—Em
When she finished, she folded the letter in half and pressed it deep into her pocket. But then, because that felt too intimate, she pulled it out and shoved it into the bottom of her bag, under her math book. She pulled out her phone, ready to compose a text to Emily saying something like, I found your letter, weirdo. Ha ha, funny joke. Except maybe it would be better just to not acknowledge it at all.
She threw back her shoulders and walked into the house. As soon as she stepped through the foyer, the hair on her neck rose. Something felt different. The knickknacks on the table in the hall were the same. There were two caps and gowns hanging on the banister, a blue one that was Jason’s, and a white one for her own seventh-grade graduation. Her gaze fell to a flowered suitcase on the ground. It was her suitcase—from back when she was Courtney.
She smelled freshly brewed coffee and baked cinnamon rolls, the thing her mom always made for her when she was little and needed cheering up. It was what she would make for her, not her sister. Her sister, in fact, used to complain that cinnamon rolls made her teeth hurt.
All at once, Ali knew what had happened. But this couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow. And then she thought about Mona and the others hanging out in the driveway, Emily lurking near the mailbox. When had she gotten here? Had anyone seen?
Her first instinct was to run up to her bedroom and never come out, but then her mother stuck her head around the corner and smiled. “Ali?” she said gently. “Your sister’s home.”
29 SHE’S BA-ACK
Mrs. DiLaurentis set a pan of zucchini lasagna on the table. “Careful, it’s hot,” she warned, and then proceeded to pour lemonade into everyone’s glasses. “It’s fresh-squeezed,” she crowed. “It tastes better that way, don’t you think?”
It was a few hours later, and the family was sitting in the dining room, which was usually used only for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Each seat had a gold placemat, and they were drinking out of the good crystal goblets. Mrs. DiLaurentis had even lit candles, and the light made eerie shapes against their faces. And there they all sat: Mr. and Mrs. DiLaurentis at the heads of the table, then Jason, then Ali . . . and then the third daughter. The twin. “Courtney.”
“So dig in,” Mrs. DiLaurentis announced as she took the oven mitts off. “The lasagna’s nothing fancy, but the ingredients are all fresh.”
“It looks superb,” Mr. DiLaurentis said, reaching for his fork.
“Absolutely,” Jason agreed, taking a hearty sip of lemonade.
Ali shot him a look, but Jason didn’t glance her way. Jason had actually set the table today. And offered to get the bread out of the oven. And volunteered to bring her sister’s stuff upstairs, to which “Courtney” had smiled and said that would be great. All traces of Elliot Smith were gone.
Then Ali turned to Courtney. Her sister was politely waiting as their father spooned a rectangle of lasagna onto her plate. Her parents had picked her up while Ali and Jason were at school, saying today worked better for Mr. DiLaurentis’s work schedule. She’d arrived home just before the buses pulled out of the Rosewood Day parking lot, which meant it was fairly unlikely that anyone Ali’s age had seen her. Not that it made her feel much better.
Courtney’s hair, which was just about the same length as Ali’s, was swept back from her face with little bobby pins that had tiny stars on the ends. She wore a striped halter with a ruffled neck that Ali had never seen before, one neither from her closet now nor her packed things from a year ago, and black skinny jeans. Away from the harsh light of the hospital, her sister’s skin had an extra healthy glow, as if she’d just gone on a hike. And she seemed to be smiling a lot, which set Ali on edge. She’d even smiled at Ali when she’d walked in the door, stepping forward and giving her a huge hug and saying how good it was to see her. But when her lips were close to Ali’s ear, she’d whispered it again: Say your good-byes.
“Thank you so much,” Courtney said now, in a gracious tone. “This is all so nice of you.” She raised a modern-day Polaroid camera to her eyes and took a picture of her mother. “Say cheese!”
“Cheese!” Mrs. DiLaurentis said, smiling. The camera made a whirr sound, and a photo spit out. At first, Ali had thought it was her Polaroid camera, but Mrs. DiLaurentis had quickly said that Courtney had noticed Ali’s in the kitchen and had seemed interested in it, so they’d gotten her one today, too.
Ali cleared her throat. “Funny you’re interested in photography, Courtney. That’s my favorite hobby, too.”
Courtney blinked innocently. “Don’t worry, sis. I’m not going to pretend I’m you.”
She tilted her chin down and winked. Ali curled her toes inside her shoes. What if that was exactly what her sister had planned?
Mrs. DiLaurentis took a square of lasagna. “Lots of people can like photography, girls.”
Courtney smiled bashfully, then reached for the Parmesan, which was in a little silver bowl Ali had never seen—usually, they just used the shaker.
“Oh, I’ll do that for you,” Mr. DiLaurentis said, spooning a bit of cheese onto Courtney’s lasagna. As if she was an invalid and couldn’t do it herself.
“So we had a very nice chat with the doctors today,” Mrs. DiLaurentis said between bites, staring at Ali as she spoke. “Courtney was a model patient this past year at the Preserve. She made a lot of friends, really participated in the group programs, did great at her studies. . . .” She clapped a hand on Courtney’s shoulder.
“They even let you play on an intramural field hockey team that met close by, didn’t they, honey?” Mr. DiLaurentis piped up, smiling at his daughter.
Ali sat up straighter. “You left the grounds for whole practices?”
Courtney offered her a grin that probably looked genuine to everyone else but to Ali looked absolutely sinister. “Yes. Isn’t that great?”
“Did you go anywhere else?” Ali blurted.
Her sister lowered her chin. “Why? Did you think you saw me somewhere?”
Ali flinched. So her fears weren’t unfounded. Her sister had been watching.
But then Courtney sniffed and gave her parents a reassuring head-shake. “Please. The supervisors were on my butt the whole time. I played intramurals, went to a local ice cream parlor a couple of times, and that’s it.”
“But you don’t like ice cream,” Ali pointed out, hoping to catch her sister in a lie.
Courtney speared a piece of zucchini with her fork. “You don’t know everything about me.”
There was a long pause. It felt like the temperature in the room had dropped about twenty degrees. Jason reached for more bread, chewing obliviously. Mr. DiLaurentis sipped his wine.
“Ali?” Mrs. DiLaurentis’s voice broke the silence. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Ali stared down at the lasagna, then felt her sister’s gaze on her, as sizzling as a heat lamp. The last thing she could think of was eating right now, but if she didn’t, her sister might sense just how anxious she was feeling. She cut a tiny square, her fingers shaking, and pushed it into her mouth. It tasted like sawdust. Courtney held up the camera again, pointing it to Ali as she might a barrel of a gun. Ali threw a hand in front of her face and turned away, but Courtney snapped a shot anyway.