Crushed (24 page)

There wasn’t just one e-mail to Fuji, either—there were six in the thread. Words flashed before her eyes.
Thank you for your thoughts.
The next one:
I’m very sorry you lost your friend.
And the last:
We will speak more soon. I was very intrigued when you said not everyone is telling me the whole truth, and I hope you can elaborate.

Someone laughed loudly behind her, and Aria dropped the iPad back to the desk. She stared around the room blearily, as if she were caught in a nightmare. Noel had lost his friend . . . as in
Tabitha
? Or Ali? And who did he think was lying? Aria? Was
that
why Fuji was frantically trying to speak with them?

She reached for her phone and punched in Spencer’s number. This was getting out of hand. It was time to admit some of this stuff to her friends. The phone rang once, then twice.

“Hello?” Spencer answered. “Aria? What’s up?”

A knock sounded on the window, and Aria jumped. Noel stood on the other side, his discarded cell phone now in his palm. He smiled at her so sweetly, so guilelessly, that Aria’s heart cracked into a million pieces.

“Aria?” Spencer’s voice came through the receiver.

Aria waved back to Noel, tears in her eyes. “Um, I—I butt-dialed you,” she said to Spencer. And then she hung up, telling her nothing.

24
Someone Slips

On Saturday afternoon, a few hours before prom, Spencer and Hanna sat in Hanna’s bedroom at her father’s house. A giant full-length mirror stood near the corner. The bed was strewn with makeup cases, hair dryers, and hair spray, and an assortment of bobby pins, clips, and curling irons lay on the floor like pickup sticks. Jewelry on loan from Spencer’s and Hanna’s moms sat on a velvet cloth on the bureau. Their gowns hung from hooks on the back of the closet doors, and their shoes sat at attention on the carpet underneath. The air smelled like perfume and that vague, chemical dry cleaning scent Spencer could never quite pin down. It made her feel a little sad that they
all
couldn’t be here for pre-prom prep, but no one had heard from Aria, and Emily had, bizarrely, invited Iris as her date. They were getting ready at the Fieldses’ house.

There was a knock on the door. Hanna’s father popped his head in. “How’s it going, girls? Anything I can do?”

“I don’t know, Dad.” Hanna smirked. “Want to help with makeup?”

Mr. Marin raised his palms and backed away. “That’s not my territory.” He smiled adoringly at Hanna. “You look beautiful, though.”

“You
do
look awesome.” Kate poked her head in next. Half her hair cascaded down her shoulders in tendrils, but the other half was still straight.

“Thanks,” Hanna said, sounding surprised. “You do, too, Kate.”

Then Kate and Mr. Marin disappeared into the hall. Hanna looked at Spencer. “Do you think I should have asked her to hang out with us?”

“Maybe.” Spencer shrugged. Not that she was really into socializing. And Kate’s simple, uncomplicated life would probably rub her the wrong way at the moment. That girl didn’t have an A in her life. Or secrets she was hiding. Or a death threat on her head.

Hanna slumped back in the chair, making no move to go into the hall and call Kate back. “I wish Mike would call the house and let me know he’s still my date.” She eyed Spencer in the mirror. “Who’s the guy
you’re
going with, Spence?”

Spencer picked up an eyelash curler. “Oh, just someone I met.”

“Where?”

“At the King James,” Spencer said automatically, using the story she’d rehearsed in her head. “He works at that upscale men’s boutique.”

“Beauregard’s?” Hanna’s eyes lit up. “I thought about getting Mike cuff links from there. I’m totally going to hit him up for a recommendation . . .
if
Mike and I are still together.”

“Um, I don’t know if cuff links are his specialty,” Spencer said, biting down hard on the inside of her cheek. She had a feeling this was going to be a long night. Hopefully Chase wouldn’t want to chat with any of her friends.

Thinking of Chase, she pulled out her phone, leaned over Hanna, and showed her the picture he’d given her of Ali at The Preserve. “Look.”

Hanna’s lips were pursed. “Where did you get this?”

“I’ve been digging up stuff about her. You know where this is, right?”

“
Duh.
I’d know that dayroom anywhere.” Hanna’s brow furrowed. “Ali looks about our age, maybe a little younger.” She pointed at the figure whose face they couldn’t see. “Who’s that?”

“I was hoping you’d know. He’s with Ali, don’t you think?”

Hanna squinted. “Too bad he’s not wearing something distinctive. Everyone and their mother has a black hoodie, huh?”

“Noel has a black hoodie,” Spencer said, coughing awkwardly.

Hanna gave Spencer a long, serious look. “It does seem like him, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t want it to be.” Spencer sank to the bed and rubbed her eyes.

“But it seems like it, doesn’t it?” Hanna asked softly. Hanna had told Spencer about how Mike didn’t remember where Noel had been when the bomb went off on the cruise . . . and about how she’d seen Noel at the Bill Beach. She shook her head. “And I still can’t believe you went into that apartment building in Philly by yourself. You could have been killed.”

“I think A just wanted to scare me,” Spencer mumbled, her stomach churning. It all seemed so obvious now: Ali and her helper had planted that address in the CVS system for Chase to find. They’d rigged the trapdoor to fall when Spencer snooped around. So did that mean A
knew
Spencer was snooping?

Spencer leaned into the mirror and blotted a bit of smeared eye shadow on her temple. “I wish I could go back to that building, but I’m way too scared.”

“Why would you want to go
back
?”

“Because even if that’s not where Ali’s private nurse lives, Ali and her helper have been there, booby-trapping the place. And now that the trap has been sprung, there’s a chance they’d go back and collect all the stuff they’d planted in that attic. Maybe that bowling ball is Noel’s dad’s. Maybe something up there can be traced to Ali.”

“Huh.” Hanna slowly ran a brush through her hair. “I never thought about that.”

It was a theory Chase had raised. Spencer had begged him to go in her place today to see if Ali or her mysterious boyfriend showed up, but he couldn’t. He didn’t explain why.

Her laptop beeped as if on cue. Spencer had a new e-mail in her top secret account. She glanced at the screen, shielding it from Hanna with her hand.
Looking forward to seeing you tonight, Britney
, Chase wrote, adding a winking smiley face.
And, by the way, I just found out something interesting about Alison.

Her heart started to pound.
What?

Another e-mail popped up.
Don’t want to tell you online
, Chase wrote.
But I’ll see you soon.

Spencer gritted her teeth. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Only three more hours.

It was going to feel like an eternity.

Just as dusk was falling, Spencer and Chase, who met her back at her house, walked hand in hand to the limo at the curb. As Chase held the door for her, she gave him a bashful smile.

“You look amazing,” Chase said, kissing her cheek.

Spencer tried not to swoon. “You look great, too.” Chase’s tux fit him perfectly. He’d been so polite when he’d handed Spencer her corsage and posed for the pictures. Even Amelia, who wrinkled her nose at everything, had gawked.

The limo turned out of the cul-de-sac and onto the country road toward Philadelphia. The front window was down just a little, blowing in the sweet-smelling spring air.

But even when Chase popped the cork of a bottle of champagne and handed Spencer a glass, she couldn’t relax. She turned to Chase. “Now that we’re alone, can you please tell me what you know about Alison?”

Chase sipped from his champagne flute. “I got some interesting footage from a friend. It’s a surveillance video from a building not far from here. There’s a girl in one of the shots who looks like Alison.”

Spencer’s skin prickled. “You’re kidding.” She glanced at Chase’s phone, which was on his lap. “Do you have it on you? Can we watch?”

Chase stared at his phone, too. “I don’t have it.”

“Oh.” Spencer slumped.

“Was that the only reason you came out with me tonight?” Chase’s voice was froggy.

“Of course not!” Spencer cried. “I just . . . well, that sounds
huge.
I’d love to see it.”

He took her hand. “This is huge too, though. Being with you, I mean. I just want a calm, normal night, one where we don’t talk about Ali or stalkers or the shitty things that have happened to us. One where, like, you don’t almost die from something falling on your head.” He tried to laugh.

Spencer blinked. “But . . .”

“How about this.” Chase squeezed her hand. “How about I access the video after our first dance. That’s, what, an hour from now? I just want a little bit of time with this amazing girl I met named Spencer. Okay?”

Bubbles from the champagne fizzed in Spencer’s nose. She gazed at the blurry highway lights above them. When
was
the last time she’d just enjoyed something? Even the cruise, which was supposed to be relaxing, had been a horrible, stressful mess. And it was kind of nice to be thought of as just Spencer, a regular girl, not Spencer the Pretty Little Liar.

“As long as you promise to show me everything as soon as that first dance ends,” she said.

“I promise.”

They shook on it. Chase rested his head on her shoulder. They looked out the window as the city of Philadelphia glittered on the horizon, and they started to talk. Spencer asked him about what his prom would have been like, and who he would have liked to have taken, and what he was thinking about studying in college next year. Then they talked about her upcoming semester at Princeton. Spencer even told him a little about the huge mishap at the potluck party the weekend she’d visited.

They talked the whole traffic-jammed ride into the city, and before Spencer knew it, they were taking the off-ramp near the zoo. Her pulse had slowed. Her cheeks hurt from laughing. Talking about everything but the case
was
a good suggestion.

Then, as they stopped at a light, the driver turned on the radio.
And now, turning to the murder investigation of Tabitha Clark. Investigators say they’ve made headway with their questioning and have several potential suspects.

Spencer dug her nails into her knee.
Suspects?

“That story is crazy, isn’t it?” Chase crossed his legs. “I’ve been following it a little. A few people have sent requests for me to post about it on my site.”

“Huh,” Spencer said, shakily pushing a lock of hair off her shoulder.

Chase grabbed his champagne flute. “Actually, you were in Jamaica when Tabitha died, weren’t you? Did you see anything?”

Spencer turned and stared at him, a cold feeling trickling down her back. “I never told you I was in Jamaica.”

Chase blinked. “Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.” She started to shake all over. “I definitely didn’t.” It had been scary enough to admit who she really was. She wasn’t stupid enough to tell him about Jamaica on top of that.

Chase drained his flute in one sip, his eyes not leaving hers for a second. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. Slowly, he reached into his pocket for something. It was the same way someone threatened might reach for a knife, a gun. An entirely new reality formed in Spencer’s mind. What if Chase knew Spencer was in Jamaica because he had been there, too?

Suddenly, Spencer’s blood went cold and the whole horrible scheme clicked into place. How easy it had been to find his conspiracy theory blog. How willing Chase had been to feed her all those details about Ali, secrets no one could just happen upon. Those pictures he’d shown her were obviously from a private collection, too, not randomly mailed to him. And Chase was brilliant at hacking into computer systems, which meant he could have easily planted information on Naomi Zeigler’s laptop on the cruise, Billy Ford’s laptop, and the CVS system. If that address was even
in
the CVS system. Spencer had just taken his word for it.

He’d been the one who’d taken her to the booby-trapped apartment. And then he’d fallen against that door, knocking on it. He’d made it out to be an accident, but what if it hadn’t been? Had he known that trapdoor was going to fall? Did he somehow trigger it to open with that knock? Or was it a signal to someone inside?

Could Chase be Ali’s secret boyfriend? The other A? All this time, the girls had thought it was Noel . . . and she’d fallen right into Real Ali’s trap.

Spencer’s hand inched toward the door handle. Suddenly, Chase clamped down on her other wrist and pulled her toward him. His eyes blazed. His happy smile was gone. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said sternly.

“I . . .” Spencer trembled. She pointed at something out the window. “What’s that?”

Chase released her wrist and looked. Spencer twisted to the handle and wrenched the door open. By the time Chase realized the trick, she was on the pavement. A cold breeze zipped up her skirt. Her heel turned on the sidewalk, but she kept going.

“Spencer!” Chase called. “What are you doing?”

He tried to scramble out of the car, too. Spencer yelped and kicked the door with her heel, slamming it in his face. The light turned green. Cars behind the limo honked.

“Go!” Spencer screamed at the driver, who looked freaked out. Amazingly, the limo
did
go. Spencer turned and ran.

She zigzagged past a couple walking hand in hand and into an alleyway. This was in a part of the city she didn’t know well at all. No cabs passed. People sat on their stoops, glaring. Kids disappeared around a corner, their charged laughter spiraling through the alleyway.

She grabbed for the burner phone, the only one she’d brought tonight. Maybe she could call a cab. The screen was already blinking. When she saw the jumbled letters and numbers in the sender line, her heart dropped to her feet.