“I bet they do.” Hanna placed her hands on her hips. “Mike made me smoke out of one once, and I broke out into hives and hallucinated. I was in hell.”
“My dad promised that our legal team will figure out a way to keep us from going there,” Spencer said weakly.
Aria sighed. “No offense to your dad or our legal team, but all the papers are saying the FBI wants to make an example of us. It’s almost guaranteed we’re going to Jamaica.”
Spencer gritted her teeth. “Well, maybe Fuji will realize the truth. Or maybe Ali will screw up.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Emily said despondently. “Ali has us exactly where she wants us. And when has she ever screwed up?”
“I really don’t think we should start digging again, guys,” Spencer warned.
“But we have clues,” Aria said. “That doctored video. Whoever N is.”
Spencer paced in circles. “I know, but . . .”
“Your friend Chase is good with computers, right, Spence?” Hanna begged. “Maybe he can zoom into that video file and show the girls’ faces, prove to the cops it isn’t us.”
Spencer twisted her mouth. “But I can’t put him at risk.”
“He already is at risk,” Aria reminded her.
There was a long pause. A truck shifted gears far off on the turnpike.
“I’m not going to Jamaica,” Hanna said firmly. “I want to stay in Rosewood.”
Aria swallowed hard. “I do, too.”
Spencer stared into the dark sky. Aria was right. If Ali was going to get Chase, the plan was already in motion. Spencer hadn’t heard from Chase since before their arrest, but she knew he would do anything for her.
A light snapped on in her house, and she lowered her shoulders, half expecting her mom to appear on the back porch any second. “I’d better go back. But I’ll do it, Han. I’ll reach out to Chase.”
“Good.” Hanna sounded relieved.
Spencer started back down the hill, her heart pounding. Mercifully, the light snapped off shortly after it turned on, and no one appeared on the back deck. She walked around to the front of the house, eyeing the car in the driveway, then the vehicles parked at the curb. They’d see her if she backed out—she’d have to take the bus. There was a SEPTA stop only a mile from here, on Lancaster Avenue.
She looked down at her shoes, thankful she was wearing sneakers. Here goes nothing, she thought, taking off jogging. It was the only way.
A half hour later, Spencer boarded a brightly lit, cigarette-stinky Rosewood bus toward Philadelphia and sank into a seat. Across the aisle, a woman was reading a copy of the Philadelphia Sentinel. On the front page was Spencer’s picture.
One Lie Too Many, read the headline. Spencer turned toward the window and scrunched up her body to make herself seem smaller. She’d avoided the news all week, knowing she’d only see stories like that. Please don’t see me, please don’t see me, she willed. The woman folded over the page. Spencer’s picture vanished. No one said a word.
Chase lived in Merion, a suburb closer to the city. Spencer pulled the chain at her stop and rushed off the bus. Though she had never been to Chase’s house before, she found the apartment building easily and walked up the uneven sidewalk to the front door. There was a swish behind her, and she turned. A car slowly drifted by, a MERION PD logo blazing across the side.
Spencer ducked behind a tree. The cruiser rolled past at a steady clip, the cop staring straight ahead. After a moment, the car rounded the corner. Safe.
She scurried inside the first door and examined the list of names of residents. Chase lived in apartment 4D; she pressed the buzzer. A few seconds passed. Nothing happened. Spencer cocked her head, listening. It was only a little after ten thirty, and Chase had once admitted that he often stayed up until one or two in the morning. Maybe he wasn’t home?
A woman carrying a green purse appeared on the stairs inside the building. She gave Spencer a cursory glance, then pushed out the door and into the street. Spencer caught the door and slipped inside the building, her heart hammering hard. Maybe Chase’s buzzer didn’t work. She would knock on his door herself.
She climbed four flights, huffing a little as she finally reached Chase’s door. She had to stop breathing to listen for sounds inside the apartment. Music thumped in a back room. And then, a cough. Yes. He was home.
The doorbell was broken when she tried it, so she knocked—first quietly and then louder. “Chase?” she called out. “It’s me. Spencer. I need to talk to you.”
The music went silent. Footsteps sounded near the door, and Chase opened it a crack, the chain unlatched. “Spencer.” His eyes met hers. “You can’t be here.”
Spencer’s jaw dropped. “B-but we’re being framed. There’s a video I need you to look at—one of us in Jamaica. Alison obviously doctored it.”
Chase’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me I was on the hit list, too?”
“What?” She thought of the A note threatening him. How had Chase found out? “D-did you get a note from A? Has someone tried to hurt you?”
Chase’s eyes darted back and forth. “No,” he said, after too long a beat, but it was the most pitiful lie Spencer had ever heard.
Spencer’s head buzzed. All she could focus on, for a moment, was the bumpy texture of the hallway walls. “I-I thought the police would keep you safe,” she said helplessly. “I thought they’d keep all of us safe.” She tried to pull open the door. “Please let me in. We can crack this video—I know we can. I need you.”
Chase pressed his lips together as if he were trying to keep from crying. “You have to go, Spencer. I’m sorry. I’ve just been through too much, okay? This is too intense, even for me.”
“But—”
“And I can’t believe you didn’t warn me.” Chase’s eyes were sad. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”
Then the door slammed. There were clicking sounds as Chase twisted the locks on the inside. Footsteps receded. The music came on again, louder now. A fast, angry song drowning out everything.
Spencer felt like he’d slapped her across the face. She stepped away from the door, surprised tears coming to her eyes. All at once, she felt completely abandoned. No one would help her anymore.
The magnitude of what was happening hit her hard. There was no way out of this. Ali had really and truly won.
Spencer reached for her phone and stared at it hard. Text me, bitch, she thought fiercely, desperately. If only Ali would write to her right now and rub this in her face. Boo-hoo, maybe. Poor widdle Spencer lost her boyfriend. She was probably dying to.
She stared hard at the screen, willing something to happen. She walked to the front of the apartment building and stood on the porch so Ali could see her, so that she’d know her pain. “Come get me,” she even said out loud into the still darkness. “Stop hiding and actually show your face, you coward.”
No one moved behind the bushes. No giggles echoed in the treetops. Spencer’s phone remained silent. She shut her eyes and drew back her hand, ready to hurl the phone to the sidewalk.
But instead she let her arm wilt at her side and walked the three blocks to catch the bus home.
22
SLOWLY SINKING
Two weeks after her arrest, Hanna staggered down the stairs of her mom’s house with her mini Doberman, Dot, following on her heels. All the lights were still on in the kitchen, but the room was empty. A note on the table said, I made coffee. Muffins in fridge.