddled with the large VOTE FOR TOM MARIN button she wore on the lapel of her fitted jacket. “By the way, I saw another picture of Liam in the paper this morning with some skank on South Street,” she whispered. “It looks like he gained weight.”
Ordinarily, Hanna would have thought that her stepsister’s mention of Liam, a boy Hanna had gotten burned by a week before, was just to make her squirm—especially since Liam was Tucker Wilkinson’s son. But amazingly, Kate had been really cool. She laid off the snarky, I’m-better-than-you comments at the dinner table. She let Hanna have the bathroom first three mornings in a row. And the night before, she dropped off the new LMFAO album, saying she thought Hanna would like it. Hanna had to admit the New Kate was kind of awesome, though she’d never actually tell Kate that.
“Maybe he’s stress-eating because I’m not picking up his calls,” Hanna said, snickering. “He’s left me a bunch of voicemails.”
Kate inched closer. “What do you think Tom’s going to do about what you told him?”
Hanna stared absently at a bunch of seventh-grade girls clumped in front of Sweet Life, a gourmet candy shop. After she found out Liam was a big fat cheater, she’d told her father a juicy, damaging bit of gossip about Liam’s dad.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m not sure dirty politics is really his style.”
“Too bad.” Kate pressed her lips together and folded her hands over the stack of flyers in front of her. “That jerk deserves to go down.”
“So where are Naomi and Riley tonight?” Hanna stretched out her long, thin legs under the table, eager to change the subject. “I thought you always spent Saturdays with them.” Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe were Kate’s BFFs. They had been Hanna’s biggest enemies when she was best friends with Mona Vanderwaal, the girl who had turned out to be the first A.
Kate shrugged. “Actually, I’m taking some time off from Naomi and Riley.”
“Really?” Hanna sat up with interest. “Why?”
Kate passed a flyer to a college-age girl in a leather jacket. “We had a fight.”
“About what?”
Kate coughed awkwardly. “Um, about the upcoming Eco Cruise. And about you, actually.”
Hanna wrinkled her nose. “What about me?”
“Forget it.” Kate looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Hanna was about to press Kate for more details when her father appeared from the food court with a cardboard container of Starbucks lattes and a bag of assorted muffins. “You girls are doing an amazing job,” he said, clapping a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “I’ve seen tons of people with flyers. I bet we’ll get a great turnout at the town hall meeting on Tuesday. And Hanna, I’m still getting a lot of positive feedback on the commercial. I may ask you to film another one.” He winked.
“Of course!” Hanna said brightly. In the six years since her father had divorced her mom, moved out of the house, and forgotten Hanna existed, she’d yearned for his acceptance, trying so hard to get him to notice her. Ever since she’d tested well in the focus groups, she was a star in his eyes. Her dad asked her opinion about campaign strategy, and he actually wanted to be around her.
Then Mr. Marin turned and took the arm of a woman behind him. Hanna expected to see Isabel, her dad’s new wife and Kate’s mother, but instead it was a tall, stately woman in her early forties. She wore a gorgeous camel hair coat and high, pointed Jimmy Choo boots.
“Ladies, this is Ms. Riggs,” he said. “She just moved to Rosewood, and she’s promised a huge donation to the campaign.”
“You deserve it, Tom.” Ms. Riggs’s voice was very refined, like Katharine Hepburn’s. “We need more people like you in Washington.”
She turned to the girls, shaking Kate’s hand, then Hanna’s. “You look very familiar,” she said, looking Hanna up and down. “Where have I seen you?”
Hanna’s lips twitched. “People magazine, probably.”
Ms. Riggs smiled. “Goodness, why?”
Hanna’s eyebrows shot up. Did this woman seriously not know?
“People did a profile on Hanna,” Mr. Marin said. “Her best friend was Alison DiLaurentis. The girl murdered by her twin sister.”
Hanna squirmed in her seat, not wanting to correct her dad on the details. Technically, her best friend had been Courtney DiLaurentis, the girl who’d impersonated Alison while Alison had been forced to take Courtney’s place at the mental hospital. But it was way too complicated to get into.
“I did hear something about that.” Ms. Riggs gazed at Hanna sympathetically. “You poor thing. Are you all right?”
Hanna shrugged. She was sort of all right . . . and sort of not. Could you ever really get over something like that? And then there was a new A on the scene. A knew about Tabitha, about Hanna’s naughty pictures with Patrick, the photographer who’d promised he’d make her a model but just wanted to get in her pants, and about her tryst with Liam. Any of those things could ruin her life—and her dad’s campaign. Thank God A didn’t know about the accident she’d been in last summer.
Ms. Riggs checked her watch. “Tom, we’re late for the strategy talk.”
“You go on ahead. I’ll be there in a second,” Mr. Marin said. Ms. Riggs waved good-bye to the girls, and then headed in the direction of The Year of the Rabbit, an upscale Chinese restaurant. Mr. Marin lingered behind, eyeing Hanna and Kate when Ms. Riggs was a safe distance away. “Be nice to Ms. Riggs, okay?” he murmured.
Hanna made a face. “I was nice!”
“I’m always nice, Tom,” Kate added, looking offended.
“I know, I know, girls, just keep it up.” Mr. Marin’s eyes were wide. “She’s a huge philanthropist and very influential. We need her funds to air our commercials throughout the state. It could mean the difference between winning and losing.”
Her father scampered after Ms. Riggs, and Kate headed to the bathroom. Hanna gazed at the passersby again, annoyed that her father had lectured her like she was a naughty six-year-old. Since when did Hanna need a lesson on being nice to donors?
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A figure emerged from Armani Exchange, and Hanna perked up. Hanna took in the boy’s wavy hair, square jaw, and slim-cut, beat-up leather jacket. Something inside her stirred. It was her ex, Mike Montgomery. She’d avoided him ever since the Macbeth cast party a few weeks ago, where he’d asked for her to take him back and she’d rejected him. But he looked positively delicious tonight.
Hanna called his name, and Mike looked up and smiled. As he walked toward her, Hanna adjusted her polka-dotted silk blouse so that a teensy bit of her bra strap was showing and quickly checked her reflection in the back of her iPod. Her auburn hair was shiny and full, and her eyeliner was smudged to perfection.
“Hey.” Mike leaned his elbows on the table. “Campaigning, huh?”
“Yup.” Hanna crossed her legs coquettishly, a nervous buzz in her stomach. “And you’re . . . shopping?” She wanted to smack herself for sounding so lame.
Mike held up the A/X bag. “I got that black sweater you and I looked at a while back.”
“The slimming one?” Hanna wound a piece of hair around her finger. “That looked really good on you.”
Two dimples appeared on either side of Mike’s face when he smiled. “Thanks,” he said bashfully.
“Mike?”
Mike jumped, as if caught. A petite girl with long, brown hair, an oval face, and large, doll-like eyes stood behind him. “There you are!” she chirped.
“Oh, hey!” Mike’s voice rose in pitch. “Uh, Hanna, do you know Colleen? My . . . girlfriend?”
Hanna felt as though Mike had kicked her in the boobs. Of course she knew Colleen Bebris—they’d only been going to the same school for ages. But she was his . . . girlfriend? Colleen was one of those ass-kissy types who tried to be everyone’s best friend. Back in the day, Colleen had made it her personal goal to be BFFs with Hanna and Mona, even though she was two years younger and ridiculously dorky. They made Colleen take notes for them in Latin I while they skipped school to go shopping, schlep their clothes to the dry cleaner’s, and camp out in front of the Apple store all weekend so they wouldn’t have to wait in line for the latest iPod. Eventually, Colleen had gotten the hint and started hanging out with the Shakespeare Festival kids instead. But she always had a big smile for Hanna and Mona in the halls, saying “Kiss kiss!” whenever she passed. Mona used to nudge Hanna and mutter, “No no!”
“Nice to see you,” Hanna said tightly. Suddenly feeling awkward, she shoved a flyer in Colleen’s face. “Vote for Tom Marin.”
“Oh, Hanna, I’m not old enough to vote.” Colleen sounded crushed, as if Hanna wasn’t just trying to make conversation. “But your dad’s awesome. That Wilkinson guy seems like a jerk, don’t you think? And his son is such a player.”
Hanna’s eyes widened. How did Colleen know Liam was a player?
Colleen touched Mike’s arm. “We should get going. Our dinner reservations are at seven-fifteen.” She beamed at Hanna. “We have Rive Gauche reservations tonight. It’s a Saturday tradition. I absolutely love the moules frites.”
“I read that moules frites are loaded with the worst kind of fat. But you don’t really look like you care about that kind of thing,” Hanna said sweetly to Colleen. Then she glared pointedly at Mike. He’d always wanted to go to Rive Gauche when they were dating, but Hanna had refused because Lucas Beattie, her ex, worked there. Rive Gauche was the Rosewood Day hangout, though, and Hanna hated the idea of the school’s elite seeing Mike Montgomery and Colleen together. Dating Mike would automatically make Colleen in, and she so didn’t deserve it.
“See ya later, then,” Mike said, not catching Hanna’s snarkiness—or her frustration. As he walked away, his hand entwined in Colleen’s, Hanna felt a strange sense of loss and longing. She hadn’t realized how cute Mike’s butt was. Or how attentive he was to his girlfriends. All of a sudden, she missed everything about him. She missed the shopping trips where he had patiently sat outside the dressing room and critiqued Hanna’s outfits, the lustful comments he made about the Kardashian girls when they watched their shows on E!, and how he let Hanna put makeup on him once—he’d looked surprisingly good in eyeliner. Hanna even missed the stupid Hooters keychain that hung from his backpack zipper. Her time with Liam might have been electric and intoxicating, but with Mike, she’d been silly and immature and utterly herself.
All of a sudden, it hit her like a shocking note from A: She wanted Mike back. She could even imagine the type of note A might write for the occasion:
The grass is always greener, isn’t it, Hannakins? Looks like you’re as out as last season’s wide-leg jeans!
4
A DRIVE DOWN MEMORY LANE
The following evening, Emily Fields’s mother gripped the steering wheel of the family Volvo and turned out of Lyndhurst College, where Emily had just competed in her final long-course swim meet of the year. The windows in the car were steamed up, and the mingling aromas of chlorine, UltraSwim shampoo, and Mrs. Fields’s vanilla latte wafted through the air.
“Your butterfly is looking so good,” Mrs. Fields gushed, patting Emily’s hand. “The UNC team is going to be thrilled to have you.”
“Mm-hmm.” Emily ran her fingers over the furry insides of her swimming jacket. She knew she should be excited about her swim scholarship to the University of North Carolina next year, but she was just relieved that this swim season was over. She was exhausted.
She pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen for the eleventh time that day. No new messages. She turned her phone off and then on again, but the inbox was still blank. She clicked over to her Daily Horoscopes app and read Taurus, her sign. You will shine at work today, it said. Prepare for surprises ahead.
Surprises . . . as in bad surprises or good surprises? A whole week had passed without a single note from New A. There had been no threats, no taunts about what Emily and the others had done in Jamaica, no “tsk tsk” for believing that Kelsey Pierce, a girl Emily had fallen for, was the person after them. But A’s absence was even spookier than a barrage of texts about her darkest secrets. Emily couldn’t help but picture A lying in wait and plotting a new assault, something dangerous and devastating. She dreaded what it might be.
Emily’s mother paused at a stop sign in a small housing development. Modest homes were framed by old oaks, and there was a basketball hoop at the end of a cul-de-sac. “This isn’t the usual route we use to go home,” she murmured. She checked the GPS. “I wonder why this thing is sending me on these back roads.” She shrugged and kept driving. “Anyway, have you been in touch with any of the girls on the UNC team? It might be nice to start getting to know them.”
Emily ran her hands over her damp reddish-blondish hair. “Uh, yeah. I should do that.”
“A few of them live in ‘clean’ dorms—you know, the kind where smoking, alcohol use, and sexual activity are frowned upon? You should request one of those rooms. You wouldn’t want to lose your swim scholarship from too much partying.”
Emily stifled a groan. Of course her über-conservative mom would want her to live like a nun at college. Earlier in the week, when her mom had found out that Kelsey, the girl she’d been hanging around with, had a drug problem, she’d grilled Emily, figuring Emily was using drugs, too. Emily was surprised her mom hadn’t asked her to pee in a cup for an at-home drug test.
While Mrs. Fields blathered on about the clean dorms, Emily picked up her cell phone again and scrolled through the previous texts she’d received from A, ending with the last one:
Dig all you want, bitches. But you’ll NEVER find me.
She sucked in her stomach. In some ways, she almost wished A would just expose all of them and get it over with—the guilt and lying were too horrible to bear. She also wished that A would reveal herself as the person Emily knew she was—Real Ali. Her friends might not believe it, but Emily knew deep down in her bones that Ali had survived the fire at the Poconos house. After all, Emily had left a way for Ali to escape, opening the door for her before the house exploded.
The whole thing broke Emily’s heart. She knew, logically, that their tormenter wasn’t Her Ali, the girl she’d adored for years, spent lots of time with, and kissed in the DiLaurentis’s tree house at the end of seventh grade. But she couldn’t help but dwell on that moment last year when Real Ali had returned, impersonated Their Ali, and kissed Emily with such passion. She’d seemed so . . . genuine, not like a cold-hearted psycho.
“You know, you should probably sign up for a spot in the clean dorms now,” Mrs. Fields was saying as they drove up a hill past a large school playground. Several teenagers were sitting on the swings, smoking cigarettes. “I’d love to have this settled before your father and I go out of town on Wednesday.” Mr. and Mrs. Fields were taking a trip to Texas for Emily’s grandma and grandpa’s sixty-fifth wedding anniversary, leaving Emily alone in the house for the first time ever. “Want me to call the student living office tomorrow and ask?”
Emily groaned. “Mom, I don’t know if I want to—”
She trailed off, suddenly noticing where they were. SHIP LANE, said a green street sign. Up ahead was a very familiar little white ranch house with green shutters and a big front porch. It was on that very porch that she and her friends had left a certain baby carrier months earlier.
“Stop,” she blurted.
Mrs. Fields hit the brakes. “What’s wrong?”
Emily’s heart was pounding so fast she was sure her mother could hear each valve flapping open and closed. This house had appeared in Emily’s dreams almost every night, but she’d vowed never to drive by it again. It seemed extra-creepy that the GPS had guided them here, almost like the computer knew this house held painful memories. Or maybe, she thought with a shiver, it was someone else who knew, someone else who’d somehow programmed the GPS.
