Burned pll-12

by Sara Shepard

  Something flickered across Jeremy’s face for a split second, then submerged. “You need to pack up now, okay?”

  An alarm bell went off in her head. “Is Graham … okay?” she asked, her voice squeaking.

  Jeremy frowned and stepped toward her. “Seriously. If you don’t get everything out of your room in the next half hour, we’re not letting you back on for it.”

  The contours of his face had sharpened, making him look older and menacing. Aria turned and walked quickly back to the elevator, feeling that she’d just seen and heard something she shouldn’t. An uncomfortable feeling came over her, but before she could think too clearly about it, she sped up, wanting to be away from the room that had possibly been A’s once and for all.

  33

  EMILY GETS HER WISHES

  The next day, the shuttle van pulled into Emily’s driveway, and the kind driver, who’d talked Emily’s ear off the whole drive about his sixteen-year-old son who would be just perfect for her, trotted to the back and grabbed Emily’s bags.

  “Looks like no one’s home.” He squinted at the Fieldses’ blue colonial. The windows were dark, the shutters were drawn, and there were windswept weeds and branches all over the porch.

  Emily shrugged. Her dad had sent her a terse text shortly before she landed at Newark Airport saying he couldn’t pick her up after all and had arranged for the shuttle. He didn’t offer an excuse, and Emily wondered if it was just because he didn’t want to be stuck in the car with her for two torturous hours. Apparently, he didn’t sympathize with the fact that she’d had to escape the ship on a lifeboat.

  She gave the driver the last twenty-dollar bill in her wallet as a tip, then punched in the garage code and watched as the door slowly rose. Sure enough, both her parents’ cars sat quietly in the garage. She walked around them and opened the side door.

  The familiar smell of her house, a mix of slightly stale potpourri, bleach, and the musky cologne her dad always wore, made her throat tighten. For a few hours, she had thought she’d never have to come back here. And after everything that had happened, she hadn’t had time to prepare to return to this life.

  All of a sudden, her legs wouldn’t move. She couldn’t endure another sidelong glance from her parents, another heavy sigh. She couldn’t tolerate the heavy, disappointed silence, her mother’s closed bedroom door, those horrible dinners with her father where neither of them spoke. And it would only get worse once she and her friends confessed.

  She stood in the laundry room, one hand on the top of the washer. Maybe she’d turn around, walk out the door, and stay at a hotel for the night. They were going to call the police tomorrow—she’d probably be in custody within twenty-four hours. Why not spend the remaining hours of freedom somewhere peaceful and relatively calm? Why torture herself by being around people who hated her?

  Swallowing hard, she started to turn. But then she heard a thin, eggshell voice call out from the family room. “Emily? Is that you?”

  She froze. It was her mom.

  “Emily?” Mrs. Fields called again.

  Then there were footsteps. Mrs. Fields appeared in the living room doorway, wearing a pink sweater and jeans. Her hair looked washed. Her face had makeup on it. And—even more bizarre—she was looking at Emily with a faint smile on her face.

  Emily tentatively touched her cheeks, wondering if she might be dreaming. “Uh, hi?”

  “Hi, honey.” Mrs. Fields looked at her bags. “You want help?”

  Emily blinked. These were the first words her mom had said to her in more than two weeks. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me home,” she squeaked, surprising herself.

  Mrs. Fields pressed her lips together. Her shoulders rose up and down, and for a brief second, Emily saw the disappointment gather in the lines on her mother’s face and the bags under her eyes. Here it comes, she thought. Her mother was going to burst into tears and disappear again.

  But then Mrs. Fields stepped forward, her arms outstretched. Before Emily knew what was happening, she’d pulled Emily into a hug. Emily remained ramrod-straight, her arms at her sides, still waiting for the tears … or a lecture … or something awful. But her mom just rested her head in Emily’s hair, breathing in and out steadily.

  “I heard there was an explosion on the boat,” Mrs. Fields said. “And that you girls almost drowned at sea.”

  Emily lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly.

  “I’m just glad you’re safe.” Mrs. Fields shook Emily’s hands.

  Emily looked up. “You are?”

  Mrs. Fields nodded. “Honey, I’ve had a lot of time to think. We’re going to work through this. We’re going to figure out how to be a family again.”

  Emily pulled away and stared at her mom’s face. “Well, say something!” Mrs. Fields urged, looking nervous. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it’s what I want,” Emily blurted. “I just … I didn’t ever … I …” She felt tears welling behind her eyes. “I never thought you’d forgive me,” she mumbled, bursting into sobs.

  Mrs. Fields collected her in her arms again. “I had a long talk with Father Fleming when you were gone. I know we don’t talk about a lot of things. But I hate the idea of you hiding something so big. I’ve been hard on myself during this time, too, Emily. I feel like I’ve failed you as a mother.”

  “Don’t say that,” Emily blubbered. “It’s my fault. I should have told you. I was just so …”

  “… scared,” Mrs. Fields finished for her. “I know. Carolyn told us.”

  Emily drew back. “Carolyn talked to you about it?”

  Mrs. Fields nodded. “She feels like she failed you, too. She wants to come home for a long weekend soon to talk things out. This is a reflection on all of us, Emily. And if we’re ever going to heal, we all have to pull together. Don’t you think?”

  Emily stared at her mom in amazement. “Yes,” she whispered. “I really want to be a family, too.”

  Emily looked around the laundry room with its chicken baskets, old sweatshirts on hooks, and jugs of detergent. She’d never paid much attention to this room, but suddenly it was her favorite place in the world. The possibilities spread out before her. Reconstructing her relationship with her older sister. Making things right with her mom again. Having normal dinners, normal holidays—being a family. And being honest with them in the future, not running from them when she had a problem.

  Then she remembered: Tabitha. But she pushed that aside for the moment, deciding to concentrate on this and only this. For one day, she could have her family back just the way she wanted it. She’d probably never have a moment like this again.

  “Come on,” Mrs. Fields said, picking up one of Emily’s bags and dragging it into the kitchen. “Sit down, I’ll make you some tea, and you can tell me all about your trip.”

  Emily let her mom guide her through the living room and sit her down at the kitchen table. It felt good to watch her fill the teapot with water and place it on the stove. She was about to launch into a description of the ship and the islands they visited, but then an Express Mail envelope caught her eye. Emily Fields, said the script in the address window.

  She held it up. “What’s this?”

  Mrs. Fields glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “I don’t know. It just came this morning.”

  Emily ripped open the envelope and pulled out a postcard. When she saw the picture of the Bermuda International Airport on the front, her heart did a flip. The postcard was unsigned, but she knew immediately who it was from. Then she read the date, and her mind stalled. April 3. That was two days ago, the day of the explosion on the boat. She pictured Jordan’s body leaping from the top deck of the ship, the bubbles in the water, the FBI boats searching the bay. A smile spread across her face. Then she looked down and read the note once more.

  Emily: I’m okay. Not going to where we planned, but somewhere even better. We’ll find each other someday—that’s a promise.

  34
>
  THE FUN HASN’T EVEN BEGUN

  The doorbell at Byron’s house pealed around 8 A.M. the following morning, and Aria shot up from the couch. The house was empty—Byron was at work, and Meredith had taken baby Lola to a doctor’s appointment.

  She peered through the window in the door. Hanna, Spencer, and Emily were standing on the porch, grave looks on their faces.

  “Thanks for coming,” Aria said in a small voice when she pulled the door open.

  No one answered. She led them to the den. All three of her friends lined up on the couch facing the TV. They sat with perfect posture, their eyes glazed and red-rimmed, like they were at a funeral. Which, of course, they sort of were.

  “Are you sure we should do this?” Spencer blurted.

  Everyone exchanged a glance. “I don’t want to,” Hanna whispered.

  “Me neither,” Emily said. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.

  Aria perched on the wing chair, feeling just as conflicted. Every moment of this morning had felt like the end of an era. It was the last time she’d ever wake up in her bed. The last time she’d ever brush her teeth in her bathroom. The last time she’d ever kiss Lola without a prison guard standing over her. Would Meredith even bring Lola to visit her in prison? A’s taunting text haunted her, too: Will Aria’s boyfriend visit her in jail?

  Hanna picked at her nails. Emily stared at a coffee cup she was holding, but couldn’t seem to bring herself to drink it. And Spencer kept picking up a magazine, staring at the cover, and then putting it right back down again.

  “Maybe we’ll get a really kind judge,” Emily said. “Maybe someone who understands how scared we were about Real Ali coming back to hurt us.”

  Spencer scoffed. “No judge will buy that. They’ll say everyone knew Real Ali was dead.”

  Emily wriggled in her seat, either looking like she was about to burst or pee her pants. “Actually, not if we tell the court I left the door open for her the day of the fire.”

  Everyone’s heads shot up. “Excuse me?” Spencer sputtered.

  Emily buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t just leave her on the floor like that. I don’t know if she got out, but I did leave the door open.”

  “But I saw the door,” Hanna said. “You shut it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Aria stared at the ceiling, trying to recall those hot, horrible, frantic moments before the house blew up. She swore she’d looked back and saw that the door was closed tight—or was that just a fabrication in her mind after the fact?

  “God, Emily,” Spencer whispered, her eyes wide.

  Hanna ran her hands down the length of her face. “Is this why you’re so convinced Real Ali is the one stalking us now?”

  “I guess so.” Emily fiddled with the coaster on the coffee table. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and, you guys, maybe it’s a good thing. If I bring up how the door was left open and how afraid we were that she’d escaped, maybe the judge will understand our paranoia in Jamaica.”

  “Or maybe he’ll think we’re crazy,” Hanna snapped.

  Aria shook her head. “You should have told us about this before now.”

  “I know.” Emily looked tortured. “And I’m sorry. But would it really have changed anything? We probably would have been even more convinced Tabitha was Ali in Jamaica.”

  “Or we would have gone to the police instead of handling it ourselves,” Aria said.

  “This might never have happened,” Spencer added.

  Emily slumped down. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you realize what this means?” Aria pushed her fingers through her hair. “Real Ali could be out there! She could be A!”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Emily urged. “Ali makes the most sense. She and Tabitha had been such good friends that Tabitha carried her picture in a locket. Maybe she was with Tabitha in Jamaica, and maybe the plan had been to push us off the roof, not the other way around. Maybe that was why she was waiting on the sand, taking those pictures. But then, when things went wrong, she’d decided to torture us instead.”

  “But what about Graham?” Spencer asked. “He makes a lot of sense, too. And we’re certain he’s alive.”

  Aria swallowed hard. “I thought it didn’t matter since we were confessing, but I overheard Jeremy and this cop talking yesterday, and Graham’s in the hospital.”

  Hanna squinted. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe from the blast. It was unclear.”

  “Who cares if Graham’s in the hospital?” Spencer threw up her hands. “He’ll get out eventually. And then he’ll tell about everything we did.”

  “There was something else weird, too,” Aria said. “The cop said they identified two figures on the surveillance tape from the boiler room—one was definitely Graham. They couldn’t identify the second person, but they thought it was a guy.”

  Spencer cocked her head. “Do you remember anyone else being down there?”

  Aria shook her head. Emily tapped the table. “Maybe they just caught you at a weird angle or something. Or maybe it was a worker just randomly down there the same time you were.”

  “Maybe,” Aria said slowly. Then she shut her eyes. She was so sick of talking about this, going back and forth as to who might be A, letting A torment their lives. She was done.

  “We’re telling the cops about Tabitha right now,” she decided.

  “Okay,” Emily whispered, widening her eyes at Aria’s authoritative tone. Spencer just nodded. Hanna swallowed hard, but then nudged her head toward Aria’s cell phone.

  “Good.” Aria felt electrically charged and a little crazy. She grabbed her phone and looked up the number for Michael Paulson, the man at the FBI in charge of the murder trial. It was a Washington, DC, area code. She punched the numbers on her phone unnecessarily hard.

  She pressed the last digit and listened as the line rang. After a moment, someone at the front desk answered. “Can I speak to Michael Paulson, please?” she asked, placing the call on speaker.

  “May I ask who’s calling?” the woman said in a bored voice.

  Aria glanced at her friends, then turned back to the phone. “Someone who has information on the Tabitha Clark murder case.”

  There was a loaded pause. “Mr. Paulson’s at a press conference right now,” she said after a moment. “But if it’s important, I’ll be able to reach him. Can he call you back shortly?”

  Aria said that was fine and hung up. She set the phone down on the coffee table, her heart hammering. What was she going to say when the detective called her? How was she going to blurt it out? As soon as she did this, their lives would change. Was she seriously ready for that?

  Hanna grabbed for the remote and turned on the TV. “I need some noise,” she said. “I can’t stand this.” A commercial for ice cream cakes popped on the screen. Everyone stared at it absently. Aria wondered if they were all thinking the same thing—they’d probably never have something as frivolous and celebratory as ice cream cake again.

  The commercial for ice cream cake ended, and one for Ford trucks came on. Then one for a local pizza parlor, then life insurance. After that, the local news appeared. The weatherman blathered about how it was going to be cloudy today, but there was a high-pressure system moving in tomorrow. “Break out your shorts and T-shirts!” he announced. “It’s going to be unseasonably warm!”

  “God, does he have to be so cheerful?” Spencer snarled at the screen.

  Emily looked desperately at the phone. “Why doesn’t he call back? Doesn’t he know it’s important?”

  Hanna cradled a pillow. “There’s something I didn’t mention about my conversation with Naomi yesterday. Apparently, Real Ali called her when she was back in Rosewood as Courtney and told her everything.”

  Now it was her everyone stared at. “What do you mean, everything?” Aria asked.

  “The truth, I guess. Everything that was in that letter she slid under the door at the Poconos. Nao
mi didn’t believe her, though. She thought she was crazy.”

  Spencer blinked hard. “Why would Ali give away such a big secret?”

  Hanna shrugged. “She thought Naomi would take her side. She told me Ali tried to recruit her, just like Mona tried to recruit you, Spencer. Ali said, ‘We’re going to get those bitches, Naomi.’”

  “‘We’?” Aria blurted.

  “That’s what she said,” Hanna looked at Aria in puzzlement. “What’s weird about that?”

  Aria pushed her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. It just sounded weird for a second, like Ali had a team of people out to get us. But maybe not.”

  Suddenly, Spencer, who had been looking at her phone, lifted her head. “You know how you said Graham was in the hospital, Aria? Actually, I think he’s in a coma.”

  She turned her phone outward. THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CRUISE CLAIMS A VICTIM, said the headline of an online story. Aria scanned the text. Graham Pratt was hospitalized from injuries following the explosion on board the Splendor of the Seas Eco Cruise ship. The medical staff in Bermuda says he is in a coma but resting comfortably.

  “Whoa,” Aria whispered, her heart pounding hard. A coma? Had he been knocked out from the blast? But why hadn’t she seen him lying like an X on the boiler-room floor, unconscious?

  The news anchor materialized on the screen with a story about a traffic accident near the Conshohocken Curve, breaking her concentration. Aria grabbed the remote, wanting to put on something else, when the camera turned to a familiar face. Tabitha’s blue eyes gleamed. Her smile was sparkly and flirtatious, as though she was keeping a secret. NEW DEVELOPMENTS, read a caption under her photo.

  The remote fell from Aria’s fingers to the floor. Hanna grabbed her arm and squeezed.

  “We just received new information about Tabitha Clark, the teenager who was murdered in Jamaica last year,” the blond reporter said. “The medical examiner has finished the autopsy, and he has some surprising results. For more, here’s Jennifer Rubenstein.”