Emily flinched, aghast. Mrs. Colbert noticed Emily was watching, but her expression didn’t falter. She stared unblinkingly at Emily, as if cognizant of exactly what she and Isaac had done. And maybe even blaming Emily—and only Emily—for all of it.
9 SURPRISE! HE’S STILL HERE…
As the sun was sinking beneath the horizon, turning all of Rosewood pitch-black, Spencer watched out her bedroom window as the remaining Rosewood PD squad cars and news vans pulled away from her street. The cops had abruptly called off the search for Ian’s body, having found nothing in the woods. And a lot of people had bought into the new theory that the girls had made up seeing Ian’s body, thereby allowing him to easily escape Rosewood forever.
Such bullshit. And it didn’t seem possible that the cops hadn’t found a single piece of evidence. There had to be something out there. A footprint. Tree bark rubbed off from someone’s nails.
Her desktop computer at the other corner of the room made an angry buzz. Spencer looked up, eyeing the CD she and Andrew had made of her dad’s hard drive yesterday. It was where she’d left it after it finished loading last night, sitting in a paper sleeve on top of her antique Tiffany blotter. She hadn’t looked through the files yet, but there was no good time like the present. She walked to her desk and slid the CD into her computer.
Instantly, the computer made a farting noise, and every single icon on Spencer’s desktop turned into a question mark. She tried to click on one, but it wouldn’t open. Then the screen went black. She tried to reboot, but the computer wouldn’t turn on.
“Shit,” she whispered, ejecting the CD. She had backups of everything on her hard drive, like her old papers, tons of pictures and videos, and her journal, which she’d kept since before Ali disappeared, but without a functional computer, she couldn’t look through her dad’s files for evidence.
A door slammed downstairs. Her father spoke in a muffled voice, then her mother. Spencer looked up, her stomach burbling. She hadn’t really spoken to them since they’d all returned from Nana’s funeral. She glanced at her computer again, then stood and walked downstairs.
The air smelled like the baked brie her parents always bought at the Fresh Fields deli counter, and the family’s two labradoodles, Rufus and Beatrice, were lazing on the big round rug by the breakfast nook. Spencer’s sister, Melissa, was in the kitchen, too, scuttling around, piling the design magazines and books she’d scattered around the room into a paper shopping bag. Spencer’s mom was rifling through the drawer that held all the phone books and numbers for the various people who helped around the house—landscapers, driveway sealers, electricians. Mr. Hastings was pacing from the kitchen to the dining room, his cell phone to his ear.
“Uh, my computer has a virus,” Spencer said.
Her dad stopped pacing. Melissa looked up. Her mother jumped and whirled around. The corners of her mouth turned down. She turned back to the drawer.
“Mom?” Spencer tried again. “My computer. It’s…dead.”
Mrs. Hastings didn’t turn. “And?”
Spencer ran her fingers along the slightly wilted floral arrangement on the island until she realized where she’d seen the flowers last—on Nana’s casket. She pulled her hand away fast. “Well, I need it to do my homework. Can I call Geek Squad?”
Her mother turned and examined Spencer for a few long beats. When Spencer gazed back helplessly, Mrs. Hastings began to laugh.
“What?” Spencer asked, confused. Beatrice raised her head, then put it down again.
“Why should I pay for someone to come fix your computer when I should make you pay for what happened to the garage?” Mrs. Hastings crowed.
Spencer blinked fast. “The…garage?”
Her mother snorted. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see it.”
Spencer looked back and forth from one parent to the other, clueless. Then she ran to the front door and stepped out into the yard in her socks, even though the ground was frosty and soggy. A light had been turned on over the garage. When Spencer saw what was there, she clapped her hand over her mouth.
Across both garage doors, in bloodred paint, was the word KILLER.
It hadn’t been here when she’d come home from school today. Spencer looked around, gripped with the distinct feeling that someone was watching from the woods. Did a tree branch just move? Did someone just duck behind a shrub? Was it…A?
She faced her mother, who had marched up beside her. “Did you call the police?”
Mrs. Hastings barked out another laugh. “Do you think the police really want to speak to us right now? Do you think they’re going to care that someone did this to our house?”
Spencer widened her eyes. “Wait, you believe what the cops are saying?”
Her mom sank onto one hip. “We both know there wasn’t ever anything in those woods.”
The world started to spin. Spencer’s mouth felt dry. “Mom, I saw Ian. I really did.”
Her mother brought her face inches from Spencer’s. “Do you know how much it’s going to cost to refinish those doors? They’re one of a kind—we got them off an old barn in Maine.”
Spencer’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry to be such a liability.” She whirled around, stomped onto the porch, and marched up the stairs without bothering to wipe her muddy socks on the doormat. Her eyes stung with hot tears as she walked up the stairs and flung open the door to her bedroom. Why did it surprise her that her mother was siding with the cops? Why should she have expected anything different?
“Spence?”
Melissa poked her head into the room. She was wearing a pale yellow cashmere twinset and dark, boot-cut jeans. Her hair was held back by a velvet ribbon, and her eyes looked tired and puffy, as if she’d been crying.
“Go away,” Spencer mumbled.
Melissa sighed. “I just wanted to let you know that you can use my old laptop if you need it. It’s in the barn. I have a new computer at the town house. I’m moving there tonight.”
Spencer turned slightly, frowning. “The renovations are done?” Melissa’s Philadelphia town house overhaul seemed to have no end—she kept tweaking the designs.
Melissa stared at the creamy Berber carpet that spread across Spencer’s bedroom floor. “I have to get out of here.” Her voice cracked.
“Is everything…okay?” Spencer asked.
Melissa pulled her sleeves over her hands. “Yeah. Fine.”
Spencer shifted in her seat. She’d tried to talk to Melissa about Ian’s body at Nana’s funeral on Sunday, but Melissa kept waving her away. Her sister had to have some thoughts about it—when Ian was released on house arrest, Melissa had seemed sympathetic to his plight. She’d even tried to convince Spencer that Ian was innocent. Maybe, like the police, she believed that Ian’s body had never been there. It would be just like Melissa to trust a bunch of possibly crooked cops over her sister, all because she didn’t want to accept that her beloved might be dead.
“Really, I’m fine,” Melissa urged, as if she could read Spencer’s thoughts. “I just don’t want to be here if there are going to be search parties and news vans.”
“But the cops aren’t searching here anymore,” Spencer told her. “They just called it off.”
A startled look crossed Melissa’s face. Then she shrugged and turned around without answering. Spencer listened to her padding down the stairs.