by Sara Shepard
Aria nodded slowly. “But what does that mean?”
Hanna’s head bobbed feverishly. The DJ had turned on a strobe light, and Hanna’s face went from light to shadow and back. It looked as though she were disappearing and reappearing. “What if Wilden got hold of a pass a long time ago? What if he used to drive up to the Poconos to spy on Ali? What if…what if he had some weird crush on her, a crush way weirder than Ian’s? Don’t you think he’s behaved strangely lately? He was so quick to arrest Ian when Spencer came forward with—let’s be honest—kind of shaky evidence. What if he’s hiding something? What if he’s the one who did it?”
Aria waved her hands, stopping Hanna. “But Wilden could’ve gotten the pass from Jason. Did you know Jason and Wilden were friends?”
The corners of Hanna’s mouth turned down. Emily pressed her hand to her bare collarbone.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Aria admitted. “Today, I got an e-mail from Jason, telling me to meet him at his parents’ house in Yarmouth. I got there, but he wasn’t home. He didn’t send me the text at all…someone else did. Probably A. But while I was waiting in his apartment, I found an old Rosewood Day yearbook from Jason’s senior year. Wilden signed right over Ian’s picture. And he drew an arrow to Ian’s head and wrote, I can’t believe what that asshole did. My offer still stands.”
Emily clapped her hand over her mouth, her brown eyes wide.
Hanna sprang up on her toes, placing both hands on the top of her head. “You’re totally right. They were friends. That black car I was talking about? The old thing Wilden was driving around? I saw it one other time, too. Remember the day Time Capsule was announced? We were standing in the courtyard, and Ian said he was going to kill Ali to get her Time Capsule piece? Jason came up, and he and Ian had that weird fight. And then Jason…”
“Ran up to a black car,” Aria whispered, remembering that day.
“And he said, Just drive.” Emily’s voice was soft. She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through her photos. “It works with this, too.” She showed them the photo they’d already seen, the one of Wilden leaving a confession booth, a guilty look on his face. I guess we all have things to feel guilty about, huh?
“It’s so weird that A is sending stuff that actually…makes sense,” Aria murmured.
“Yeah, that doesn’t really seem like A,” Hanna agreed.
“What if A isn’t malicious?” Emily hissed. “What if A’s trying to help?”
Hanna snorted. “Yeah. We help A…or A ruins our lives.”
The DJ shut off the strobe light and launched into another dance song. Partygoers staggered onto the dance floor. Parents clinked wineglasses, toasting another new hotel to escape to on weekends. Aria even noticed Mr. and Mrs. DiLaurentis across the ballroom, talking jovially to Mr. and Mrs. Byers as if nothing was wrong.
She glanced at the ledger in Emily’s hands. The DiLaurentis parents could have been sending Jason to therapists for years, keeping it a well-guarded secret. Maybe they’d been hiding other things about Jason, too. Jason had been so angry today. Could he be one of those people who hid his anger expertly, seeming so sweet and mild until he suddenly…erupted? Maybe Wilden was one of those people too.
“What if Jason found out Ali and Ian were dating?” Aria suggested. “That day he came up to Ian and Ali in the courtyard, he was really protective of her, like he knew something was up. Maybe that’s what Wilden meant by I can’t believe what that asshole did. I would guess an older brother would want to kill the guy taking advantage of his sister.”
Hanna crossed her legs, her face crumpled in thought. “Ian said in his IMs that they wanted to hurt him. What if they are Wilden and Jason?”
“But Ian implied that whoever drove him out of town were the ones who were really behind it,” Emily said. “So that would mean…”
“Jason and Wilden had something to do with Ali’s murder,” Hanna whispered. “Maybe it was an accident. Maybe something horrible happened that they hadn’t planned.”
Aria felt sick. Was that possible? She looked at the others. “The only person who knows the truth is Ian. Do you think we could talk to him on IM? Do you think he’d tell us?”
They exchanged uneasy glances, not sure what to do. The bass pumped on in the background. The scents of grilled shrimp and filet mignon filled the air, making Aria’s vegetarian stomach turn. She breathed hard, her nerves standing on end. Her eyes landed on Hanna’s piece of her Time Capsule flag, which she’d tied around the chain of her purse. She pointed to the black blob in the corner, remembering how Hanna had described it to Kate at Meredith’s baby shower. “Why did you draw a manga frog on your flag?”
Hanna blinked hard, as though confused at Aria’s change of subject. Then she stretched the flag out and showed them the entire piece. Also on it was a Chanel logo, a field hockey girl, and the Louis Vuitton pattern. “I decorated it in Ali’s honor with the things she’d drawn on hers before it was stolen.”
Aria bit her thumbnail. “Hanna, Ali didn’t draw a manga frog on her flag.”
Hanna looked startled. “Yes she did. I went home that afternoon and wrote down everything she said.”
A tingly feeling crept up Aria’s back. “She didn’t draw a manga frog,” she protested. “She didn’t draw any animals at all.”
Hanna’s eyes flickered back and forth, her face draining of color. Emily pushed a strand of hair behind her ears, looking worried. “How do you know that?”
Aria’s stomach churned. She had the same swooping feeling as the time when she was six years old and wanted to go on the big-kid roller coaster at Great Adventure. Her dad strapped her into the seat and pulled the big metal bar down over her chest, but as the ride was about to start, she was gripped with a searing panic. She’d screamed and screamed, making the amusement park technician stop the ride so she could get off.
Her friends blinked at her, waiting. As much as she didn’t want to discuss this, she had to tell them the truth. She took a deep breath. “That day we tried to take Ali’s flag, I cut through the woods to go home. Someone was coming the other way. It was…Jason. And…well…he had Ali’s flag. Before I knew what was happening, he was shoving it at me. He didn’t explain why. I knew I should’ve given it back to Ali, but I thought maybe Jason didn’t want me to. I thought maybe there was a reason Jason took it from her. Like he thought it wasn’t right that she’d found it so easily. Or that he was worried about what Ian said to her a few days before in the courtyard—that he’d kill her to get her piece. Or that maybe he liked me….”
Emily snorted. She held up the ledger from the upstairs office. “Or maybe he took it from her because he had problems.”
“I didn’t know what to think at the time,” Aria protested.
“So you lied to Ali instead?” Emily shot back.
Aria groaned. She’d known Emily was going to react like this. “Ali lied to us too!” she cried. “We’ve all kept secrets from one another. How is this any different?”
Emily shrugged and turned away.
“I meant to give it back to Ali, I really did,” Aria said wearily. “But then we became friends with her. The longer I didn’t say something, the more awkward it would have been. I didn’t know what to do.” She pointed again at Hanna’s flag. “I haven’t looked at Ali’s flag since the day I got it, but I swear there’s no frog on it.”
Hanna raised her head. “Wait. Aria—you still have her flag?”
Aria nodded. “It’s been in an old shoe box for years. When I moved my stuff to my dad’s house, I saw the box again. But I didn’t open it.”
Hanna’s face paled. “I had a dream this morning about the day we tried to steal Ali’s flag. I need to see it.”
Aria began to protest when she felt a buzzing on her hip. Her cell phone was ringing. “Hang on,” she mumbled, glancing at the screen. “I have a new text.”
Emily’s tiny clutch began to hum. “Me too,” she whispered. They stared at each other. Hanna’s iPhone was sil
ent, but she leaned over Emily’s Nokia. Aria looked at her own phone and pressed read.
Don’t you girls hate it when your Manolos start to pinch? Me, I like to soak my toes in my backyard hot tub. Or sit in my cozy barn, snuggled under a blanket. It’s so quiet there, now that the big, protective cops are gone.—A
Aria looked around at the others, puzzled.
“It sounds like A is talking about Spencer’s barn,” Emily whispered. Her mouth fell open. “I talked to Spencer earlier today. She’s out in the barn…all alone.” She pointed at the words now that the big, protective cops are gone. “What if she’s in danger? What if A is warning us that something awful is going to happen?”
Hanna put her iPhone on speaker and dialed Spencer’s number. But the line rang and rang, finally going to voice mail. Aria’s heart pounded hard. “We should go make sure she’s okay,” she whispered.
Then Aria felt someone’s eyes on her from across the room. She looked around and noticed a dark-haired man in a Rosewood Day Police uniform by the door. Wilden. He was glaring at them, his piercing green eyes narrow slits, his mouth turned down. He looked as if he’d heard everything they said…and all of it was true.
Aria grabbed Hanna’s hand and started to pull her toward the side entrance. “Guys, we have to get out of here,” she cried. “Now.”
29 THEY WERE ALL SO WRONG
It was 9 P.M., and Spencer had been rereading the same paragraph in The House of Mirth for an hour and a half. Lily Bart, the scrappy, eager New Yorker, was trying to make her way in high society at the turn of the twentieth century. Like Spencer, all Lily wanted was to find a way to escape from her dreary, uncertain life, but also like Spencer, Lily was getting nowhere fast. Spencer kept waiting for the part in the book where Lily finds out she’s adopted, gets scammed by a wealthy woman claiming to be her mother, and loses the money in her dowry.
She laid the book down and gazed drearily around the barn apartment, which she’d retreated to as soon as she’d returned from New York. The fuchsia accent pillows splayed across the almond-colored couch looked washed-out and drab. The few bites of Asiago cheese Spencer had found in the fridge and eaten over the sink for dinner tasted like dust. In the shower, the water hadn’t felt hot or cold, just lukewarm. All of Spencer’s senses had been ripped away. The world was murky and joyless.
How could she have been so stupid? Andrew had warned her. All the signs that Olivia was scamming her were there. When she’d visited, Olivia hadn’t let them stop in the apartment, not even for a minute. And Olivia had struggled with that big file folder, conveniently forgetting it when she boarded the helicopter. She’d probably snickered once she was airborne, knowing exactly what Spencer would do. And to think Spencer had looked into Olivia’s eyes and thought they looked alike! She’d hugged Olivia tight before she left, finally feeling like she was connecting with a member of her family! Olivia probably wasn’t even her real name. And Morgan Frick, Olivia’s so-called husband, was definitely a fake. How could she have missed that? Morgan Frick was just the names of two New York museums sloppily shoved together.
The barn creaked and buckled. Spencer flipped on the TV. There were tons of shows in her sister’s TiVo, not yet watched. Earlier this evening, Spencer had heard a woman from the Fermata spa leave a message on Melissa’s machine, saying Melissa had missed her appointment for an oxygen facial today, and did she want to reschedule. Why had her sister left in such a hurry? Had that been Melissa in the woods yesterday, searching for something?
Spencer turned the TV off again, not interested. Her gaze wandered to Melissa’s bookshelves. They were piled with old textbooks from high school, among them the book she’d used for AP econ. Next to those was a leaf green Kate Spade boot box marked High School Notes. Spencer mustered up a small, sarcastic snort. Notes, as in the kind you passed back and forth in class? Prissy Melissa didn’t seem the type.
She pulled out the boot box and opened the lid. A blue spiral-bound notebook that said Calculus was on top. Melissa must have meant notebooks. There were smiley faces on the cover, and Melissa’s name and Ian’s name doodled over and over in flowery cursive. Spencer opened the notebook to the first page. It was filled with math problems, diagrams, and proofs. Boring, Spencer thought.
On the next page, a shock of green ink caught her eye. There were notes in the margin written in two different-colored inks. It looked like a conversation between two people, passed back and forth from desk to desk. Spencer recognized Melissa’s handwriting in black, and someone else’s in green.
Guess who I made out with at the party last weekend? said the first message in Melissa’s telltale scrawl. Below that was a bubbly, green question mark. JD, was Melissa’s answer. Then came a green exclamation point. And then, Naughty, naughty! That boy is so in love with you…
Spencer held the page inches from her face, as if studying it closely would make it clear. JD? Her brain scrambled for a logical answer. Could that stand for Jason DiLaurentis? The day they tried to steal Ali’s flag and Jason had stormed out of his house, he’d glowered at Melissa and Ian in Spencer’s backyard. He’ll get over it, Melissa had murmured to Ian later. Could Jason have been jealous that Melissa was dating Ian? Could he have secretly been in love with her?
She pressed her fingers to her temples. It didn’t seem possible.
There was a forceful knock at the door, and the notebook slipped from Spencer’s lap to the rug. Then, another knock. “Spencer!” she heard someone call.
Emily and Hanna stood on the porch, Emily in a long red gown, Hanna in a short lacy black one.
“Are you okay?” Hanna rushed into the barn and clutched Spencer’s forearms. Emily burst in behind her, carrying a large book with a dingy leather cover.
“Yeah,” Spencer said slowly. “What’s going on?”
Emily set the book on the kitchen island. “We just got a note from A. We worried something happened to you. Have you heard any strange noises outside?”
Spencer blinked, stunned. “No…”
The girls looked at each other, breathing sighs of relief. Spencer’s eyes landed on the leather book Emily was carrying. “What’s that?” she asked.
Emily bit her lip. She glanced at Hanna, and they both launched into the explanation of what they’d figured out earlier that day. They also said that Aria had run back to her house to retrieve Ali’s long-lost flag—it might hold a vital clue—and would meet them here. When they finally went quiet, Spencer gaped at them, stunned.
“Jason and Wilden know something,” Hanna whispered. “Something they’re covering up. We need to reach Ian again. All that stuff he IM’ed you about—that he had to run, that they hated him, that they’d found out that he knew—we need to know what Ian knows.”
Spencer bunched up a throw pillow in her hands, feeling uneasy. “What if it’s dangerous? Ian was driven out of town because he knew too much. That could happen to us too.”
Hanna shook her head. “A’s begging us to do this. A might ruin us if we don’t.”
Spencer shut her eyes, thinking of the big red zero on the balance line of her college savings account. A had already ruined her.
She shrugged and walked over to Melissa’s laptop, not sure what else to do. Slowly, she swirled the mouse around, jolting the screen to life. The computer was still signed on to Melissa’s IM account, and there were the online friends in her buddy window. When Spencer saw the familiar screen name, her heart began to pound.
“I can’t believe it. That’s him,” she said, pointing to USCMidfielderRoxx. This was the first time she’d seen him online in a week.
Hanna eyed Spencer. “Talk to him,” she said.
Spencer clicked on Ian’s icon and started to type. Ian, it’s Spencer. Don’t sign off. I’m here with Hanna and Emily. We believe you. We know you’re innocent. We want to help you figure this out. But you have to tell us about the conflicting evidence you hinted at when you were on my porch last week. What happened the night Ali was killed?
> The cursor blinked. Spencer’s hands began to tremble.
And then, the IM screen flashed. They leaned forward. Spencer? the message said. The girls clasped hands. Another message popped up right after. We shouldn’t talk about this. If you know, you could be in danger.
Spencer paled and looked at Emily and Hanna. “See? Maybe he’s right.”
Hanna pushed Spencer aside and typed. We have to know.
The IM window flashed again. Ali and I were planning to meet up that night, Ian wrote. I was nervous to meet her, so I got drunk. I went to wait for her, but she didn’t show. When I looked across the yard, I swear I saw two people with long blond hair in the woods. It looked like one of them was Ali.
Spencer gasped. Ian had told her this when he met her on her porch last week. She and Ali had fought that night, but Ian said it might have been someone else. She shut her eyes, trying to imagine yet another person being out there that night…someone they hadn’t ever suspected. Her stomach started to ache.
Ian’s messages kept coming. It seemed like the two people were arguing, but they were too far away for me to tell. I figured Ali wasn’t going to come over, which maybe was good, because I was pretty wasted. After Ali went missing, I didn’t realize that the person she was fighting with that night could’ve hurt her—that’s why I didn’t say anything at first. She’d talked a lot about running away when we were together, and that’s what I thought she did.
Spencer looked at the others, puzzled. “Ali never talked about running away, did she?”
“I used to talk about running away from my strict family,” Emily whispered. “Ali said she’d come, too. I always thought she was just saying it to be nice…but maybe not.”
