Authors: Sara Shepard
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Love & Romance, #Girls & Women
Aria peeked at the cell phone screen over Riley’s shoulder. There was a picture of Hanna wearing army fatigues and hiding in the plastic bushes at the mall concourse. Aria had no idea what it was all about, but before she could ask any questions, Emily barreled out of the double doors, grabbed her shoulder, and pulled her to the other side of the walkway.
“Thank God I found you,” Emily said, her voice full of fear. “I need your car.”
“What happened?” Aria asked. “Did you get Gayle’s phone already?”
“No, but this is much more important.”
Emily held her phone in Aria’s face.
I’ve got your baby,
said the screen. Aria clapped a hand over her mouth. “Do you think it’s true?”
“I’m not waiting around to find out.” Emily started toward the parking lot, then noticed Hanna trudging out the door with an ashamed look on her face. She waved her over. “You have to see this.”
Hanna looked pained, like she didn’t feel like dealing with anything right now, but she walked over and inspected the text. Color drained from her face. “
Shit
. How could this happen?”
“I don’t know. But I have to save her.” Emily’s eyes darted back and forth. “If Ali has her, who knows what she’ll do?”
“Em, it’s not Ali who has Violet,” Aria whispered. “Don’t you see? It’s Gayle. I saw her going into Babies “R” Us last night with a huge, weird smile on her face. She was getting ready for when she found your baby.”
Emily frowned, then peered at the hulking museum behind them. “But isn’t Gayle here? I thought I saw her talking to your dad, Hanna.”
Hanna bit her lip. “Actually, I haven’t seen her all night.”
“Of course she’s not here,” Aria said. “She’s at this house on Mockingbird Drive!” She looked at Hanna. “You’re with me, right? You think this is Gayle?”
A conflicted look crossed Hanna’s face. “I
think
so. But why would Gayle tell us she has Violet if she wants to keep her for herself? It sounds like a setup.”
“I don’t care!” Emily grabbed Aria’s car keys from her hands. “This is my daughter’s life we’re talking about! I’m sorry, Aria, but I’m going to that house, even if I have to go alone!”
Aria set her jaw. “We’re not letting you go alone.”
“We’re not?” Hanna squeaked.
Aria gave Hanna a look. “Of course we’re not.” She snatched the car keys back from Emily, marched across the parking lot, and slid into the driver’s seat. “C’mon, Em. Let’s go. You too, Hanna.”
The girls got into the car and slammed the doors. Aria kicked off her high heels, gunned the engine, and cranked the heat up high. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she looked behind her and saw a perfectly round, eerily yellow moon reflected in the museum windows. And there, next to the moon’s reflection, was a person in silhouette. Watching. Maybe even laughing at what fools they were.
Aria breathed in sharply, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. But when she looked at the window again, only the moon was there, bright and full, filling up the expanse of the glass.
Twenty-five minutes and three wrong turns later, the girls pulled onto Mockingbird Drive, a twisting street on the other side of Mount Kale. “Whoa,” Hanna mumbled, staring through the fog, which had rolled in heavily. Every estate was on a massive plot of land. Winding driveways led to faux castles, French estates, Tudor manors, and buildings that looked like a cross between the Capitol and a Frank Gehry masterpiece. Ferraris sat in driveways. Tennis court lights twinkled in backyards. Hanna was used to luxurious houses like Noel’s, Spencer’s, and even her dad’s new place, but people who lived in this neighborhood had more money than they knew what to do with, and they didn’t mind flaunting it.
The next mailbox bore the number
56
in Gothic script, and Aria rolled slowly up the long drive. Tall, imposing trees made a canopy over the road, creating a spooky tunnel. They passed a huge, six-car garage and a horse stable, and then came upon the house, an imposing mansion with columns and huge arched windows. It was positioned a bit cockeyed on the lot, probably angled so that it got the best morning sun. Not a single light was on in the windows.
“Um, now what?” Hanna whispered as Aria cut the engine.
“Come on.” Emily opened her car door and jogged up the front walk. Hanna and Aria scrambled after her. When Hanna heard a whispering sound, her heart began to thud. What if A had led them straight into a trap?
“Where do you think Spencer is?” Emily said over her shoulder. “She hasn’t responded to my texts.” They’d sent Spencer messages about what was going on and demanded that she meet them here.
“Maybe it took a while for her to get released from the hospital,” Hanna whispered.
“Or maybe she got as lost as we did.” Aria stepped up on the porch and stared at the doorbell. “What are we supposed to do, ring? ‘Hey, A, we’re here!’” She looked at Hanna. “You do it.”
Hanna’s eyes bulged. “No way!”
“
I’ll
do it.” Emily touched the door, and it opened with a creak that sounded exactly like a haunted house entrance. Hanna shivered. What kind of person left their front door open in the middle of the night?
Emily pushed past them and walked into the foyer. “Hello?” she called out.
Hanna followed her. The foyer smelled oddly of nail polish remover. A single lamp on a console table was lit, showing a double staircase, an impressive crystal chandelier, and a wall full of black-and-white paintings of undulating sand dunes, animal skulls, and possessed-looking vultures. Heavy curtains hung on the windows in the room to the right; thick wool rugs decorated the floors. The coat closet door was ajar, and several jackets swung from hangers. The place had a museumlike stillness, as though it were a movie set, not someone’s actual house.
“Hello?” Emily said again.
There was no answer. Emily peered up the stairs. Aria wandered toward the kitchen. Hanna picked up a stone rabbit on the table next to the front door and set it down again. It was so quiet, she began to hear noises that might not have been there. A nervous swallow. A slight rustle. A joint crack.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Emily whispered suddenly, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Where’s Violet?”
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Hanna whispered.
“Guys.” Aria’s voice was as thin as a pinched wire. She was standing next to a table in the living room, an envelope in her hand. “Look at this.”
Hanna squinted at the words. At the top left corner was a logo for Pennsylvania Electric Power. In the center was the address, 56 Mockingbird Lane. Then her gaze fell on the recipient’s name.
“Oh my God,” Hanna whispered.
Gayle Riggs.
Aria set the envelope down, her eyes wide. “Guys, this is Gayle’s
house
. I
told
you.”
Emily blinked rapidly. “What does this mean?”
“It means we should get the hell out of here,” Hanna snapped. “Gayle doesn’t have your baby. She just used that to get us here because she wants to hurt us.”
She walked back toward the door, taking in every shadow, every dark crevice. A sculpture of a willow tree looked dangerous and alive. The coat rack reminded her of a hunched, crazy old man. A series of photographs were lined up across the mantle like crooked teeth in a ravenous mouth. In the dim light, she could make out a wedding photo of Gayle and her husband. Next to it was a snapshot of the two of them on vacation, and then a family portrait of Gayle and her husband and a smiling blond girl. Maybe this was the daughter Gayle had spoken about to Emily, the one she said she’d lost. Hanna squinted, trying to see what she looked like, but the picture was too small, the features too difficult to make out.
Until she looked at the photo next to it, an 8 x 10 in a wood frame. It was a school headshot of a pretty blond teenager. As soon as Hanna saw her cunning blue eyes and devious smile, the taste of metal filled her mouth. She’d recognize that smirk anywhere.
Hanna stopped short. “Oh my God.” She pointed a shaky finger at the picture. Emily walked over and followed her gaze, and then sank down, her knees going weak.
“Is that . . . ?” Emily whispered.
Aria just let out a terrified gasp.
Hanna picked up the photo from the shelf. This explained everything—how Gayle knew everything and why Gayle didn’t just want them to suffer . . . but to
die
.
“Tabitha’s her daughter?” Emily’s voice shook uncontrollably.
“How did you not know that?” Hanna demanded. “Didn’t you ever meet the husband? Didn’t you ask for the daughter’s name? Didn’t you find out what happened to her?”
Emily shook her head dazedly. “I never met the husband—and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since we didn’t know what he looked like until Tabitha’s body was found. Plus Gayle goes by Riggs, not Clark. She never told me any details of what happened to her daughter, either, just said she disappeared. And none of this ever came up on a Google search!”
Hanna ran her hands down the length of her face. “Why didn’t she turn us in?” She could barely get the words out she was breathing so hard.
Emily bit her lip. “Maybe she
doesn’t
know for sure. Maybe this is her way of drawing us out and making us confess. She’s trying to drive us crazy, make us tell the truth.”
“So do you
still
think Ali’s A, Em?” Aria snapped.
Emily looked terrified. “I guess not.”
They all turned and peered at the photograph again. For a split second, it looked like Tabitha was winking at them.
Gotcha!
It was the same expression Ali used to have when she’d pressured the girls into doing something they didn’t want to do.
And then, clear as day, came a keening, desperate wail. The girls whipped around. Hanna grabbed Aria’s hand, and Aria grabbed Emily’s. The wail persisted, growing louder and more urgent.
“A baby,” Hanna whispered.
“Violet!” Emily screamed.
She shot down the hall, running blindly toward the sound. Aria ran after her, and Hanna brought up the rear, her heart pounding. They zipped past an office, a powder room, and an enormous, immaculately clean marble kitchen that smelled like fresh lemons. The sound seemed to be coming from just beyond a set of French doors on the other side of the island. Emily twisted the lock and flung one of the doors open.
They walked onto a massive brick patio. The fog had grown even denser since they’d been inside. The mewling cries echoed through the air, but there were no signs of a baby anywhere.
“Violet?” Emily spun around, tears in her eyes.
Suddenly, the noise ceased. The silence was deafening. Hanna looked up at her friends, the fog curling around their faces. She thought the worst: Was the baby
dead
?
Snap.
Hanna stood up straighter, staring at the garage and the trees through the fog. Even though she couldn’t see anything, she sensed a presence. Then she heard it: footsteps.
“Guys.” Her voice quivered.
“Maybe it’s just Spencer,” Emily said bravely. Her phone’s screen glowed in the darkness. “She just texted me that she’s here.”
“Then where’s her car?” Aria gestured to the driveway. Besides Aria’s Subaru, there was no other vehicle there.
Emily bit her lip. “Maybe she parked it at the bottom of the hill and is walking up.”
Hanna marched across the patio toward the driveway. “Someone’s out here, and it’s not just Spencer. We need to warn her.”
She was halfway past the garage when she heard the sound of something metal—car keys, maybe—dropping on the blacktop. She froze and looked around, but all she could see was fog. Footsteps followed, and then tense whispers, a conversation back and forth that she couldn’t hear. Finally, there was a boom so loud it made Hanna’s teeth hurt.
She swung around and stared at her friends. They stood paralyzed on the patio. Then she turned back and peered at the driveway again. When she saw a blurry figure lying splayed out near one of the flower beds, she screamed. Whoever it was wore a heavy coat with a hood that covered her turned face; the only part of her Hanna could see was a small, delicate hand.
“Is that Spencer?” Aria shrieked.
Hanna groped through the mist toward the figure. Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably. Didn’t Spencer have a down jacket just like that? Didn’t she own pointy leather boots? Suddenly, Hanna stopped. Was the murderer lurking nearby? Were they next?
“Spencer?” Emily came up behind Hanna. “Spencer?” She looked at Hanna in horror. “Do you think she’s . . . ?”
Hanna reached out to touch the down-filled hood, but then drew her hand away. She was terrified of what she was going to see. Spencer’s face, frozen in a scream? Half of Spencer’s brains collected inside the hood?
A car passed on the road, its headlights momentarily illuminating their bodies. When the beams bounced off the figure on the ground, Hanna noticed someothing wasn’t right. The few strands of hair peeking out from under the hood were paler than Spencer’s. The hand looked veiny and older. There was an enormous diamond ring on the fourth finger.
“Who
is
that?” Aria whispered.
Drawing in a breath, Hanna pulled back the figure’s hood. Aria screamed. Emily covered her eyes. And just as the sound of sirens filled the air, Hanna peered down. The two eyes were closed, the lips parted just so. It looked like the person was sleeping, save for the horrible gash just above her right temple. She took in the whole face, and then realized. She sank to her knees, feeling relieved, horrified, and confused at the same time.
The figure on the ground wasn’t Spencer. It was Gayle.
Emily stared at Gayle’s inert features, her pale skin, and the blood seeping out of her head. A shrill noise rang in her ears, and it took her a few seconds to realize it was the sound of her own screams. She spun around and bent over, dry-heaving on the grass.