Pretty Little Liars #12: Burned

by Sara Shepard

  Naomi pressed her lips together. “Yeah. Madison. I never talk about her.”

  “So … did she die in the accident?” Hanna held her breath.

  Naomi shook her head. “No. But she was messed up pretty bad—a lot of broken bones, and she was in a coma for a few days. She had to learn how to walk again. It was hard on all of us.” Her voice broke.

  Hanna let out a huge mental sigh—Madison wasn’t dead. But hearing what had happened hit her unexpectedly hard, bringing tears to her eyes. Now she had a new image in her mind, one of Madison hanging on to one of those physical-therapy walker things, struggling to take a step.

  Naomi set her empty cocktail glass on the table, sniffing once more. “In a weird way, though, that crash was the best thing for my cousin. It got her straight. She was a major alcoholic before that—drinking instead of going to class, drinking as soon as she woke up in the morning, drinking and getting behind the wheel and nearly killing herself. I mean, yeah, it sucked that she totaled the car and had to go through so much pain, but she hasn’t had a drink since. She seems much happier now.”

  “That’s … good,” Hanna said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Yeah.” Naomi raised her eyes to Hanna and smiled so sincerely it melted Hanna’s heart. “It is.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the pounding bass inside the club. All of a sudden, Hanna wanted to reach across and give Naomi a big hug. Everything she’d worried about, everything she’d feared, suddenly went up in smoke. Their suspicions about Naomi were unfounded. Naomi wasn’t pissed Madison had gotten in a car accident—she was relieved because it had turned her life around. Whoever A was, it was someone who’d found out about Madison another way.

  It was amazingly freeing. Now she could be friends with Naomi without worrying. She could trust everything Naomi said to be the truth.

  Hanna stood up and offered Naomi her hand. “Are you ready to go back in and Not it some more?”

  Naomi looked up at her and grinned. “Definitely.”

  They strutted back into the club like they owned the place. They’d been wrong about A before, Hanna thought as she squeezed Naomi’s hand. They were wrong again this time, too. A probably wanted her to suspect Naomi—and, in turn, lose a potential friend. Hanna wasn’t going to let that happen, though. Not this time.

  “Shhh!” Naomi scolded as they bumped clumsily down the hallway of the ship toward their room. It was a few hours later, and they’d gotten back onboard just before curfew, acting sober enough for a few minutes to fool the guards. “You almost took out that fire extinguisher!”

  “It was in my way,” Hanna declared petulantly, then burst into giggles.

  She hung on to Naomi’s back as Naomi inserted the key card into their door. The door opened, and the two girls tumbled inside. Hanna grabbed the door to the bathroom for balance. “It smells so good in here!” she cried, inhaling the fresh scents of baby powder and Kate Spade Twirl perfume.

  “Mind if I take the bathroom first?” Naomi asked, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Go for it,” Hanna said, flopping down on the bed.

  Naomi shut the door, and water started to run. Hanna rubbed her feet on the soft, silky sheets, feeling satisfyingly exhausted.

  Ping.

  She opened her eyes. Her phone, which was sitting on the nightstand, wasn’t blinking. Her gaze fell on the open laptop on Naomi’s bed. A message in the corner of the screen said New e-mail from Madison Strickland.

  She looked away. Who cared if Naomi had received an e-mail from Madison? Cousins contacted one another all the time.

  But one little peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  Hanna cocked her ear toward the bathroom. The shower was still running. Slowly, she eased her legs off the bed and tiptoed over to the laptop. The bedsprings squeaked as she sat on Naomi’s mattress. On the right-hand side of the desktop were two folders labeled School Papers and Princeton Application. Hanna scanned them, then exited. Next she waved the mouse over a Gmail icon. Taking a deep breath, she double-clicked on it. The program opened and launched right into her inbox. The new e-mail from Madison appeared. It was part of a thread titled That night. Hanna drew in a breath. The first e-mail in the thread was from early July of last summer.

  Hanna scrolled back to the beginning of the conversation, dated July 1. Are you still trying to figure out the name of the driver? Naomi had written to her cousin. Yes, Madison wrote back that same day. I think I’m getting close. And then, on July 3, Madison wrote another e-mail: We need to talk in person. I think I know who did this to me. Naomi replied on July 5: They’re going down. I’ll make sure they get what they deserve. There was a long stretch of no replies, but today, Madison had written: I’m so proud of you for doing this for me.

  Hanna signed out of Naomi’s e-mail and looked up, catching sight of her all-too-sober expression in the mirror over the bureau. They. Madison must have not only figured out that Hanna was the driver but also that Aria, Spencer, and Emily had helped her escape. If she’d shared this with Naomi in early July, Naomi would have had ample time to stalk all of the girls and dig up their secrets. And I’m so proud of you for doing this for me? What did Madison mean by that?

  Her heart pounded in her chest. She had been wrong. Again. Naomi was A. This proved it.

  “What are you doing?”

  Naomi stood in the bathroom doorway in a bathrobe. Hanna stepped away from Naomi’s bed. “H-hey!”

  “Hey,” Naomi said slowly. Her gaze flicked from Hanna to the laptop, then back to Hanna again. “Everything okay?”

  “Uh, I was just looking for my sleep mask,” Hanna said, fumbling on Naomi’s bed, then on the floor. She was sure Naomi could hear her pounding heart all the way across the room.

  Naomi walked to the bed and sat down. She gave Hanna a long look but didn’t say anything. For a moment, her face was illuminated by the moonlight, and when she smiled, her teeth looked long and garish, almost wolflike. “The bathroom’s yours if you want it,” she said finally.

  “I’m cool,” Hanna said. “I’m just going to go to bed.” If only she could text Mike and beg to stay with him another night. But then Naomi would be on to her for sure.

  “Okay, then.” Naomi shifted her laptop to the floor and pulled the covers over her. “Nighty-night, bestie!”

  “Night,” Hanna croaked, huddling under the duvet and knowing she wouldn’t sleep a wink.

  18

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  Saturday morning, Spencer rushed into the empty arcade where her friends were waiting. Emily paced nervously past the unoccupied video consoles for Modern Warfare and Dance Dance Revolution. Aria tapped her nails on top of a change machine. Hanna picked at a loose thread on her jean shorts, the lights from a pinball machine flashing across her face. Her hair was matted, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She’d texted them that morning saying she needed to talk, pronto.

  “I don’t have much time,” Spencer said, checking her watch. She was due to meet Reefer in the sauna at 10—and it was 9:45.

  “I found something last night.” Hanna’s voice was high and tweaky, like she’d drunk too many cups of coffee. “I looked on Naomi’s e-mail, just like you told me to do. There was an e-mail thread with Madison Strickland about the accident. I’m pretty sure they know it was us.”

  “Wait.” Aria looked startled. “So Madison is alive?”

  “Naomi said she was alive, but badly injured,” Hanna said. “The thing is, Naomi also said that she was, in a weird way, happy that Madison had gotten in the accident. There’s no way that’s true—not with what these e-mails said.”

  Spencer shut her eyes and let out a breath. Once again, that crack of bone resounded through her mind. She had done that. She could empathize with Aria now for how she felt about Tabitha—it seemed different, somehow, when you were the one who’d pushed or dropped someone. “Did the e-mails name us specifically?”

  “Not specifically, but one said Th
ey’re going down. They. Naomi must know we were all involved. She wrote the e-mail on July 5, too—before we gave that money back to Gayle, before the Spencer-and-Kelsey thing happened, before everything last summer. And then there was a new e-mail from Madison that said I’m so proud of you for doing this for me.”

  Emily ran her hand across her forehead. “Okay, so now we think Naomi is A. Or one of the As.”

  “It looks like it.” Hanna looked pained just saying the words. “It seemed like she didn’t know a thing, but I guess she’s just a really, really good actress.”

  “If Naomi is A—or even working with another A—then Naomi knows everything.” Aria pulled out her phone and showed it to the girls. “Look what A sent me.”

  Everyone studied the blurry image of the face of The Cliffs resort that had popped up on the screen. At the top of the frame were five girls on the roof deck. A blond girl stood precariously near the edge; a brunette of Aria’s height and build had her arms outstretched, ready to push. If you knew what you were looking for, it sealed their life-in-prison sentence.

  “You need to erase that!” Spencer grabbed Aria’s phone and hit various buttons.

  “Go ahead and try.” Aria crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s something wrong with my software—I can’t delete anything. If anyone sees it—Graham, the teachers on this trip, the cops—we’re done.”

  Hanna’s head whipped up. “You’re still speaking to Graham?”

  Aria squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s not A, okay?”

  “But what if Naomi tells him what we did?” Spencer whispered. “She could have been the one who sent you those photos, Aria—whoever she’s working with could have taken them and shared them with her. What if she mentions the picture on your phone, and what if he, like, goes crazy with revenge and hurts you?”

  Aria flicked the coin return slot on the change machine. “He really doesn’t seem like that kind of person.”

  Then Hanna swallowed. “What are we going to do about Naomi, guys?”

  “And whoever this second A might be?” Aria added.

  “One A at a time.” Spencer leaned against a Gran Turismo driving console. “Is there a way to prove Naomi is definitely A?”

  Hanna tapped her lips. “Spence, you said you saw someone running the other direction the night Gayle was murdered. Do you think it could have been a girl?”

  “I guess,” Spencer answered uncertainly. “But I didn’t see her face.” Spencer looked at Hanna. “Can you go through Naomi’s computer again? There could be something on there that links her to Gayle’s murder. You should see if she has the photos she sent to Aria on her computer, too—that would prove she’s A. If you find them, erase them. Otherwise she might send them to the cops.”

  Hanna cracked her jaw. “But she caught me looking at her laptop. I don’t want to go back to my room ever again!”

  “Sneak in when she’s not there,” Aria suggested.

  “What if she already sent those photos to the cops?” Hanna said. “Even if we do find something about Gayle, they’ll think we planted it there just to destroy her credibility.”

  “I doubt Naomi did,” Aria said. “Why else would she still be threatening us? Why else haven’t the cops knocked on our doors to arrest us?”

  Everyone stared at one another, not having an answer. Hanna’s hands shook. Emily wound the same piece of hair around and around her finger.

  “Whatcha talking about, girls?” a voice boomed behind them, and everyone jumped and turned. Jeremy stood in the doorway, his eyes concealed behind his star-shaped glasses. Spencer shivered. How long had he been standing there?

  Aria flinched. “Uh, nothing,” she said, shoving her phone back in her pocket.

  Everyone ducked their heads and marched toward the exit, the meeting over. Jeremy watched them, a strange smile on his face. When Spencer passed, he pushed something into her hand. “You forgot this from the restaurant last night. I grabbed it for you before I left.”

  She stared at the object in her palm. It was the Polaroid the waitress at the restaurant in Puerto Rico had taken when they were being serenaded. There was a sour feeling in her stomach; she hadn’t remembered Jeremy being there.

  “You two make such a cute couple,” Jeremy trilled. “It’s so nice to see young love bloom.”

  But as he shoved his glasses up his nose and did a military-style turn, Spencer’s body filled with dread. Reefer. She had to break it off with him—now.

  There was no way she was stealing A’s guy.

  Five minutes later, she stood just outside the sauna. The door was made of cracked wood slats that had darkened from moisture and time. Dry heat seeped from its pores, and the sharp scent of cedar hung heavily in the air. The smell would forever remind her of her Grandpa Hastings, who had loved saunas so much he built one in his house in Florida. She’d caught him lounging in there naked once and had never set foot in that wing of the house again.

  Taking a deep breath, she adjusted the straps on her bikini and pushed the creaky door open. It was so hot inside that she immediately began to sweat. The only light in the room was from the glowing coals in the corner. She could just make out someone sitting on the bottom step. His dreadlocks hung limply on his shoulders, and he had a towel wrapped around his waist.

  Her stomach flipped. This was going to be so, so difficult.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he said flirtatiously, standing up.

  “Reefer, I—” Spencer started, but Reefer slid his hands down her back and his lips touched her neck. Spencer shut her eyes and groaned. He smelled so good, like lemon and salt.

  “Reefer, wait.” Spencer pulled away from him and caught her breath.

  “What is it?” Reefer asked, panting. “Is it too hot in here? Want to cool off in the pool?”

  Spencer swallowed hard. “I do, but … Reefer, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

  Reefer stared at her. The only sound was the small creaks of the sauna’s wooden beams settling. “Why?” he asked, his voice cracking.

  Spencer wiped a bead of sweat from her eyes. “It’s Naomi,” she said.

  “What about her?”

  She sat down on the bench and stared into the darkness. If only she could tell him the truth. This is a girl who already wants to kill me, she wished she could say. She’s killed before. I have no idea what she’s capable of. And we’re in the middle of the ocean, with nowhere to hide, with no police …

  But she couldn’t say any of that. Instead, she cleared her throat. “She really likes you.”

  “But I don’t like her.” Reefer sounded puzzled.

  Spencer picked at a scab on her knee, then looked up, realizing something. “You said you met Naomi at a Princeton party. When was that?”

  “Months ago. Way before I met you.”

  “Was she visiting any other times?”

  Reefer thought for a moment. “Yeah. That same weekend you were in Princeton for the Eating Club thing. But it was just in passing—nothing happened between us.”

  Spencer blinked. “Naomi was there that weekend?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Her heart thudded. “Was she at the party where … the brownie incident happened?” She closed her eyes and thought about all the kids stuffed into that off-campus house. She hadn’t seen Naomi there, but she’d been high, and her attention had been on Harper and the other Ivy girls.

  “No, a different one,” Reefer furrowed his brows. “Why does it matter?”

  “No reason,” Spencer said faintly. Her head was spinning. If Naomi had been at Princeton the same weekend she went to the Ivy Pot Luck, she could have been the one who laced Spencer’s pot brownies with LSD. Hadn’t Spencer heard a freaky giggle when she’d stepped outside the Ivy house? Hadn’t she thought she’d seen a shock of blond hair just like Naomi’s slip into the woods?

  And was it possible that Hanna’s accident had started all this? Spencer had begged Hanna to come clean. After Jamaica, they didn’t need anot
her secret on their hands. Hanna had shaken her head. “I can’t do that to my dad’s campaign,” Hanna said a few days later. She and Spencer had been sitting at Wordsmith’s, a bookstore near Rosewood Day.

  “But it wasn’t even your fault,” Spencer said, jiggling her foot. “That other car swerved at you from out of nowhere, and then just disappeared.”

  “I think that’s what happened.” Hanna shut her eyes, as if trying to replay the scene on the back of her eyelids. “But now I’m not sure. Maybe I was in the wrong lane. The rain was so heavy, and the road is so twisty, and …”

  She trailed off, putting her head in her hands. For a while, the only sound in the store was the classical music that played over the speakers. Spencer had looked at her cell phone; she’d received a text from Phineas, a friend she’d made at the University of Pennsylvania summer program she’d enrolled in, asking her if she wanted to go to a party that night. She was about to text him back when she looked over and saw someone standing stock-still in one of the aisles, head cocked. The person slipped out of sight before Spencer could see who it was, but it looked like she had the same color blond hair as Naomi’s.

  Now Spencer peered cautiously at Reefer. “I just don’t want anyone mad at me right now.”

  Reefer lifted his palms. “Would it help if I told her to back off?”

  “Don’t do that!” Spencer said quickly. “I-I just don’t think we should start anything until we get off the ship.”

  Reefer looked crushed. “You really think that’s best?”

  “I do.”

  They stepped away from each other. Reefer turned his back and adjusted the towel around his waist, and Spencer made the mistake of looking at his dewy skin and taut lats. Her stomach swooped. As though pulled by an invisible string, she fell into him again. He pressed her against the wooden wall and kissed her hard.

  “I knew you couldn’t resist me,” Reefer joked.

  Spencer laughed sheepishly. “Okay, so maybe we make out in private until we get off the boat.”

  “If it means making out with you, I’m in.” Then he opened the door. “Let’s go to the pool. My skin feels like it’s boiling off.”