by Sara Shepard
Wanted
( Pretty Little Liars - 8 )
Sara Shepard
In Rosewood, majestic estates sprawl for acres, and Tiffany toggle bracelets dangle from every girl's wrist. But not all that glitters is gold, and the town harbors secrets darker than anyone could imagine—like the truth about what really happened the night Alison DiLaurentis went missing. . . .
Back in middle school, Ali plucked Emily, Hanna, Aria, and Spencer from obscurity and turned them into the beautiful, popular girls everyone wanted to be. Ali was the best friend they ever had. But she also made them do terrible things and taunted them with their worst secrets. Now, three years later, all their questions about Ali have finally been answered and they can put this awful chapter of their lives behind them. Or so they think.
Not every story has a happy ending, especially when four pretty little liars have done so many wicked things. In the dramatic conclusion of Sara Shepard's bestselling Pretty Little Liars series, Emily, Hanna, Aria, and Spencer could get everything they've ever wanted—unless A has one more horrifying twist in store.
Wanted
A Pretty Little Liars Novel
Sara Shepard
To three English teachers:
The late Mary French, Alice Campbell, and Karen Bald Mapes.
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire.
The other is to gain it.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
LOOK AGAIN
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. A surveillance camera catches a beautiful brunette making off with a handful of gold Tiffany baubles. A paparazzi shot exposes an affair between a young starlet and a married director. But what the picture can’t tell you is that the girl was a store clerk taking those bracelets to her boss, or that the director filed for divorce last month.
So what about a family photo? Take, for instance, a shot of a mom, dad, sister, and brother grinning on the front porch of a luxe Victorian mansion. Now look closer. Dad’s smile seems kind of forced. Mom’s gazing toward the left at a neighbor’s house—or maybe at a neighbor. Brother grips the porch rail tight, like he wants to crack it in half. And sister smiles mysteriously, as if she’s hiding a delicious secret. Half of the backyard is torn up by a giant yellow bulldozer, and there’s someone lurking way in the background, nothing but a blur of blond hair and pale skin. Is that a guy…or a girl? It could be a trick of the light or a finger smudge.
Or perhaps all those things you missed upon first glance mean much more than you could ever guess.
Four pretty girls in Rosewood believe they have a clear picture of what happened the night their best friend went missing. Someone has been arrested, and the case has been closed. But if they comb through their memories once more, focusing on the flickers in the periphery, the uneasy feelings they can’t pin down, and the people right under their noses, that picture might change right before their eyes. If they take a deep breath and look again, they might be astonished—even terrified—by what they discover.
Truth is stranger than fiction, after all. Especially here in Rosewood.
The June evening was misty and moonless. Crickets chirped in the thick, black woods, and the whole neighborhood smelled like fresh azaleas, citronella candles, and bleachy pool chlorine. Brand-new luxury cars were tucked away in three-car garages. As with everything else in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, a chic, rustic suburb about twenty miles from Philadelphia, not a blade of grass was out of place, and everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be.
Almost everyone.
Alison DiLaurentis, Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Emily Fields, and Hanna Marin turned on all the lights in the converted barn apartment behind Spencer’s house, settling in for their end-of-seventh-grade sleepover. Spencer quickly dumped several empty Corona bottles into the recycling bin. They’d belonged to her sister, Melissa, and Melissa’s boyfriend, Ian Thomas, whom Spencer had banished from the barn moments before. Emily and Aria flung their yellow and maroon LeSportsac overnight totes in a pile in the corner. Hanna flopped on the couch and started munching on leftover popcorn. Ali latched the barn door and turned the dead bolt. No one heard the squish of footsteps in the dewy grass or saw the light fog of breath on the window.
Snap.
“So, girls,” Alison piped up, perching on the arm of the leather couch. “I know the perfect thing to do.” The window wasn’t open, but the glass was thin, and her words carried through the pane, rustling through the calm June night. “I learned how to hypnotize people. I could do you all at once.”
There was a long pause. Spencer picked at the waistband of her field hockey skirt. Aria and Hanna exchanged a worried look.
“Pleeeeze?” Ali said, pressing her palms together as if in prayer. She glanced over at Emily. “You’ll let me hypnotize you, right?”
“Um…” Emily’s voice quavered. “Well…”
“I’ll do it,” Hanna butted in.
Snap.
Whir.
Everyone else reluctantly agreed. How could they not? Ali was the most popular girl at Rosewood Day, the school they attended. Guys wanted to date her, girls wanted to be her, parents thought she was perfect, and she always got everything she wanted. It was a dream come true that Ali had chosen Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna to be part of her clique at the Rosewood Day Charity Drive the year before, transforming each of them from blah, nondescript Nobodies to important, sparkling Somebodies. Ali took them on weekend trips to the Poconos, gave them mud masks, and provided the golden ticket to the best table in the cafeteria. But she also forced them to do things they didn’t want to do—like The Jenna Thing, a horrific secret they vowed to keep until they died. Sometimes they felt like lifeless dolls, with Ali coordinating their every move.
Lately, Ali had been ignoring their calls, hanging out with her older field hockey friends, and was seemingly only interested in the girls’ secrets and shortcomings. She teased Aria about her dad’s clandestine relationship with one of his students. She poked fun at Hanna’s growing obsession with Cheez-Its—and her growing waistline. She mocked Emily’s puppy dog crush on her, and threatened to reveal that Spencer had kissed her sister’s boyfriend. Each girl suspected their friendship with Ali was slipping through their fingers. Deep down, they wondered if they’d be friends with Ali after tonight.
Snap.
Ali rushed around, lighting the vanilla-scented candles with a Zippo and pulling the blinds closed—just in case. She told the girls to sit cross-legged on the circular braided rug. They did so, looking fretful and uncomfortable. What might happen if Ali actually managed to hypnotize them? They were all hiding huge secrets that only Ali knew. Secrets they didn’t want broadcast to each other, let alone the rest of the world.
Snap.
Whir.
Ali began to slowly count backward from one hundred, her voice feathery and soothing. No one moved. Ali tiptoed around the room, passing the huge oak computer desk, the overstuffed bookshelves, and the tiny kitchen. Everyone remained compliant and statue-still. Never once did anyone look toward the window. Nor did any of them hear the mechanical snaps of the clunky old Polaroid camera as it captured their blurry images or the whirsas the camera spit out the photos to the ground. There was enough space through one of the slats in the blinds to get a decent picture of all of them.
Snap.
Whir.
When Ali was almost to one, Spencer jumped up and ran right to the back window. “It’s too dark in here,” Spencer proclaimed. She whipped back the curtains, letting in the night. “I want it lighter. Maybe everyone does.”
Alison looked at the others. Their eyes were sealed closed. Her lips curled up in a smirk. “Close them,” she insisted.
Spencer rolled her eyes. “
God, take a pill.”
Ali glanced out the now-open window. Fear flickered across her face. Did she see? Did she know who was there? Did she know what was coming?
But then Ali turned back to Spencer. Her fingers were curled into fists. “You think I should take a pill?”
Snap. Another photo fell from the camera. The image slowly materialized from nothingness.
Spencer and Ali stared at each other for a long time. The other girls remained on the carpet. Hanna and Emily swayed back and forth, tangled in a dream, but Aria’s eyes were half open. Her gaze was on Spencer and Ali, watching the fight unfold but feeling powerless to stop it.
“Leave,” Spencer demanded, pointing to the door.
“Fine.” Ali strode onto the porch, slamming the door hard behind her.
Ali stood for a moment, heaving deep breaths. The leaves on the trees swished and whispered. The yellow lantern-style light over the front door illuminated the left half of Ali’s body. There was an angry and determined scowl on her face. She didn’t glance fearfully around the side of the house. She didn’t sense the dangerous presence that lurked so close. Maybe it was because Ali was preoccupied, keeping a dangerous secret of her own. She had someone to meet right now. And someone else to avoid.
After a moment, Ali started down the path. Seconds later, the barn door slammed again. Spencer followed, catching up with her on the other side of the trees. Their whispers grew more and more fevered and furious. You try to steal everything away from me. But you can’t have this. You read about it in my diary, didn’t you? You think kissing Ian was so special, but he told me that you didn’t even know how.
There was the slick, wet sound of shoes slipping on grass. A shriek. A dangerous crack. A horrified gasp. And then silence.
Aria stepped out on the porch and looked around. “Ali?” she cried, her bottom lip trembling.
No answer. The tips of Aria’s fingers shook; maybe she sensed, deep down, that she wasn’t alone.
“Spencer?” Aria called again. She reached out and touched the wind chimes, desperate for sound. They knocked together melodically.
Aria returned to the barn as Hanna and Emily came to. “I had the weirdest dream,” Emily murmured, rubbing her eyes. “Ali fell down this really deep well, and there were these giant plants.”
“That was my dream, too!” Hanna cried. They stared at each other in confusion.
Spencer stomped back onto the porch, dazed and disoriented.
“Where’s Ali?” the other girls asked.
“I don’t know,” Spencer said in a faraway voice. She looked around. “I thought…I don’t know.”
By this time, the Polaroids had been scooped up off the ground and stowed safely in a pocket. But then the camera went off again by accident, the flash lighting up the red wood siding. Another photo emerged.
Snap. Whir.
The girls stared at the window, frozen and terrified as deer. Was someone there? Ali? Or maybe it was Melissa or Ian. They’d just been here, after all.
They remained very still. Two seconds passed. Five. Ten. There was only silence. It was just the wind, they decided. Or maybe a tree branch scraping against the glass, as painful as someone scraping her fingernails against a plate.
“I think I want to go home,” Emily told her friends.
The girls filed out of the barn together—annoyed, embarrassed, shaken. Ali had ditched them. The friendship was over. They started across Spencer’s yard, unaware of the terrible things that were to come. The face at the window had disappeared, too, off to follow Ali down the path. Everything had been set in motion. What was about to happen had already begun.
Within hours, Ali would be dead.
1 A BROKEN HOME
Spencer Hastings rubbed her sleep-crusted eyes and put a Kashi waffle in the toaster. Her family’s kitchen smelled of freshly brewed coffee, pastries, and lemon-scented household cleaner. The two labradoodles, Rufus and Beatrice, circled her legs, their tails wagging.
The tiny LCD TV in the corner was tuned to the news. A female reporter in a blue Burberry barn jacket was standing with the Rosewood chief of police and a gray-haired man in a black suit. The caption said The Rosewood Murders.
“My client has been wrongfully accused,” the man in the suit proclaimed. He was William “Billy” Ford’s publicly appointed lawyer and it was the first time he’d spoken to the press since Billy’s arrest. “He’s absolutely innocent. He was framed.”
“Right,” Spencer spat. Her hand shook unsteadily as she poured coffee into a blue Rosewood Day Prep mug. There was no doubt in Spencer’s mind that Billy had killed her best friend, Alison DiLaurentis, nearly four years ago. And now he’d murdered Jenna Cavanaugh, a blind girl in Spencer’s grade, and probably Ian Thomas—Melissa’s ex-boyfriend, Ali’s secret crush, and her first accused killer. Cops found a bloody T-shirt that belonged to Ian in Billy’s car and they were now searching for his body, though they hadn’t come up with any leads.
Outside, a garbage truck grumbled around the cul-de-sac where Spencer lived. A split second later, the same exact sound growled through the speakers of the TV. Spencer walked to the living room and parted the curtains at the front window. Sure enough, a news van was parked at the curb. A cameraman swiveled from one person to the other, and another guy holding a giant microphone braced against the blustery wind. Spencer could see the reporter’s mouth moving through the window and hear her voice through the TV speaker.
Across the street, the Cavanaughs’ backyard was wrapped in yellow police tape. A cop car had been parked in their driveway ever since Jenna’s murder. Jenna’s guide dog, a burly German shepherd, peered out the bay window in the living room. He’d remained there day and night for the past two weeks, as if patiently waiting for Jenna to return.
The police had found Jenna’s limp, lifeless body in a ditch behind her house. According to reports, Jenna’s parents arrived home on Saturday evening to an empty house. Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh heard frantic and persistent barks from the back of their property. Jenna’s guide dog was tied to a tree…but Jenna was gone. When they released the dog, he sprinted straight to the hole plumbers had dug a few days ago to repair a burst water pipe. But there was more inside that hole than the newly fitted pipe. It was as if the murderer wanted Jenna to be found.
An anonymous tip led the police to Billy Ford. The cops also charged him with killing Alison DiLaurentis. It made sense—Billy had been a part of the construction crew installing a gazebo for the DiLaurentises the same weekend Ali disappeared. Ali had complained about the lascivious looks the workers gave her. At the time, Spencer had thought Ali was bragging. Now she knew what actually happened. The toaster popped and Spencer padded back to the kitchen. The news had cut back to the studio, where a brunette anchor wearing big hoop earrings sat at a long desk. “Police recovered a series of incriminating images on Mr. Ford’s laptop that helped lead to his arrest,” the anchor said in a grave voice. “These photos show how closely Mr. Ford was stalking Ms. DiLaurentis, Ms. Cavanaugh, and four other girls known as the Pretty Little Liars.”
A montage of old photos of Jenna and Ali appeared, many of the shots looking like they’d been stealthily snapped from a hiding spot behind a tree or inside a car. Then came images of Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna. Some of the pictures were from seventh grade, when Ali was still alive, but others were more recent—there was one of the four girls in dark dresses and heels at Ian’s trial, waiting for Ian to show up. There was another shot of them gathered by the Rosewood Day swings clad in wool coats, hats, and mittens, probably discussing New A. Spencer winced.
“There are also messages on Mr. Ford’s computer that match the threatening notes sent to Alison’s former best friends,” the reporter went on. An image of Darren Wilden coming out of a confessional and a bunch of familiar e-mails and IM conversations whizzed past. Each note was signed with a crisp, singular letter A. Spencer and her friends hadn’t gotten a single message since Billy had been arrested.
> Spencer took a gulp of coffee, barely noticing the hot liquid sliding down her throat. It was so bizarre that Billy Ford—a man she didn’t know at all—was behind everything that had happened. Spencer had no idea why he’d done those things.
“Mr. Ford has a long history of violence,” the reporter went on. Spencer peered over her coffee mug. A YouTube video showed a fuzzy image of Billy and a guy in a Phillies cap fighting in a Wawa parking lot. Even after the guy fell to the ground, Billy kept on kicking him. Spencer put her hand to her mouth, picturing Billy doing the same thing to Ali.
“And these images, found in Mr. Ford’s car, have never been seen before.”
A blurry Polaroid photo materialized. Spencer leaned forward, her eyes widening. It was a shot of the inside of a barn—her family’s barn, which had been ruined in the fire Billy set several weeks ago, presumably to destroy evidence tying him to Ali’s and Ian’s murders. In the picture, four girls sat on the round rug in the center of the room, their heads bowed. A fifth girl stood above them, her arms in the air. The next photo was of the same scene, except the standing girl had moved a few inches to the left. In the following shot, one of the girls who had been sitting had stood up and moved toward the window. Spencer recognized the girl’s dirty blond hair and rolled-up field hockey skirt. She gasped. She was looking at her younger self. These photos were from the night Ali went missing. Billy had been standing outside the barn, watching them.
And they’d never known.
Someone let out a small, dry cough behind her. Spencer whirled around. Mrs. Hastings sat at the kitchen table, staring blankly into a mug of Earl Grey tea. She was wearing a pair of gray Lululemon yoga pants with a tiny hole in the knee, dirty white socks, and an oversize Ralph Lauren polo. Her hair was stringy, and there were toast crumbs on her left cheek. Normally, Spencer’s mom didn’t even let the family dogs see her unless she looked absolutely pristine.