Perfect

by Sara Shepard

Page 8

 

  Hanna sat back, trying to remember which video it could be—there were so many. Aria used to be obsessive about videotaping them. Hanna had always tried her hardest to duck out of every shot, because for her, the camera added not ten pounds but twenty.

  Wilden cracked his knuckles and fiddled with a phallic-looking pepper grinder that sat in the center of the table. Some pepper spilled on the tablecloth, and the air immediately smelled spicy. “The other thing I want to talk about is Alison herself. We have reason to believe that Alison’s killer might be someone from Rosewood. Someone who possibly still lives here today…and that person may still be dangerous. ”

  Everyone drew in a breath.

  “We’re looking at everything with a fresh eye,” Wilden went on, rising from the table and strolling around with his hands clasped behind his back. He’d probably seen someone on CSI do that and thought it was cool. “We’re trying to reconstruct Alison’s life right before she went missing. We want to start with the people who knew her best. ”

  Just then, Hanna’s BlackBerry buzzed. She pulled it out of her purse. Mona.

  “Mon,” Hanna answered quietly, getting up from her chair and wandering to the far side of the porch by her mother’s rosebushes. “I’m going to be a couple minutes late. ”

  “Bitch,” Mona teased. “That sucks. I’m already at our table at Rive Gauche. ”

  “Hanna,” Wilden called gruffly. “Can you please call whoever that is back?”

  At the same time, Aria sneezed. “Bless you,” Emily said.

  “Where are you?” Mona sounded suspicious. “Are you with someone?”

  “I’m at home,” Hanna answered. “And I’m with Emily, Aria, Spencer, and Off—”

  “You’re with your old friends?” Mona interrupted.

  “They were here when I got home,” Hanna protested.

  “Let me get this straight. ” Mona’s voice rose higher.

  “You invited your old friends to your house. On the night of our Frenniversary. ”

  “I didn’t invite them. ” Hanna laughed. It was still hard to believe Mona could feel threatened by her old friends.

  “I was just—”

  “You know what?” Mona cut her off. “Forget it. The Frenniversary is cancelled. ”

  “Mona, don’t be—” Then she stopped. Wilden was next to her.

  He plucked the phone from her hand and snapped it shut. “We’re discussing a murder,” he said in a low voice. “Your social life can wait. ”

  Hanna glared at him behind his back. How dare Wilden hang up her phone! Just because he was dating her mom didn’t mean he could get all dadlike on her. She stormed back to the table, trying to calm down. Mona was the queen of overreacting, but she couldn’t ice Hanna out for long. Most of their fights only lasted a few hours, tops.

  “Okay,” Wilden said when Hanna sat back down. “I received something interesting a few weeks ago that I think we should talk about. ” He pulled his notepad out.

  “Your friend, Toby Cavanaugh? He wrote a suicide note. ”

  “W-we know,” Spencer stuttered. “His sister let us read part of it. ”

  “So you know it mentioned Alison. ” Wilden flipped back through his notebook. “Toby wrote, ‘I promised Alison DiLaurentis I’d keep a secret for her if she kept a secret for me. ’” His olive-colored eyes scanned each of them.

  “What was Alison’s secret?”

  Hanna slumped down in her seat. We were the ones who blinded Jenna. That was the secret Toby had kept for Ali. Hanna and her friends hadn’t realized Toby knew that—until Spencer spilled the beans three weeks ago.

  Spencer blurted out, “We don’t know. Ali didn’t tell any of us. ”

  Wilden’s brow crinkled. He leaned over the patio table. “Hanna, a while ago you thought Toby killed Alison. ”

  Hanna shrugged impassively. She’d gone to Wilden during the time they’d thought Toby was A and Ali’s killer. “Well…Toby didn’t like Ali. ”

  “Actually, he did like Ali, but Ali didn’t like him back,” Spencer clarified. “He used to spy on her all the time. But I’m not sure if that had anything to do with his secret. ”

  Emily made a small whimper. Hanna eyed her suspiciously. All Emily talked about lately was how guilty she felt about Toby. What if she wanted to tell Wilden that they were responsible for his death—and Jenna’s accident? Hanna might have taken the rap for The Jenna Thing weeks ago when she had nothing to live for, but there was no way in hell she would confess now. Her life was finally back to normal, and she was in no mood to be known as one of The Psycho Blinders, or whatever they’d inevitably be called on TV.

  Wilden flipped a few pages on his pad. “Well, everyone think about it. Moving on…let’s talk about the night Alison went missing. Spencer, it says here that right before she disappeared, Ali tried to hypnotize you. The two of you fought, she ran out of the barn, you ran after her, but you couldn’t find her. Right?”

  Spencer stiffened. “Um. Yeah. That’s right. ”

  “You have no idea where she went?”

  Spencer shrugged. “Sorry. ”

  Hanna tried to remember the night Ali vanished. One minute, Ali was hypnotizing them; the next, she was gone. Hanna really felt like Ali had put her in a trance: as Ali counted down from one hundred, the vanilla candle wafting pungently through the barn, Hanna had felt heavy and sleepy, the popcorn and Doritos she’d eaten earlier roiling uncomfortably in her stomach. Spooky images began to flicker in front of her eyes: Ali and the others ran through a dense jungle. Large, man-eating plants surrounded them. One plant snapped its jaws and grabbed Ali’s leg. When Hanna had snapped out of it, Spencer was standing in the doorway of the barn, looking worried…and Ali was gone.

  Wilden continued to stroll around the porch. He picked up a Southwest-style ceramic pot and turned it over, like he was checking for a price tag. Nosy bastard. “I need you girls to remember all you can. Think about what was happening around the time Alison disappeared. Did she have a boyfriend? Any new friends?”

  “She had a boyfriend,” Aria offered. “Matt Doolittle. He moved away. ” As she sat back, her T-shirt slid off her shoulder, revealing a lacy, fire engine red bra strap. Slut.

  “She was hanging out with these older field hockey girls,” Emily volunteered.

  Wilden looked at his notes. “Right. Katy Houghton and Violet Keyes. I got them. How about Alison’s behavior. Was she acting strangely?”

  They fell silent. Yes, she was, Hanna thought. She thought of one memory straightaway. On a blustery spring day, a few weeks before Ali disappeared, her dad had taken them both to a Phillies game. Ali was jittery the whole night, as if she’d downed packs and packs of Skittles. She kept checking her cell phone for texts and had seemed livid that her inbox was empty. During the seventh inning stretch, when they sneaked to the balcony to ogle a group of cute boys sitting in one of the skyboxes, Hanna noticed Ali’s hands trembling. “Are you okay?” Hanna asked. Ali smiled at her. “I’m just cold,” she explained.

  But was that suspicious enough to bring up? It seemed like nothing, but it was hard to know what the police were looking for.

  “She seemed okay,” Spencer said slowly.

  Wilden looked at Spencer dead-on. “You know, my older sister was a lot like Alison. She was the leader of her clique, too. Whatever my sister said, her friends did. Anything. And they kept all kinds of secrets for her. Is that how it worked for you guys?”

  Hanna curled up her toes, suddenly irritated at where this conversation was going.

  “I don’t know,” Emily mumbled. “Maybe. ”

  Wilden glanced down at the vibrating cell phone clipped to his holster. “Excuse me. ” He ducked toward the garage, pulling his phone from his belt.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Emily let out a pent-up breath. “Guys, we have to tell him. ”

  Hanna narrowed her eyes. “Tell him what?”

  Emily held up he
r hands. “Jenna is blind. We did that. ”

  Hanna shook her head. “Count me out. And anyway, Jenna’s fine. Seriously. Have you noticed those Gucci sunglasses she wears? You have to get on, like, a year-long waiting list for a pair of those—they’re harder to score than a Birkin bag. ”

  Aria gaped at Hanna. “What solar system are you from? Who cares about Gucci sunglasses?”

  “Well, obviously not someone like you,” Hanna spat.

  Aria tensed her jaw and leaned back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know,” Hanna snarled.

  “Guys,” Spencer warned.

  Aria sighed and turned to face the side yard. Hanna glared at her pointy chin and ski-slope nose. Even Aria’s profile wasn’t as pretty as hers.

  “We should tell him about Jenna,” Emily goaded.

  “And A. The police should handle this. We’re in over our heads. ”

  “We’re not telling him anything, and that’s final,” Hanna hissed.

  “Yeah, I don’t know, Emily,” Spencer said slowly, poking her car keys through one of the tabletop’s wide slats.

  “That’s a big decision. It affects all our lives. ”

  “We’ve talked about this before,” Aria agreed.

  “Besides, A is gone, right?”

  “I’ll leave you all out of it,” Emily protested, crossing her arms over her chest. “But I’m telling him. I think it’s the right thing to do. ”

  Aria’s cell phone chirped and everyone jumped. Then Spencer’s Sidekick vibrated, wriggling toward the edge of the table. Hanna’s BlackBerry, which she’d shoved back into her purse, let out a muffled chime. And Emily’s little Nokia made that old-school telephone ring sound.

  The last time the girls’ phones all rang at once had been outside Ali’s memorial service. Hanna had the same feeling she’d had the first time her father had taken her on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Rosewood County Fair when she was five—that of dizzying nausea. Aria opened her phone. Then Emily, then Spencer. “Oh God,” Emily whispered.

  Hanna didn’t even bother reaching for her BlackBerry; instead, she leaned over Spencer’s Sidekick.

  You really thought I was gone? Puh-lease. I’ve been watching you this whole time. In fact, I might be watching you right now. And girls—if you tell ANYONE about me, you’ll be sorry.

  —A

  Hanna’s heart throbbed. She heard footsteps and turned around. Wilden was back.

  He shoved his cell phone into his holster. Then he looked at the girls and raised an eyebrow. “Did I miss something?”

  Had. He. Ever.

  8

  IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO READ THE BOOK BEFORE STEALING FROM IT

  About a half hour later, Aria pulled up to her fifties-modern brown box of a house. She cradled her Treo to her chin, waiting for Emily’s voice-mail message to finish. At the beep, she said, “Em, it’s Aria. If you’re really considering telling Wilden, please call me. A’s capable of…of more than you think. ”