by Sara Shepard
On the next station, Aria’s face popped into view. Reporters chased her as she ran from her dad’s Civic into Rosewood Day. “Ms. Montgomery! Did someone set the fire to cover up a vital clue?” screamed a voice. Aria kept going, not answering them. A headline popped up on the screen. What Is This Little Liar Hiding?
“Whoa.” Andrew’s face was red. “They seriously need to stop this.”
Spencer massaged her temples. At least Aria wasn’t spouting that they’d seen Ali. But then she thought about the texts she’d received from Aria earlier that day, suggesting that Ali’s spirit was trying to tell them something important about the night she died. Spencer didn’t believe in any of that nonsense, but her words reminded Spencer of something Ian had said the day he broke house arrest. What if I told you there’s something you don’t know? he’d whispered to her as she sat on her back porch. There’s a secret that’s going to turnyour life upside down. Ian had been wrong in thinking that Jason and Wilden were involved in Ali’s murder, but she still believed there was something going on out there that none of them understood.
The alarm on Andrew’s diving watch beeped and he stood. “The Valentine’s Day dance committee calls.” He groaned. He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek, then squeezed her limp hand. “You okay?”
Spencer didn’t make eye contact. “I think so.”
He cocked his head, waiting. “Are you sure?”
Spencer opened and closed her fists. It was pointless trying to hide it; Andrew had an uncanny knack for knowing when something was bothering her. “I found out some really crazy stuff about my parents,” she blurted. “My mom kept this really big secret from me about how she and my dad met. Which makes me wonder if she’s covering up other stuff too.” Like why we can’t talk about the night Ali died ever again, she almost added.
Andrew wrinkled his nose. “Why don’t you just talk to her about it?”
Spencer picked an imaginary piece of lint off her lilac cashmere sweater. “Because it seems off-limits.”
Andrew sat back down. “Look. The last time you suspected something about your family, you snuck around behind their backs trying to figure out the truth . . . and you just got burned in the end. Whatever it is, just be open about it. Otherwise you might end up assuming the wrong thing.”
Spencer nodded. Andrew kissed her, slipped on his old, battered wingtips, slid into his wool duffel coat, and went out the door. She watched him walk down the path, then sighed. Maybe he was right. Sneaking around wouldn’t do her any good.
She was on the second riser of the stairs when she heard whispering in the kitchen. Curious, she paused, pricking up her ears to listen.
“You have to keep this quiet,” her mother hissed. “It’s very important. Can you do that this time?”
“Yes,” Melissa answered defensively.
And then they banged their way through the back door. Spencer stood still, her ears ringing with the silence. If Melissa was on the outs with their mother, why were they sharing secrets? She thought again about what her mom had told her yesterday—the secret even Melissa didn’t know. Spencer still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that her mother had been a student at Yale Law.
As she listened to the garage door rumble up and the Mercedes pull out of the garage, she suddenly needed tangible proof.
Spinning around, Spencer walked into her dad’s dark, cigar-stinky office. The last time she’d been in here, she’d burned his entire computer hard drive to a CD and found the bank account that got her into the whole Olivia mess. Scanning her dad’s bookshelves now, which contained law volumes, first-edition Hemingways, and Lucite plaques congratulating him for winning such-and-such a court battle, she noticed a red book tucked away in an upper corner. YALE LAW YEARBOOK, the spine said.
Quietly, she dragged her dad’s Aeron desk chair to the bookshelf, climbed on the wobbling seat, and grabbed the book with the tips of her fingers. As she cracked it open, the smell of mildewed paper wafted out. An old photo fluttered out too, sliding across the freshly waxed wood floor. She bent down and picked it up. It was a small, square Polaroid of a pregnant blond woman in front of a pretty brick building. The woman’s face was blurry. It wasn’t Spencer’s mom, but there was something familiar about her. She flipped the photo over. Written on the back was the date June 2, almost seventeen years ago. Could this be Olivia, Spencer’s surrogate? Spencer was born in April, but maybe Olivia hadn’t lost the baby weight right away?
Spencer slipped the photo back into the yearbook and leafed through the portraits of first-year law students. She found her father right away. He looked almost identical to how he looked today, except his face was a little less weathered and his hair was thicker and longer, almost feathery. Taking a deep breath, she flipped forward to the M’s for Macadam, her mother’s maiden name. And there she was, with the same lake-straight, chin-length blond hair and broad, dazzling smile. There was a faded yellow ring from a coffee cup above her picture, as if Spencer’s dad had propped the book open to this page, staring longingly at her mother’s picture for hours.
It really was true—her mom had been a student at Yale.
Aimlessly, Spencer flipped through more pages. The first-year students were smiling so enthusiastically, having no idea how hard law school was going to be. Then, something in her brain caught. She did a double take at one of the student’s names, then examined his picture. A young man with light-colored hair and an eerily familiar hooked, oversize nose stared back at her. Ali had always said that if she’d inherited that nose, she would have gone straight to a plastic surgeon and gotten it fixed.
Spots swam in front of Spencer’s eyes. This had to be another hallucination. She checked the student’s name again. And once more after that. Kenneth DiLaurentis. It was Ali’s father.
Beep.
The book fell from her hands. Her cell phone vibrated from inside her cardigan pocket. Spencer stared out the windows of her father’s office, suddenly feeling like someone was watching her. Had she just heard a giggle? Was that a person darting behind the fence? Her heart pounded as she opened her phone.
Think that’s crazy? Now take another spin through your dad’s hard drive . . . starting with J. You won’t believe what you find.—A
Chapter 16 It’s the Queen Bee’s Knees
Hanna and Iris sat at a round table in the Preserve at Addison-Stevens’ cafe, with steaming lattes, homemade organic yogurt, and fresh fruit cups in front of them. They definitely had the best table in the place—not only was it the farthest one from the nurses’ station, but it also gave them a prime view out the window of the hot groundskeeper, who was vigorously shoveling snow off the drive in a tight, long-sleeved thermal tee.
Iris nudged Hanna. “Omigod. Tara’s going to eat a pooberry!”
Hanna swiveled her head. Tara, who was sitting with Alexis and Ruby at the same table they’d sat at when Hanna had joined them for dinner two night ago, had just popped a blueberry into her mouth. “Ewwww,” Hanna and Iris exclaimed in unison. For whatever reason, blueberries here were called pooberries. It was a huge faux pas to eat them.
Tara stopped and smiled hopefully at them. “Hi, Hanna! What’s ew?”
“You.” Iris smirked.
Tara’s smile evaporated. A bloom of red crept into her chubby cheeks. Her eyes moved to Hanna, an acrid, vengeful look on her face. Hanna turned away haughtily, pretending she didn’t notice. Then Iris stood up and tossed her yogurt in the trash. “C’mon, Han. I have something to show you.” She grabbed Hanna’s arm.
“Where are you going?” Tara whined, but both girls ignored her.
Iris snorted as they exited the cafeteria and walked down the long corridor toward the patient rooms. “Did you see her shoes? She claims they’re Tory Burch, but they look more like Payless.”
Hanna snickered and then felt a tiny twinge of guilt—Tara had been the first girl to speak to her. But whatever. It wasn’t Hanna’s fault Tara was so clueless.
And besides, h
anging out with Iris had made Hanna’s stay at the Preserve at Addison-Stevens—or the Preserve, as everyone here called it—fabulous. She’d shown Hanna the gym and the spa, and last night, they’d stolen cleansers, toners, and milk masks from a spa treatment room and given each other facials. Hanna had awoken this morning atop 1,000-thread-count sheets, well rested for the first time in what seemed like years, and her legs already looked thinner from the organic fruits and veggies she’d been eating.
Hanna and Iris had bonded instantly, spending hours in their shared bedroom talking. Iris had admitted point-blank that she was at the Preserve for an eating disorder—“the only acceptable reason to be here,” she added. Hanna had quickly said that she was here for eating issues, too—which was kind of the truth. The first time Iris was sent to the Preserve for treatment was when she was in seventh grade, she said. She’d gone a whole week without eating. She’d gotten out just in time for summer vacation—right around when Ali went missing, Hanna couldn’t help but note to herself—but Iris’s mom forced her back in by the beginning of October when her weight dropped low again. The Preserve wasn’t the only hospital Iris had been to, but she said she liked it here the best.
Just knowing Iris had eating issues made Hanna less self-conscious about her own. Safe in their room, she didn’t struggle to hide the food journal she’d kept since the summer after seventh grade, a record of all the calories she ate in a day. Nor did she freak out when Iris caught her struggling into her jeans from eighth grade, which she’d brought along for the express purpose to gauge whether she was gaining or losing weight. As it turned out, Iris had an old pair of skinny jeans in her closet too.
Whatever A intended by sending Hanna here, it was having the opposite effect. Which had led Hanna to a new theory: Maybe A was on Hanna’s side. Maybe A had sent her here to get her away from the chaos of Rosewood, to keep her safe from whoever had set that fire.
Now Hanna followed Iris down the saffron yellow hall to a small door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. Iris wiggled her eyebrows, put her finger to her lips, then punched numbers into a small keypad located just to the left of the knob. The bolt released and the door opened. At the top of a set of metal stairs was a small, cozy room, just big enough for two comfy chairs. Graffiti covered the four walls, amazing murals of people’s faces, big, spindly trees, a couple of cartoonish owls, and tons ofscribbled messages and names. There was also a big stack of contraband People and Us Weekly magazines on the windowsill.
“Wow,” Hanna breathed.
“This is my secret hiding spot,” Iris said, throwing her arms open as if to say taa-daah! “I’m the only one here right now who knows the combo to get in. Most of the staff don’t even know it, and those who do just let me do whatever I want.” She held up a copy of People. Angelina Jolie was on the cover, as usual. “I’ve got someone who sneaks these in for me. I’m totally addicted. I’ve got a bunch in the drawer of my nightstand, too. You can read them, as long as you keep quiet about it.”
“Absolutely,” Hanna said, grinning. “Thanks.”
Iris gestured at the drawings on the walls. “They’re all by former patients. Isn’t it awesome?”
Hanna nodded, though she also felt eerie shivers as she looked at all the names. Eileen. Stef. Jenny. Why had they been here? What had they suffered from—an eating disorder or ADD, the milder reasons for coming to the Preserve, or something much scarier? Ali’s brother, Jason, had apparently spent time in a hospital like this back in high school. His name had been all over that ledger Emily found in the office at the Radley party.
It was weird that Ali had never shared that secret with any of them. There was only one memory Hanna could recall where Ali might have hinted at Jason’s mental problems. At the beginning of seventh grade, Hanna and Ali were hanging out alone on a Sunday afternoon, trying to pick out their outfits for the next day. As Ali was slipping out of a pair of Citizens corduroys, the phone rang. Ali picked it up and was silent. Her mouth got very small, and her face paled a shade. Hanna heard screechy, spooky laughter through the receiver. “For the last time, stop it, loser!” Ali screamed, and hung up.
“Who was that?” Hanna whispered.
“Just my stupid brother,” Ali mumbled into her chest.
And then she dropped it. But now, Hanna was pretty sure Jason had been calling from the Radley—the logbooks Emily found said he checked in for a few hours on the weekends. Maybe he’d called Ali from there to scare her. Jerk.
Iris settled on one of the chairs, and Hanna plopped down on the other. Silently, they both stared at the doodles and names. Helena. Becky. Lindsay. “I wonder where they all are now,” Hanna said softly.
“Who knows,” Iris answered, finger-combing her white-blond hair. “Though I heard a rumor about this one patient who was supposed to check in for, like, two weeks, but her parents forgot about her. She still lives here . . . in the basement.”
Hanna snorted. “That’s so not true.”
“Yeah, probably not. But you never know.”
Iris reached under the cushion and pulled out a small disposable camera wrapped in green paper. “I smuggled this in from the outside, too. Want to get a picture of us together?”
Hanna hesitated—the last thing she wanted was proof that she’d been in a mental hospital. “It’s not like you’ll be able to get it developed,” she said warily.
“I want to send the camera to my dad.” Iris lowered her eyes. “Not that he opens my letters.” Her bottom lip started to tremble. “We used to be really close, but then he took this high-stress job as the dean of medicine at some stupid hospital. He has no time for me anymore. And now that I’m here . . .” She shrugged. “I don’t exist for him.”
“My dad’s the same,” Hanna gasped, amazed they had this in common, too. “I used to talk to him about everything, but then he moved away and got this new girlfriend, Isabel. Now they’re living in my house—with Isabel’s perfect daughter, Kate.” She curled her toes. “Kate can do absolutely nothing wrong. My dad’s totally obsessed with her.”
“I can’t believe your dad would like someone better than you.” Iris sounded appalled.
“Thanks,” Hanna said gratefully, staring out the little attic window at the empty tennis courts behind the facility. For a long time, she’d reasoned that her dad no longer loved her as much because she wasn’t pretty and perfect. But Iris was perfect . . . and her dad still treated her like shit. Maybe daughters weren’t the problem—maybe fathers were.
Fueled with fury, she plucked the camera from Iris’s hand and held it outstretched between the two of them. “Let’s give all the sucky dads in the world the finger.”
“Totally,” Iris said, and at the count of three, both of them squished their faces close and raised their middle fingers. Hanna pressed the button.
“Awesome,” Iris said, advancing the film and slipping the camera back into her bag.
Hanna slid down the arm so that she and Iris shared the chair. They were both skinny enough to fit. The room smelled a little like cinnamon and sun-baked wood. “How’d you find out about this place, anyway?”
“Courtney gave me the code,” Iris said, kicking off her navy studded Maloles ballet flats.
Hanna picked at her thumbnail. The only slightly annoying thing about Iris was that she talked nonstop about her old roommate, Courtney, who apparently used to be the grand dame of the Preserve. In the past day, Iris had told twelve separate stories about this Courtney bitch—not that Hanna had been counting or anything.
“So when did Courtney leave?” Hanna asked as nonchalantly as she could.
One corner of Iris’s mouth turned down. “November, I think? I can’t remember.” She reached into the metal cup and pulled out a blue Magic Marker.
“So what happened to her? Is she normal now?”
Iris uncapped the marker and began doodling on the wall. “Who knows? I haven’t talked to her since she left.”
Hanna felt a dart of triumph. “Why not?”
&nbs
p; Iris shrugged, absently scribbling. “She lied about why she was in here. She said it was because of mild depression, but it turned out she had way bigger issues. I only found out afterward. She was as messed up as all the other patients here.”
The wind creaked against the windowpanes. Hanna faked a cough, hiding her guilty expression. It wasn’t like she’d been particularly forthcoming with Iris about why she was in here, either—she hadn’t told her a thing about Ali, A, or Mona.
Iris pulled the Magic Marker away, revealing what she’d drawn on the wall. It was an old-fashioned wishing well, complete with an A-frame roof and a crank. Hanna blinked hard, stunned. Little prickles danced up her arms. The wishing well was eerily familiar . . . and definitely not a coincidence.
“Why did you draw that?” she whispered.
Iris paused for a moment, looking caught. She nervously twisted the cap back on the marker. Hanna’s heart raced faster and faster. Finally, Iris pointed at Hanna’s purse. “Your bag was open on the bureau today. I didn’t mean to peek inside, but that shirt thing was sitting right on top. What is it, anyway? “
Hanna stared at her purse and let out a breath. Of course—she’d been carrying around Ali’s Time Capsule flag like it was the Hope diamond, never letting it out of her sight.
She touched the fabric with her fingertips. Sure enough, the drawing of the wishing well was on top, clearly visible. Next to it was a strange symbol Hanna couldn’t decipher—it looked like a letter in a circle with a slash through it, like a No Parking sign. Instead of the letter P, there was a smudged I... or a J. Maybe for Jason. No Jason Allowed. A shiver rippled through her. Every time she looked at Ali’s flag, it felt like Ali’s presence was close, watching. For a moment, she almost thought she could detect a faint whiff of Ali’s favorite vanilla soap.
Hanna felt Iris’s eyes on her, waiting for an answer. Don’t tell her, a voice in her head said. If you tell her the truth, she’ll thinkyou’re a wacko. “It’s for this game we do at school,” she heard herself say nonchalantly. “I’m keeping it for my friend, Alison.” She zipped up her bag and squished it under the seat.