After a moment, Hanna ever-so-faintly nodded. Emily did, too. Spencer glanced around the room, seeing things for the very last time before they finally came clean about Tabitha. Before their lives, possibly, changed forever. But she knew it was the right thing to do. They were drowning by themselves. They needed help.
She leaned forward and gazed at Fuji. “Look. We’re not saying that what we did was right, but we messed up, and we’re sorry about what we did. But there are reasons why we haven’t come clean. And we do have more information on Tabitha, but we haven’t been able to tell you.”
“Why not?” Fuji asked sharply.
“Because it hasn’t been safe,” Spencer explained. “We’re being threatened. What we know is really, really dangerous. So if we say something, we want something in return.”
“Go on.” Fuji folded her hands. “I’m listening.”
“We need to make sure you’ll keep us safe,” Spencer said firmly. “We don’t want anything to happen to us or our families.”
Fuji nodded. “All right. We can arrange that.”
“And we also want our charges dropped. Everything we did—the drugs, the theft, the secret communication with the fugitive, and the accident—it needs to be wiped clean from our records.”
“Spencer!” Emily cried.
Aria covered her eyes.
But Spencer didn’t apologize or renege the demand. She adopted the tactic she used when she used to play forward in field hockey: stare down your opponent during face-off. Don’t let them see you sweat. Don’t back down. “That’s what we want. Can you do that for us?”
Fuji was the first to blink. “Okay. But whatever you have, it had better be good.”
Spencer took a breath. She hadn’t thought Fuji would actually go for it.
Then she explained what they knew, including how they’d accidentally pushed Tabitha off the balcony but didn’t kill her. They couldn’t tell anyone the truth, though, because of how it looked. And because someone was threatening them.
Agent Fuji tented her fingers. “So there’s another A?”
Emily glanced at the others. “More than one, we think.”
Fuji folded her hands. “And who do you think your stalker might be?”
Again, everyone exchanged a glance. Aria cleared her throat. “Alison,” she said loudly.
Fuji widened her eyes. “I see.”
Spencer launched into an explanation of exactly why they thought A was Ali and how all the pieces fit. “Wait a minute,” Agent Fuji interrupted, when they got to that part about Emily’s baby. “You think Alison killed Gayle Riggs?”
Spencer nodded.
Fuji squinted hard. “But in the police notes, you girls said it sounded like A spoke to the person who shot her.”
“That’s right,” Emily said. “We heard Gayle talking to someone. Kind of like, What are you doing here? And then there was the shot.”
Fuji’s brow furrowed. “So perhaps Gayle knew Alison?”
“Maybe,” Spencer said. “Or maybe she knew her helper.”
“Do you have any idea who her helper might be?”
The girls looked at one another. “We had a lot of theories,” Spencer said. “Graham Pratt for a while. And then Noel Kahn.”
“Noel?” Fuji cocked her head. “What does he have to do with this?”
Spencer opened her mouth to explain, but Aria caught her arm. “It was a false lead,” she said quickly. A look flashed across her face that said, Let’s not rat out Noel right now. Spencer just shrugged.
“This is really, really serious, girls,” Fuji said. “We’re talking about a serial killer. I’m glad you finally came to me about this—there’s no way you can handle this on your own, and you shouldn’t have to.”
No one spoke. Spencer held her breath.
“With your permission, I’d like to keep your phones. I want to look at all of these texts A has sent. There are ways to track which phone they’re being sent from, even from what part of the Philadelphia area. Give me any other evidence you can think of, too. Things these people might have touched. Places they might have been. We need every tip you can get.”
Spencer brightened. “I think Ali and her helper trashed my stepfather’s model home.”
Fuji nodded. “Maybe there are fingerprints.”
“I’m also worried that Ali might have done something to a girl named Iris Taylor,” Emily added, explaining how Ali had known Iris and that Iris had gone missing after Emily asked her questions.
Fuji wrote Iris’s name on a notepad. “We’ll look into her.”
Hanna tentatively raised a hand. “We have a lot more texts, but we’ll have to get them off our old phones from home. We switched phones when we figured out A was tracking us.”
“A lot of notes aren’t on our phones at all,” Spencer added, thinking of the very first missive they’d received from this A. It had been a postcard inside Ali’s mailbox—Jamaica is beautiful this time of year! Too bad you can’t ever go back.
“That’s fine,” Fuji said. “Collect everything and bring it back to me as soon as you can. And as far as security goes, you have my personal promise for a twenty-four-seven security team on all of you—and your families—until we crack the case. A won’t be able to get to you anymore.”
Aria blinked hard. “So you’re really letting us go?”
Fuji nodded. “I’ll talk to my partners and the state police and let them know that your charges are dropped.”
“So my dad won’t know about this?” Hanna bleated.
Emily’s hands trembled. “I’m not in trouble with the FBI?”
“What you gave me is very important. I need to hold up my end of the bargain,” Fuji said as she stood. “However, if you receive another A note, I want you to forward it to me immediately. But I ask that you tell no one about what we’re doing or why you have a security detail. The less people know, the better. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” everyone said at the same time, though Hanna then raised a hand.
“My boyfriend knows,” she admitted. “He kind of guessed.”
Fuji winced. “Well, he’ll be under watch because he’s Aria’s brother.” She glanced around. “A, Alison, whoever it is, this is Tabitha’s killer. Gayle’s killer. Graham’s and Kyla’s killer. Obviously she’s dangerous. I’m going to personally lead this team—and believe me, there will be a team on this. We’re going to work day and night to find out what’s going on. Whoever this is, they’re not smarter than all of us. We’ll get them.”
Everyone exchanged another glance. “Oh my God,” Hanna bleated. “That sounds . . .”
“Awesome,” Emily breathed.
They stared at one another in disbelief. Spencer glanced at Fuji, and the agent gave her a small, genuine smile, the first smile Spencer had ever seen from her. A delicious feeling washed down Spencer’s back. Could it finally, finally be over? Was someone actually going to help them?
The girls stood up and hugged one another tight. They didn’t have to handle this on their own anymore. They didn’t have to look over their shoulders or freeze when they heard a footstep or a twig crack or cringe when their cell phones chimed. They wouldn’t have to skulk around having secret conversations in dark places, fearing all the while that Ali was listening in.
Spencer threw back her head and laughed. It felt amazing, suddenly, to have power. If only Spencer knew how to reach Ali now, she’d send an anonymous note of her own: Take that, bitch.