Wicked (29 page)

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“Your punishment will start tomorrow,” Mr. Marin said. “You can use the rest of tonight to tell your friends that you’ll no longer be associating with them. I expect to see you at home in an hour.” Without another word, he turned and stalked out of the room, Kate following behind.

Hanna listed woozily to the left. This didn’t make any sense. How could she have been so wrong about what she’d overheard outside Kate’s bedroom? The things Kate had said had sounded so sinister. So
obvious
! And Kate’s hideous little snicker…It was hard to believe she was just rehearsing for a lame-ass high school production of
Hamlet
.

Hamlet.
A light went on in Hanna’s brain. “Wait a minute,” she shouted.

Kate turned abruptly, almost bumping into the ornate Tiffany lamp on the table by the door. She raised an eyebrow, waiting.

Hanna licked her lips slowly. “Um, what part are you playing in
Hamlet,
anyway?”

“Ophelia.” Kate haughtily sniffed, probably figuring Hanna didn’t know who Ophelia was.

But Hanna
did
know. She’d read
Hamlet
over the winter break, mostly to understand the Hamlet-wants-his-mother jokes everyone in her AP English classes was always making. Nowhere in the play’s five acts did fragile, pathetic, get-thee-to-a-nunnery Ophelia have lines that even remotely resembled anything like,
It’s almost time, I can’t wait
. Nor did Ophelia snicker. Kate insisting she was rehearsing for the play was a lame crock of shit, but her dad had bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Hanna’s mouth gaped open. Kate met her look with a cool, self-assured shrug. If she realized she’d been caught in the lie, she didn’t seem to care. Hanna already had her punishment, after all.

Before Hanna could say another word, Kate smiled and started out the door again. “Oh, and Hanna?” She curled her fingers around the doorjamb, giving Hanna a coy little wink. “It’s not herpes. I just thought you should know.”

31

EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT

The line to the downstairs powder room was five people deep by the time Emily and Isaac emerged. Emily ducked her head, even though she had nothing to be embarrassed about—all they’d done was cuddle. A pin-thin woman shoved past them into the bathroom, slamming the door.

As they walked into the middle of the ballroom, Isaac draped his arm around Emily’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. An ancient woman in a Chanel suit clucked her tongue at them, smiling. “What a cute couple,” she cooed. Emily had to agree.

Isaac’s cell phone, which was tucked into his jacket pocket, began to ring. Emily’s hands immediately turned into fists—
it could be A
—but then she remembered. Isaac knew all her secrets. It didn’t matter.

Isaac looked at the little lit-up window on his phone. “It’s my drummer,” he said. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

Emily nodded, squeezing his hand. She drifted over to the bar for a Coke. A few girls in matching black shifts were standing in line in front of her. Emily recognized them as former Rosewood Day students.

“Remember how Ian used to watch us practice?” a pretty Asian girl with long, chandelier earrings was saying. “All that time, I thought he was watching because Melissa was playing, but maybe it was because of
Ali.
”

Emily’s ears pricked up. She stood very still, pretending she wasn’t listening.

“He was in my science class,” whispered the other girl, a brunette with ultra-short hair and an upturned nose. “When we were dissecting the fetal pig, he stabbed that thing like he was really enjoying it.”

“Yeah, but all the guys got super violent with those pigs,” the other girl reminded her, opening up her silver clutch and pulling out a stick of Trident. “Remember Darren? He pulled out the intestines like they were spaghetti!”

They both shuddered. Emily wrinkled her nose. Why was everyone suddenly talking about how creepy Ian used to be? It seemed like revisionist history. And she couldn’t believe the stuff Ian had told Spencer—that he’d liked Ali far more than she liked him, that he wouldn’t have hurt her, ever. Why couldn’t he just admit it? Nothing said
guilty
like an accused criminal fleeing his own trial, after all.

“Emily?”

Officer Wilden stood behind her, a worried but stern look on his face. Tonight he wore a crisp black suit and tie instead of his Rosewood PD uniform, though Emily guessed he had a gun hidden in his jacket. Emily shuddered, feeling uneasy. The last time she’d seen Wilden had been in the parking lot on the edge of town, telling someone on the phone to
just stay away.
She couldn’t even recall seeing him at Ian’s trial yesterday, but he must have been there.

There was a nervous little tremor under Wilden’s left eyelid. “Have you seen Spencer?”

“About a half hour ago.” Emily quickly adjusted the strap of her dress, hoping it wasn’t painfully obvious that she’d just spent the last few minutes lying on the floor, making out with a boy. She glanced behind her, looking for the older Rosewood girls, but they’d slunk away. “Why?”

Wilden rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “I’m supposed to do head counts every thirty minutes or so, just to make sure no one leaves. And I can’t find her anywhere.”

“She’s probably up in her bedroom,” Emily suggested. It wasn’t as if any of them were in a partying mood tonight.

“I checked already.” Wilden tapped his fingers against his tumbler of water. “You’re sure she didn’t mention anything about going outside?”

Emily stared at him, suddenly recalling Wilden’s first name.
Darren.
Those Rosewood Day girls had just been talking about someone named Darren who had brutally removed a pig’s intestines. It must’ve been him.

She often forgot that Wilden wasn’t much older than she was—he’d graduated from Rosewood Day the same year as Spencer’s sister and Ian. Wilden hadn’t been a model student like Ian, though, but his antithesis, the type who was sent to detention every other week. It was amazing how they’d turned out: Ian the murderer, Wilden the good cop.

“She knows we’re not supposed to go outside,” Emily said firmly, snapping back to the present. “I’ll go upstairs and check myself. I’m sure she’s up there somewhere.” She lifted up her dress and put one foot on the first step, trying to quell her shaking hands.

“Wait,” Wilden called.

Emily turned. An ornate, elaborate crystal chandelier hung right over Wilden’s head, making his eyes look almost chartreuse. “Did Aria and Spencer tell you they’ve received more notes?”

Emily’s stomach flipped. “Yeah…”

“How about you?” Wilden asked. “Have you gotten any others?”

Emily nodded faintly. “I’ve gotten two, but none since Ian disappeared.”

Something fluttered over Wilden’s face, but it quickly passed. “Emily, I don’t think it was Ian. The guys guarding Ian’s house searched the place. There weren’t any cell phones, and all the computers and fax machines were removed from his house before he was released. So I really don’t see how he could have sent you any messages. We’re still trying to track down where the messages are coming from, but we haven’t found anything yet.”

The room started to spin. The notes
weren’t
from Ian? That didn’t make sense. And anyway, if Ian had so easily gotten out of the house to visit Spencer, then he could’ve found a way to text them from a secret phone. Maybe he’d planted a disposable somewhere, like in a dead tree or an unused mailbox. Or maybe someone had planted it for him.

Emily stared at Wilden, wondering why he hadn’t considered this. And then it hit her—Spencer hadn’t told him about Ian’s visit. “Well, actually, there
is
a way it could be Ian,” Emily started, trembling.

The phone inside Wilden’s jacket started to ring, interrupting her. “Hang on.” He held up a finger. “I need to get this.”

He tilted away from her, one hand curled over the edge of the side table. Emily gritted her teeth, annoyed. She looked around the room and saw Hanna and Aria standing next to an enormous abstract painting of a bunch of intersecting circles. Aria was fidgeting nervously with a white stole around her shoulders, and Hanna was running her hands through her hair again and again like she had lice. Emily strode up to them as fast as she could. “Have you seen Spencer?”

Aria shook her head, seeming distracted. Hanna looked just as dazed. “Nope,” she answered in a monotone.

“Wilden can’t find her,” Emily urged. “He checked the house a bunch of times, but she’s gone. And Spencer never told him about Ian, either.”

Hanna wrinkled her nose, her eyes beginning to get wide. “That’s weird.”

“Spencer’s got to be in the house somewhere. She wouldn’t just leave.” Aria stood on her tiptoes, looking around.

Emily glanced back at Wilden. He paused from his phone call, taking a big sip from his water glass. Then he laid the glass on the table and spoke into the mouthpiece again. “No,” he barked, rather forcefully.

She faced the others again, wringing her sweaty palms together. “You guys…do you think there’s any possibility that this new A could be someone else? Like…
not
Ian?” she sounded out.

Hanna stiffened.
“No.”

“It has to be Ian,” Aria said. “It makes perfect sense.”

Emily stared at Wilden’s rigid back. “Wilden just told me they searched Ian’s house but couldn’t find a cell phone or a computer or anything. He doesn’t think Ian’s behind it.”

“But who else could it possibly be?” Aria squeaked. “Who else would want to do this to us? Who else knows where we are and what we’re doing?”

“Yeah, A is apparently
from
Rosewood,” Hanna blurted out.

Emily shifted her weight, rocking back and forth on the plushy woven rug. “How do you know that?”

Hanna ran her hands along her bare collarbone, staring blankly toward the big picture window in the Hastingses’ living room. “So I got a note or two. I didn’t know they were
real
at the time. One of them said A grew up in Rosewood, just like we did.”

Emily’s heart thrummed fast. “Did your notes say anything
else
?”

Hanna squirmed, as if Emily were plunging a needle into her arm. “Just this dumb stuff about my stepsister. Nothing important.”

Emily fiddled with the silver fish-shaped pendant around her neck, her forehead prickling with sweat. What if A wasn’t Ian…but not a copycat, either? When Emily had found out that Mona was the first A, she’d been completely caught off guard. Sure, Ali and the others had been nasty to Mona, but they’d been nasty to a lot of people. People Emily couldn’t even
remember.
What if someone else—someone close—was just as mad at them as Mona had been? What if it was someone in this very room?

She swept her eyes around the grand living room. Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe emerged from the library, glaring at them. Melissa Hastings cut her eyes away, the corners of her mouth turning down. Scott Chin silently aimed his camera right at Emily, Aria, and Hanna. And Phi Templeton, Mona’s old, yo-yo-obsessed best friend, paused on her way to the library to glance over her shoulder, coolly meeting Emily’s eye.

And then a memory from Ian’s arraignment struck Emily forcefully. They’d been coming out of the courthouse after Ian had been sent to prison without bail, so happy because they thought everything was over. But then Emily had seen a figure in one of the limos parked at the courthouse curb. The eyes in the window had seemed so familiar…but Emily had forced herself to believe they were just a figment of her imagination.

Just thinking about it made a chill run up her spine.
What if we have no idea who A is? What if nothing is what it seems?

Emily’s phone began to ring. Then Aria’s. And then Hanna’s.

“Oh my God,” Hanna breathed.

Emily canvassed the room. No one was looking in their direction anymore. And no one was holding a phone.

There was nothing she could do but pull out her Nokia. Her friends watched nervously. “One new text,” Emily whispered.

Hanna and Aria crowded around her. Emily pressed Read.

You all told, and now one of you has to pay the price. Wanna know where your old BFF is? Look out the back window. It might just be the last time you see her….

—A

The room began to spin. A horrible, cloying smell of a sickly, floral perfume filled the air. Emily gazed around at her friends, her mouth bone-dry.

“The last time we see her…
ever
?” Hanna repeated, blinking rapidly.

“It can’t…” Emily’s head felt stuffed with cotton balls. “Spencer can’t…”

They ran into the kitchen and peered out the back window, toward the Hastingses’ barn. The yard was empty.

“We need Wilden,” Hanna demanded. She ran back to where he’d last been standing, but there was no one there. Only Wilden’s drained water glass remained, abandoned on the highly polished side table.

Emily’s cell phone lit up again. Another text had come in. They all gathered around to look.

Go now. Alone. Or I make good on my promise.

—A