Ruthless
Page 24
Page 24
Her stomach roiled. It was The Cliffs.
She scrolled through more pictures at breakneck speed, revisiting the huge pool, the blue mosaic hallway to the spa, the speckled pygmy goats that wandered outside the resort’s high stucco walls. In a picture of a crowd at the restaurant, a face stuck out among the rest. There, clear as day, looking sunburned and wearing the lacrosse T-shirt he’d had on the day they’d arrived, was Noel Kahn. Mike Montgomery stood next to him, holding a Red Stripe. If a few random guests had moved out of the way, Kelsey would have gotten Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna in the shot, too.
She scrolled to the next photo and almost screamed. Tabitha stared back at her, happy and alive, wearing the golden sundress she’d worn the night Spencer and the others had killed her.
The iPhone slipped from her hands. It felt like something heavy and hard was sitting on her chest, preventing air from reaching her lungs. Details crystallized in her mind. Kelsey had been at The Cliffs the same time as she and her friends were. Perhaps Kelsey knew Tabitha. Perhaps Kelsey saw what Spencer and the others did to her. And then, when she met Spencer again at Penn, she made the connection. And when Spencer framed Kelsey for something she was responsible for, Kelsey had decided to exact revenge . . . as the new A.
She had her proof. Kelsey was A. And she wasn’t going to stop until she brought Spencer down once and for all.
Chapter 22
NOTHING LIKE A THREAT TO HELP WITH A DECISION
Later that night, Aria sat on the couch at Byron’s house, rain pounding on the windowpanes. She should have been looking at her art history project—Klaudia had cancelled their second Wordsmith’s meeting and rescheduled for a coffee shop on Friday—but instead she was on a website called BrooklynLofts, which featured gorgeous apartments in the Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Williamsburg, and Red Hook neighborhoods. The more she read about Brooklyn, the more she was convinced that it was where she and Ezra belonged. Practically every writer who mattered lived in Brooklyn. Ezra could probably get his book published just by walking to the local coffee shop.
Mike strolled into the room wearing a remarkably clean T-shirt and dark jeans. “Going somewhere?” Aria asked, looking up.
“Just out,” Mike mumbled, grabbing an organic, sugar-free candy from the bowl Meredith had set on the side table. She was one of those people who believed sugar consumption shortened one’s life span.
“On a date?” Aria goaded. Mike was wearing his nice Vans after all—the ones that weren’t covered in dirt.
Mike made a big deal of unwrapping the plastic on the candy. “Colleen and I are hanging out. It’s not a big deal. ”
“Are you two getting cozy at play practice?”
Mike winced. “It’s not like that. And, I mean, she’s not . . . ” He clamped his mouth shut and stared off at the teardrop-shaped prism that Meredith had hung in the window.
Aria sat up straighter. “She’s not . . . Hanna?”
“No,” Mike said quickly. “I was going to say she isn’t, like, the Hooters honey who’s totally digging me on Skype. ” Then he plopped down in the ancient Stickley chair Byron claimed to have found on the street in his college days. “Okay. Maybe I was going to say that. ”
“If you miss Hanna so much, why don’t you tell her?”
Mike looked horrified. “Because guys don’t do that. That’d make me look girly. ”
Aria snorted. Where did guys get these nonsensical ideas? She shifted closer to him. “Look, I can’t really talk about it, but I’m back with someone I was with last year. Someone I really, really missed, who I’d thought had forgotten me. But he came back and said he missed me, too. It was romantic, Mike. Not lame or wussy. ”
Mike crunched loudly on the candy, looking unconvinced. “So it’s really over between you and Noel?”
Aria lowered her eyes. It was still weird to hear talk of their breakup. “Yeah. ”
“So are you with Sean Ackard again?”
Aria wrinkled her nose, surprised at his assumption. Most of the time she forgot she’d dated Sean last year . . . and that she’d lived with him for a while.
“Then who is it?” Mike’s brow furrowed.
Aria looked at the BrooklynLofts site, then clicked the lid shut before Mike could see. She should tell him about Ezra, but it felt . . . awkward. Last year, Mike had found out about her fling with Ezra and had called her a freakish Shakespeare-lover. Maybe, to him, it would still be weird.
The doorbell rang. Aria glanced at Mike. “Is that Colleen?”
Mike shook his head. “I’m meeting her at the King James. I’m going to try to convince her to go into Agent Provocateur with me—apparently there’s a lingerie runway show tonight. I got two words for you: Double. Dees. ”
Rolling her eyes, Aria pushed her books aside and walked to the front door, dodging Lola’s baby toys, swing, and bouncer that littered the hall. When she pulled the door open, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily were huddled under the small porch overhang, dripping wet from the rain. Aria blinked at them in surprise.
“Can we come in?” Spencer asked.
“Of course. ” The wind gusted as Aria opened the door wider. The girls stepped inside, peeling off their soaked jackets. Mike hovered in the doorway, though when he saw Hanna, he turned on his heel and retreated to the den.
“We need to talk,” Spencer said after hanging up her coat. “Can we go to your room?”
“Um, okay. ” Aria turned, led them up the stairs to her bedroom, and shut the door. Everyone milled around awkwardly. After Real Ali tried to kill them and they’d reunited, they’d spent tons of time up here, but they hadn’t been in Aria’s room since shortly after Jamaica. Even Emily, whom Aria still called almost every night, looked twitchy and uncomfortable, like she’d rather be anywhere else.
Spencer slumped down on the floor, pushed Aria’s stuffed pig, Pigtunia, out of the way, and pulled an iPad out of her bag. “I need to show you guys something. ”
A series of photos appeared on the screen. When Spencer tapped the first one, Aria immediately recognized the pink stucco building from the resort they’d stayed at in Jamaica. Then she saw a picture of the mosaic-tiled tables where they ate breakfast every morning. When Spencer touched the screen once more, Noel’s face appeared in a crowd of drunken kids. And then came a shot of Tabitha in her yellow sundress. The blond girl grinned straight into the camera, wearing a faded blue string bracelet that looked so much like the one Their Ali had made for Aria and the others after The Jenna Thing.
Aria’s heart somersaulted. “Who took these?”
“They were on Kelsey’s phone. ” Spencer’s face was pale. “I stole her bag while she was at my house, then loaded these onto a flash drive. ”
Emily looked appalled. “You stole her photos?”
“I had to,” Spencer said defensively. “Don’t you see what this means? She was in Jamaica the same time as we were. She’s definitely A. She knows what we did in Jamaica, and now she’s out to get us. ”
Emily cleared her throat. “I really don’t think Kelsey’s A. I mentioned you to her the other day, Spencer, and she didn’t get angry. She just shrugged. I really don’t think she knows anything. ”
Spencer’s eyes flashed. “You saw her again?”
Emily cowered a little. “I . . . ”
Aria swiveled around to face Emily. “Wait, you know Kelsey?”
“It’s a long story,” Emily mumbled. “I met her at a party before I knew about what Spencer did to her. But she’s really, really nice. I think Spencer’s wrong about her. ”
“Em, you have to stay away from her!” Spencer shrieked. “She knows everything about Jamaica! She has a picture of Tabitha!”
“But why didn’t she start threatening you as soon as she met you at Penn?” Emily chewed on a thumbnail. “If she knew you’d done something awful, wouldn’t she have mentioned it?”
“She didn’t need to threaten me at Penn,” Spencer ex
plained. “I hadn’t done anything to her to warrant it—yet. Maybe she didn’t even realize what she saw in Jamaica—but then, later, after I screwed her over, she put the pieces together. Maybe she spent all her time in juvie gathering information about us . . . and Tabitha!”
“That seems a little far-fetched. ” Emily pulled her knees to her chest. “Just because she was in Jamaica doesn’t necessarily make her guilty or mean she saw anything. Noel and Mike were there, too, and we don’t assume they saw. ”
“Noel and Mike don’t have a reason to hate us,” Spencer pointed out. “Kelsey does. ”
Everyone exchanged nervous glances. A gust of wind bellowed outside, sending a series of humanlike creaks and moans through the house. Aria stared down at Tabitha’s photo. One of her eyes was closed in a gotcha! wink. Aria shut her eyes, remembering Tabitha’s twisted expression when she’d pushed her off the roof. The guilt descended upon her like an avalanche.
“What do you think we should do, Spencer?” Hanna whispered. “If Kelsey is A, and she figured out what happened with Tabitha, why isn’t she going to the police? What’s stopping her?”
Spencer shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t want the cops involved. Maybe she wants to do things her own way. ”
Aria’s stomach swooped. Mona Vanderwaal had tried to take matters into her own hands. So had Real Ali. And the four of them had nearly ended up dead both times.
“Aria?” Meredith called from downstairs. “Dinner’s ready!”
Aria looked at her three old friends, feeling awkward. “Do you guys want to stay?”
Hanna rose to her feet. “I should go. ”
“I have homework,” Spencer said, and Emily murmured an equally lame excuse. The three of them stomped down the stairs, fumbled into their jackets, and disappeared into the rainy night. Aria shut the door tight and leaned against it, feeling empty and scared. Nothing had been accomplished. They knew who A might be . . . but what were they supposed to do about it? Wait around in Rosewood for Kelsey to tell on them? Pack their bags for jail?
She listened to her friends’ cars start at the curb, suddenly feeling a rush of hatred for Rosewood so strong it made her toes curl in her shoes. What good had come out of living here besides Ezra? So many terrible secrets she harbored, so many moments she’d rather forget, had happened in Rosewood. Well, and Jamaica. And Iceland, too, but she quickly put that thought out of her mind.
She headed back to the den. Mike was gone, probably having snuck out when Aria and the others were upstairs. When she opened the laptop, she began an email to Ezra.
What do you say I move back to NYC with you NOW? I could finish up my high-school credits online. I don’t want to wait. I want to start our lives together.
She hit SEND and shut the laptop again. It was a win-win situation: Not only was Aria in love with Ezra, but he was also her ticket out of Rosewood. And she needed to get away as soon as possible.