by Sara Shepard
Hanna ran up to the Ali shrine, which was still assembled at the curb. A few of the candles had been replaced, and one was lit, dancing in the wind. There were a few hand-lettered signs on poster board that said things like, WE’LL FIND HIM, ALI, and IAN WILL PAY FOR THIS!
She crouched down and looked at the photograph that had been part of the shrine ever since it was first assembled, back when Ali’s body had been recovered. The photo was warped and faded from months of rain and snow. It was a picture of sixth-grade Ali, wearing a blue Von Dutch T-shirt and Seven jeans, standing in Spencer’s grand foyer. The photo had been taken the night Melissa and Ian were going to the Rosewood Day Winter Ball—Ali had been vehement about spying on them, giggling hysterically when Melissa tripped on the stairs during her grand entrance. Who knew, maybe Ali had something going on with Ian even back then.
Hanna frowned, looking closer at the photo. Behind Ali, the Hastingses’ front door was slightly open, offering a partial view of Spencer’s front yard. Standing in Spencer’s driveway next to Ian and Melissa’s Hummer limo was a lone figure in a down jacket and jeans. Hanna couldn’t really make out who it was, his face a blur. Still, there was something intrusive and voyeuristic about the person’s posture, as if whoever it was wanted to spy on Ian and Melissa too.
A door slammed. Hanna jumped, looking up. For a moment, she couldn’t locate where the noise had come from. Then she saw Darren Wilden standing at the bottom of the Cavanaughs’ driveway. When he saw Hanna, he did a double take.
“Hanna,” Wilden said. “What are you…doing?”
Hanna’s heart started to beat faster, like she’d just been caught shoplifting. “Running. What are you doing?”
Wilden looked shaken. He turned halfway, gesturing across the street to the woods behind Spencer’s house. “I was, um, just, you know. Checking things out back there.”
Hanna crossed her arms. The cops had abandoned the search in the woods a few days ago. And Wilden had come from Jenna’s house, which was across the street from the woods, not in the right direction at all. “Did you find something?”
Wilden rubbed his gloved hands together. “You shouldn’t be here,” he blurted.
Hanna stared at him.
“It’s cold out,” Wilden fumbled.
Hanna extended her left leg. “That’s what running tights are for. And mittens and hats.”
“Still.” Wilden slapped his right fist into his left palm. “I’d rather you were running somewhere safer. Like the Marwyn trail.”
Hanna squirmed. Was Wilden truly concerned for her…or did he just want her to leave? He glanced over his shoulder again toward Spencer’s woods. Hanna craned her neck too. Was there something there? Something he didn’t want her to see? But hadn’t he told the press that he’d never believed anything was back there? Didn’t he think Hanna and the others made it up?
A’s text about Wilden at confession flashed through her mind. We all have stuff to feel guilty about, huh?
“Do you need a ride somewhere?” Wilden asked loudly, making Hanna jump. “I’m finished here.”
Truthfully, Hanna’s toes were going numb. “Okay,” she stammered, trying to stay calm. She gave the Ali shrine a final look, then followed Wilden to a car covered in a dirty layer of caked-on snow and ice. “That’s your car?” Hanna asked. There was something familiar about it.
Wilden nodded. “My cruiser’s in the shop, so I had to resort to this old beater.” He opened the passenger door. The inside of the car smelled like old McDonald’s hamburger wrappers. He quickly tossed a bunch of file folders, shoe boxes, CDs, empty packs of cigarettes, unopened mail, and an extra pair of gloves to the backseat. “Sorry for the mess.”
An oval-shaped sticker in the front-seat foot well caught Hanna’s eye. There was a drawing of a fish on it, with a few initials and the words Day Pass. The sticker hadn’t been pulled off the shiny backing, and the ink seemed bright and new.
“Did you recently go ice fishing?” Hanna teased, pointing at it. Back when her dad was Hanna’s friend instead of the soulless drone who only wanted to make Princess Kate happy, they used to go fishing at Keuka Lake in upstate New York. They always had to buy a similar-looking fishing pass at the local bait shop in order to use the lake without getting fined.
Wilden glanced at the sticker, an odd expression flickering over his face. He tweezed it between his fingers and tossed it quickly to the back. “I haven’t cleaned out this car in years.” His words tumbled out in a rush. “That thing’s old.”
The motor started up, and Wilden shifted into reverse so forcefully Hanna was knocked back. He swung around the cul-de-sac, nearly running over the Ali shrine, then whipped past Spencer’s house, Jenna’s, and Mona’s. Hanna grasped the little handle above the window. “This isn’t a race,” she joked shakily, growing more and more weirded out.
Wilden looked at her out of the corner of her eye, saying nothing. Hanna noticed he didn’t have his Rosewood PD jacket on, but instead wore a simple, oversize gray hoodie and black jeans. An oversize hoodie, in fact, that looked a lot like the one the Grim Reaperish person who’d stood over her in the woods Saturday night had worn. But that was just a coincidence…right?
Hanna ran her hand over the back of her neck and cleared her throat. “So, um, how’s the Ian investigation?”
Wilden looked at her, his foot still pressed firmly on the gas pedal. They took the turn at the top of the hill fast, and the car’s tires made a screeching noise. “We have a pretty good lead that Ian’s in California.”
Hanna opened her mouth, then closed it fast. The IP address from Ian’s IMs had said that he was still in Rosewood. “Uh, how did you find out that?” she asked.
“A tip,” Wilden growled.
“From who?”
He shot her a frozen glare. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
A gray Nissan Pathfinder was in front of them, slowly ascending the hill. Wilden revved the engine and veered into the lane of oncoming traffic, speeding to get around. The Pathfinder honked. Two hazy lights appeared in the distance, heading the opposite direction. “What are you doing?” Hanna screamed, growing nervous. Wilden didn’t move back into the right lane. “Stop!” Hanna screamed. All at once, she was catapulted back to the night she’d stood in the Rosewood Day parking lot, Mona’s SUV heading straight for her. By the time she’d realized the SUV wasn’t going to swerve, she couldn’t move, petrified and helpless. It had felt as if there was nothing she could have done to stop what had happened.
Hanna shut her eyes, anxiety overpowering her. There was a loud, blaring horn, and Wilden’s car swerved. When Hanna opened her eyes again, they were back in their own lane.
“What is wrong with you?” Hanna demanded, her whole body trembling.
Wilden glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He looked…amused. “Calm down.”
Calm down? Hanna ran her hand down the length of her face, about to throw up. The incident flashed through her mind again and again, on rapid fast-forward. Ever since her accident, she’d tried very, very hard not to think about that night, and here Wilden was, laughing at her for being scared. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to discount A’s texts about Wilden after all.
Hanna was about to tell him to pull over and let her out when she realized Wilden was zooming up her winding driveway. When they reached the top, she quickly unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car, never so grateful to see her house.
She slammed the door anyway, but Wilden didn’t seem to notice. He just sped in reverse down the driveway, not even bothering to make the three-point turn. Some of the snow had fallen off the nose of the car. Hanna could see that it had a pointed end and mean-looking headlights.
A sense of déjà vu suddenly nagged at her. Something about what had just happened had happened before—and not just the night of her accident. She had the same feeling as when she couldn’t remember a vocabulary word in French class, the term on the tip of her tongue. Usually, the word ca
me to her later at the weirdest time, like when she was surfing on iTunes or walking Dot. Soon enough, this would come back to her too.
But she wasn’t exactly looking forward to finding it.
19 SPENCER WHEELS AND DEALS
After school on Friday, Spencer’s closest field hockey friend, Kirsten Cullen, pulled up to Spencer’s curb and yanked up the parking brake.
“Thanks so much for the ride,” Spencer said. Just because her parents had taken away her wheels didn’t mean she was about to climb aboard the smelly Rosewood Day school bus.
“No worries,” Kirsten said. “You need a ride on Monday, too?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Spencer mumbled.
She’d tried calling Aria for a ride, since Aria now lived one neighborhood over, but Aria had said she had “something to do” this afternoon, mysteriously not saying what it was. And it wasn’t like she could ask Andrew. All day, she’d thought he was going to apologize—if he had, she would have apologized to him too, and promised they would stay together if she moved. Andrew pointedly didn’t say a word to her in any of their shared classes. That, Spencer figured, was that.
Kirsten gave Spencer a wave and pulled away from the curb one-handed. Turning, Spencer walked up the driveway. The neighborhood was still and silent, and the sky was a drab, purplish-gray. The KILLER graffiti on the garage doors had been painted over, but the new color didn’t quite match, and the word still showed through faintly. Spencer averted her eyes, not wanting to look at it. Who had put it there? A? But…why? To scare her, or to warn her?
The house was empty, smelling like Murphy’s Oil Soap and Windex, meaning the Hastingses’ cleaning lady, Candace, had just left. Spencer ran upstairs, grabbed Olivia’s expandable folder from the desk in her room, and exited the house through the back door. Even though her parents weren’t here, she didn’t want to be in their house when she did this. She needed complete privacy.
She unlocked the barn’s front door and flipped on the kitchen and living room lights. Everything was as she’d left it since the last time she’d been in here, down to the half-filled water glass by the computer. She plopped down on the couch and pulled out her Sidekick. A’s message was the last text she’d received. How does disappearing forever sound?
At first, the note had scared her, but after a while, she’d seen it another way. Disappearing forever sounded fine—disappearing from Rosewood, that was. And Spencer knew just how she could.
She dumped Olivia’s file folder on the coffee table, its contents practically spilling out onto the throw rug. The Realtor’s card was right on top. With shaking hands, Spencer dialed his number. The phone rang once, then twice. “Michael Hutchins,” a man’s voice squawked.
Spencer sat up and cleared her throat. “Hi. My name is Spencer Hastings,” she said, trying to sound older and professional. “My mom is your client. Olivia Caldwell?”
“Of course, of course.” Michael sounded overjoyed. “I didn’t realize she had a daughter. Have you seen their new place yet? It’s going to be photographed for the New York Times Home section next month.”
Spencer wound a piece of hair around her finger. “Not yet. But…I will. Soon.”
“So what can I do for you?”
She crossed and uncrossed her legs. Her heart thudded through her ears. “Well…I’d like an apartment. In New York. Preferably somewhere near Olivia. Is that doable?”
She heard Michael flipping some papers. “I believe so. Hang on. Let me pull up the database of what’s available.”
Spencer bit down hard on her thumbnail. This felt surreal. She stared out the window at the rock-lined pool and hot tub, the tiered back deck, the two dogs frolicking near the fence. Then, she turned and gazed at the windmill. LIAR. It was still there, not yet painted over. Maybe her parents had left it for Spencer as a reminder, the equivalent of the big red A in The Scarlet Letter. Ali’s old house next door no longer had the Do Not Cross tape over the half-dug hole—the new owners had finally had the sense to take it down—but the hole hadn’t been filled yet. Behind the barn were the woods, thick and black and brimming with secrets.
Olivia had told her to take things slow, but moving out of Rosewood was the smartest—and safest—thing she could do.
“You there?” Michael’s voice called. Spencer jumped. “There’s a new listing at two twenty-three Perry Street. It hasn’t even gone on the market yet—the landlord is cleaning and painting—but it’ll probably go up on our Web site on Monday. It’s a one-bedroom on the parlor level of a brownstone. I’m looking at the pictures right now, and the place looks gorgeous. High ceilings, wood floors, crown molding, an eat-in kitchen, a back deck, a claw-foot tub. You’d be near the subway and a block from Marc Jacobs. You sound like you might be a Marc Jacobs girl.”
“You’re right about that.” Spencer smiled.
“You near a computer?” Michael said. “I can e-mail you some pictures of the place right now.”
“Sure,” Spencer said, giving him her e-mail address. She sprang up and walked to Melissa’s laptop, which was sitting closed on the desk. In seconds, a new e-mail appeared in her in-box. The attached photos were of a quaint brownstone with slate stairs. The apartment had wide oak floors, two bay windows, exposed brick, marble countertops, and even a little washer and dryer.
“It looks awesome,” Spencer breathed, nearly swooning. “I’m in Philadelphia at the moment, but could I come to the city on Monday afternoon and check it out?”
She heard a horn honk outside Michael’s window. “That could work, sure,” he said, the hesitation in his voice practically palpable. “But I’ve gotta warn you. Apartments like this don’t come up very often, and New York City real estate is insane. This is one of the best blocks in the Village, and people are going to jump on it. It’s likely that on Monday morning someone’s going to show up at our office as soon as the place lists with a check, sight unseen. By the time you get here, the place might be gone. But I don’t want to pressure you. There are other places I could show you in that neighborhood, too….”
Spencer tensed her shoulders, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She suddenly felt as if she were running for the ball in field hockey or fighting for a teacher’s approval in class. This was her rightful apartment, not someone else’s. She imagined her furniture in the bedroom. She pictured herself wearing her Chanel poncho on Saturday mornings while strolling to Starbucks. She could get a dog and hire one of those dog walkers that walked fifteen dogs at once. Earlier today, she’d looked into private schools in New York City if she didn’t opt to graduate early.
When she glanced down at the blank piece of paper next to the laptop, she realized that she’d doodled 223 Perry Street over and over, in cursive and block letters and calligraphy. No other apartment would do.
“Please don’t list it,” Spencer blurted out. “I want it. I don’t even have to look at it. What if I give you money now? Would that work?”
Michael paused. “We could do that.” He sounded surprised. “Believe me, you won’t be disappointed. It’s a wonderful find.” He clattered on his keyboard. “Okay. We’ll need some cash up front, enough for the first month’s rent, security, and a broker fee. So we should get your mom on the phone. She’s going to be your guarantor for the lease and authorize the transfer of the deposit, right?”
Spencer wiggled her fingers over the laptop keyboard. Olivia had made it clear that her husband, Morgan, was suspicious of people he didn’t know. If she asked Olivia and Morgan for money, she risked losing his trust. She glanced at the screen. There was the folder in the right-hand corner of the desktop. Spencer, College.
She slowly opened the folder and then the PDF. All the information she needed was there. The account was in her name. Olivia had said that once Morgan met her, he’d love her. He’d probably reimburse this account ten times over.
“We don’t need my mother to be involved,” Spencer said. “I have an account in my name I’d like to use.”
&nb
sp; “Okay,” Michael said, not missing a beat. He probably dealt with rich city kids with their own accounts all the time. Spencer read Michael the numbers on the screen, her voice quivering. Michael repeated them back to her, and then told her all he had to do was call the landlord and they’d be set. They made arrangements to meet in front of the building at 4 P.M. on Monday so Spencer could sign the lease and collect the keys. After that, the apartment would be hers.
“Great,” Spencer said. Then, she hung up her phone and stared blankly at the wall.
She had done it. She had really done it. In mere days, she wouldn’t live here anymore. She’d be a New Yorker, away from Rosewood for good. Olivia would come home from Paris, and Spencer would be adjusted to city life. She imagined meeting Olivia and Morgan for casual dinners in their apartment and fancier dinners at the Gotham Bar and Grill and Le Bernardin. She pictured the group of new friends she’d make, people who loved going to art exhibitions and benefits and didn’t give a shit that she had once been pursued by a bunch of jealous losers who called themselves A. When she thought of the boys she’d meet, she felt a twinge of sadness—none of them would be Andrew. But then she thought of how he’d treated her today and shook her head. She couldn’t dwell on him right now. Her life was about to change.
Her head felt soft and hollow, as if she were drunk. Her limbs shook with glee. And it almost seemed like she was hallucinating—when she looked out the back window, she thought she saw sparkling beams of light bouncing off the trees, like a fireworks display just for her.
