Heartless pll-7

by Sara Shepard

  She entered her biology classroom. It smelled of its usual jumble of leaky Bunsen burner gas, formaldehyde, and marker-board bleach. The teacher, Mr. Heinz, wasn’t there yet, and the students were gathered around one desk in the middle of the room, looking at something on a silver MacBook Air. When Sean Ackard noticed Emily, he paled and broke from the crowd. Lanie Iler, one of Emily’s friends from swimming, saw Emily next and opened and closed her mouth like a fish.

  “Lanie?” Emily tried, her heart starting to thud. “What is it?”

  Lanie had a conflicted expression on her face. After a moment, she pointed at the laptop.

  Emily took a few steps toward the computer. A hush fell over the room and the crowd parted. The local news web page glowed on the screen. POOR, POOR PRETTY LITTLE liars read the headline under Emily, Aria, Spencer, and Hanna’s school pictures. Farther down on the page was a blurry picture of the girls in Spencer’s hospital room. They were all gathered over Spencer’s bed, talking worriedly.

  Emily’s pulse raced. Spencer’s hospital room had been on the second floor, so how had the paparazzi gotten this photo?

  Her eyes returned to their new nickname. Pretty Little Liars. A couple of kids behind her tittered. They thought this was funny. They thought Emily was a joke. She took a big step back, almost bumping into Ben, her old boyfriend from swimming. “I guess I should watch out for you, Little Liar,” he teased, smirking.

  That was it. Without another glance at her classmates, she rushed out of the room and headed straight for the bathroom, her rubber Vans squeaking on the polished floor. Luckily, there was no one inside. The air smelled like freshly smoked cigarettes, and water dripped from one of the faucets into a pale blue basin. Leaning against the wall, Emily took heaving breaths.

  Why was this happening? Why did no one believe her? When she’d seen Ali in the woods on Saturday night, her heart had filled with joy. Ali was back. They could resume their friendship. And then, in a blink, Ali was gone again, and now everyone thought Emily had made her up. What if Ali really was out there, hurt and scared? Was Emily honestly the only person who wanted to help her?

  She ran cold water on her face, trying to catch her breath. Suddenly, her phone beeped, echoing loudly off the hard bathroom walls. She jumped and unhooked the backpack from her shoulder. Her phone was in the front pocket. One new text message, said the screen.

  Her heart went into free fall. She looked around swiftly, anticipating a pair of eyes watching her from the utility closet, a pair of feet under a stall. But the bathroom was empty.

  Her breathing was shallow in her chest as she looked at the screen.

  Poor little Emily—

  You and I both know she’s alive. The question is: What would you do to find her?—A

  Gasping, Emily opened the keyboard to her phone and started to type. I’ll do anything.

  There was a return message almost immediately. Do exactly as I say. Tell your parents you’re going on that church trip to Boston. But instead, you’ll go to Lancaster. For more, go to your locker. I’ve left you something there.

  Emily squinted. Lancaster . . . Pennsylvania? And how did A know about the Boston trip? She envisioned the crumpled-up flyer sitting at the bottom of the hall trash can. Had A seen her throw it away? Was A here at school? And more specifically, could she actually trust A?

  She looked down at her phone. What would you do to find her?

  Quickly, she sprinted up the stairs back to her locker, which was in the Foreign Languages wing. As French students sang along to “La Marseillaise,” Emily spun the dial and opened her locker door. At the bottom, next to a spare pair of swim fins, was a small grocery bag. Wear me, said messy Magic Marker scrawl on the front.

  Emily’s hand fluttered to her mouth. How had this gotten here? Taking a deep breath, she picked up the bag and pulled out a long, plain dress. underneath that was a simple wool coat, stockings, and odd-looking shoes with little eyelet buttons. It looked like the Little House on the Prairie Halloween costume Emily had worn in fifth grade.

  Her hand touched a piece of paper at the bottom of the grocery bag. It was another note, seemingly banged out on an old typewriter.

  Tomorrow, take a bus to Lancaster, go north for about a mile from the depot, and turn at the big sign of the horse and buggy. Ask for Lucy Zook. Don’t dare take a cab to get there—no one will trust you.—A

  Emily devoured the note three more times. Was A suggesting what Emily thought she was suggesting? Then she noticed typing on the other side of the note. She flipped the paper over.

  Your name is Emily Stoltzfus. You’re from Ohio, but you’ve come to Lancaster for a visit. If you want to see your old BFF again, you’ll do exactly what I say. And . . . oh, did I forget to mention? You’re Amish. Everyone else there is, too. Viel Glück! (That’s German for “good luck”!)—A

  Chapter 7 An Old Friend is Back

  When the final bell of the day rang, Spencer plodded gratefully to her locker. Her limbs ached. Her head felt like it weighed a million pounds. She was ready for this day to be over. Her parents had told her she could take a few days off school to recuperate after the fire, but Spencer wanted to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible. She vowed to get straight A’s this semester, whatever it took. And maybe by spring, Rosewood Day would take her off academic probation and let her keep her spot on the lacrosse team—she needed it for college applications. There was still time to get into an Ivy League summer program, and she could sign up for Habitat for Humanity to round out her community service.

  As she pulled her English books from her locker, she felt a tug on her jacket sleeve. When she turned around, Andrew Campbell was standing there, his hands shoved in his pockets, his longish blond hair pushed off his face.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “H-hi,” Spencer stammered. She and Andrew had started dating a few weeks ago, but Spencer hadn’t spoken to him since she told him she was moving to New York to be with olivia. Andrew had tried to warn her not to trust olivia, but Spencer hadn’t listened. In fact, she’d kind of called him a clingy loser. Since then, he’d ignored her at school—which was a nearly impossible feat, since they had every class together.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I guess,” she answered shyly.

  Andrew fiddled with the ANDREW FOR PREZ! pin on his messenger bag. It was from the previous semester’s campaign for class president, which he’d won over Spencer. “I was at the hospital when you were still unconscious,” he admitted. “I talked to your parents, but I . . .” He looked down at his lace-up Merrells. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me.”

  “Oh.” Spencer’s heart did a flip. “I—I would have wanted to see you. And . . . I’m sorry. For . . . you know.”

  Andrew nodded, and Spencer wondered if he’d found out what happened with Olivia. “Maybe I can call you later?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Spencer said, feeling a flutter of excitement. Andrew raised a hand awkwardly, doing a little bow in good-bye. She watched him disappear down the hall, skirting around a bunch of orchestra girls holding violin and cello cases. She’d come close to crying twice today, overstressed and tired of kids staring at her like she’d come to school in only a thong. Finally, something pleasant had happened.

  The front walk was crowded with yellow buses, a traffic guard in a bright orange vest, and, of course, the ubiquitous news vans. A CNN cameraman noticed Spencer and nudged his reporter. “Miss Hastings?” They sprinted over. “What do you think about the people who doubt that you saw Alison Saturday night? Did you really see her?”

  Spencer gritted her teeth. Damn Emily for blurting out that they’d seen Ali. “No,” she said into the lens. “We didn’t see Ali. It was a misunderstanding.”

  “So you lied ?” The reporters were practically frothing at the mouth. A bunch of students had stopped just behind Spencer too. A couple kids were waving at the cameras, but most were staring at her, agog. A freshman boy snapped a photo wit
h his camera phone. Even Spencer’s AP econ teacher, Mr. McAdam, had paused in the lobby and was gaping at her through the big front windows.

  “The brain conjures up all kinds of strange things when deprived of oxygen,” Spencer said, parroting what the ER doctor had told her. “It’s the same phenomenon that happens to people right before they die.” Then she extended her palm toward the screen. “No more questions.”

  “Spencer!” called a familiar voice. Spencer whirled around. Her sister, Melissa, was in her silver Mercedes SUV, parked in one of the visitors’ spots. She waved her arm. “Come on!”

  Saved. Spencer ducked the reporters and darted past the buses. Melissa smiled as Spencer climbed into the SuV, as if it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary that she was picking Spencer up from school.

  “What are you doing back?” Spencer blurted. She hadn’t seen Melissa in almost a week, not since she swiftly bolted from the house after coming home from Nana’s funeral. That was right around the time Spencer had begun talking to Ian Thomas on IM. Spencer had looked for him on IM last night, hoping to talk to him about the fire, but he hadn’t logged on.

  Spencer suspected Melissa thought Ian was innocent too—after Ian had been arrested and thrown in jail, Melissa insisted that he didn’t deserve a life sentence. She even admitted she’d talked to Ian on the phone when he was in prison. Her sister had packed up her things so hastily last week that Spencer wondered if Melissa felt she needed to get out of Rosewood for the same reasons Ian did—because she knew too much about what had really happened to Ali.

  Melissa started the car. NPR blared, and she quickly turned it down. “I’m back because I heard about your brush with death. Obviously. And I wanted to see the destruction from the fire. It’s terrible, huh? The woods . . . the windmill . . . even the barn. So much of my stuff, too.”

  Spencer hung her head. The barn had been Melissa’s apartment all through high school. She had stashed tons of yearbooks, journals, memorabilia, and clothes there.

  “Mom told me about you, too.” Melissa backed out of the space, almost hitting a CNN cameraman filming the front of the school. “About . . . the surrogate thing. How are you doing?”

  Spencer shrugged. “It was a shock. But for the best. It’s good that I know.”

  “Yeah, well.” They passed the journalism barn and then the teachers’ parking area. It was filled with cars that were considerably older and humbler than the ones in the student lot. “I wish you wouldn’t have said I put the idea in your head. Mom really whaled on me for that. She was ruthless.”

  Spencer felt a hot twinge of anger. Poor you, she wanted to snap. Like that really compared to what Spencer had been through.

  They came to a stop at the light behind a Jeep Cherokee full of meaty-shouldered boys in baseball caps. Spencer took a long look at her sister. Melissa’s skin looked papery and tired, there was a zit on her forehead, and ligaments stood out in her neck, as if she was clenching her jaw tight. Last week, Spencer had noticed someone who looked suspiciously like Melissa searching through the woods behind their house, not far from where they’d discovered Ian’s body. Aria had found Ian’s ring in the woods just before the fire started—was that what Melissa had been looking for?

  But before Spencer could ask, her cell phone bleated. She unclasped her purse and pulled it out. Take tomorrow off from school, a text said. Let’s have a spa day. My treat. Mom.

  Spencer let out an involuntary squeal of delight. “Mom and I are having a spa day tomorrow!”

  Melissa paled. Several emotions washed over her face at once. “You are?” She sounded incredulous.

  “Uh-huh.” Spencer hit reply and typed Yes! Definitely.

  Melissa smirked. “Is she trying to buy your love now?”

  “No.” Spencer bristled. “It’s not like that.”

  The light turned green, and Melissa hit the gas. “I guess our roles are reversed,” she said breezily, taking a corner too fast. “Now you’re Mom’s favorite and I’m the outcast.”

  “What do you mean?” Spencer asked, trying to ignore the fact that Melissa had referred to her as an outcast. “Aren’t you getting along?”

  Melissa rolled her jaw until the joint cracked. “Forget it.”

  Spencer debated just letting it drop—Melissa was always overly theatrical. But curiosity got the best of her. “What happened?”

  They whizzed past Wawa, Ferra’s Cheesesteaks, and the Rosewood Historical District, a string of old buildings that had been converted into candle shops, day spas, and real estate offices. Melissa let out a long sigh. “Before Ian was arrested, Wilden came over and questioned us about the night Ali went missing. He asked if we’d been together the whole time, if we saw anything strange, whatever.”

  “Yeah?” Spencer had never told Melissa that she’d spied on her and Ian from the stairs that day, worried her sister was going to mention the fight Spencer and Ali had had outside the barn right before Ali disappeared. It was a memory Spencer had suppressed for years, but she’d let it slip to Melissa, even mentioning that Ali had admitted that she and Ian were secretly together and teased Spencer for wanting Ian too. Spencer had shoved Ali out of frustration, and Ali had slipped and hit her head on the rocky path. Luckily, Ali had been okay—until a few minutes later, anyway, when someone else shoved her in that half-dug hole in her backyard.

  “I told Wilden that we hadn’t seen anything strange and that we’d been together the whole time,” Melissa went on. Spencer nodded. “But after that, Mom asked if I would’ve given Wilden the same story if Ian hadn’t been in the room with me. I told her it was the truth. But after she kept pushing, I slipped up and said we’d been drinking. Mom pounced on me. ‘You need to be really, really sure about what you tell the police,’ she kept saying. ‘The truth really matters.’ She kept grilling me about it until I suddenly wasn’t really sure what happened. I mean, there might have been a couple minutes when I woke up and Ian wasn’t there. I was pretty wasted that night. And I mean, I don’t even know if I was in my room the whole time or . . .”

  She stopped abruptly, a muscle in her eye twitching. “My point is, I finally buckled. I said that maybe Ian had gotten up . . . even though I really didn’t know if he had or not. And she was like, ‘Okay then. You have to tell the cops that.’ Which is why we called Wilden back in to talk to me again. It was the day after you had that memory of Ian being in our yard when Ali died. My account was just the final nail in the coffin.”

  Spencer’s jaw dropped. “But that’s the thing,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I remember Ian in the yard anymore. I saw someone . . . but I have no idea if it was him.”

  Melissa made a left onto Weavertown Road, which was narrow and filled with apple orchards and farm co-ops. “Then I guess we both were wrong. And Ian paid the price.”

  Spencer sat back, thinking about that second time Wilden had come to their house. The night before, they’d discovered that Mona Vanderwaal was A, and she had almost pushed Spencer over the edge of Floating Man Quarry. The next morning, Melissa had slumped guiltily on the couch. Their parents stood at the back of the room, their arms crossed impassively at their chests, the disappointment obvious on both their faces.

  “I was a mess that day,” Melissa said, as if reading Spencer’s thoughts. She turned onto the Hastingses’ street, sweeping past the cop cars and landscaping trucks that were parked at the curb. Across the street, a plumber’s truck sat in the Cavanaughs’ driveway. During the latest freeze, one of the family’s main water pipes had burst. “I acted like I was really ashamed for not coming forward with the information sooner,” Melissa said. “But really, I was upset because I felt like I was selling out Ian for something I wasn’t sure he’d done.”

  So that was why Melissa had seemed so sympathetic to Ian when he was in prison. “We should go to the cops,” she said. “Maybe they’ll drop the case against Ian.”

  “There’s nothing we can do now.” Melissa gave her a wary sidelong glance, and Spencer wanted
to ask if she was in contact with Ian, too. She had to be, didn’t she? But there was something closed-off about Melissa’s expression as she pulled up the driveway and into the garage. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly, even after they’d come to a complete stop.

  “Why do you think Mom pushed you to say Ian was guilty?” she asked instead.

  Melissa turned, reaching for her Foley + Corinna purse from the backseat. “Maybe she sensed something was wrong with my story and was just trying to get the truth out of me. Or maybe . . .” An uncomfortable look crossed her face.

  “Maybe . . . what?” Spencer pressed.

  Melissa shrugged, pressing her thumb on the Mercedes logo in the middle of the steering wheel. “Who knows? Maybe she just felt guilty because she wasn’t exactly Ali’s biggest fan.”

  Spencer squinted, feeling more lost than before. As far as she knew, her mom had liked Ali as much as she’d liked Spencer’s other friends. If anyone hadn’t liked Ali, it was Melissa. Ali had stolen Ian from her.

  Melissa gave Spencer a taut smile. “I don’t even know why I brought any of this up,” she said breezily, patting Spencer’s shoulder. Then she stepped out of the car.

  Spencer watched numbly as Melissa navigated around her dad’s line of power tools and into the house. Her head felt like an upended suitcase, the contents of her brain like jumbled clothes all over the floor. Everything her sister just said was crazy. Melissa had been wrong about Spencer’s adoption, and she was wrong about this, too.

  The interior lights in the Mercedes snapped off. Spencer unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the car. The garage smelled like a dizzying combination of motor oil and fumes from the fire. In the Mercedes side mirror she caught a glimpse of a flash of dark hair across the street. It felt like someone’s eyes were on her back. When she turned, there was no one there.

  She reached for her phone, about to call Emily or Hanna or Aria and tell them what Melissa just said about Ian. But then she noticed an alert on her screen. One new text message.