“I hate everything and everyone in Rosewood,” she whispered, realizing she pretty much meant it. Aside from her friendships with Spencer, Aria, and Hanna, she would have no warm and fuzzy memories to take with her when she left. Living here, experiencing what she had with A, had ripped away years of her life.
She stared around at all the dancing kids in their Marc Jacobs dresses and Jimmy Choo heels. They didn’t understand what Emily had gone through—not at all. And they probably never would. Why did they get to have happy lives? Why did they get to love and laugh and enjoy themselves, when all she faced was painful experience after painful experience?
Ali so deserved to pay for this.
“Emily!” Mrs. Fields was racing toward her, her cheeks flushed pink. She held a short-haired girl by the wrist. “This is Melodie. Melodie, Emily! I know her mother! And Melodie’s working at the country club this summer as the junior women’s golf coach and the assistant groundskeeper!” Emily’s mom turned to Melodie and smiled hopefully. “I think you guys have some, um, common interests.”
“H-hi?” Emily said uncertainly, annoyed that her mom was forcing her to make a friend right now. Why on earth would her mom think she’d want to meet this girl? But then she noticed how Melodie was checking her out, her eyes grazing the neckline of her dress. Emily’s whole body flushed hot. Common interests. Was her mother actually trying to set her up?
Emily couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do less. She stood up awkwardly and backed away. “It’s really nice to meet you, Melodie, but I have to do something right now.”
Melodie’s face drooped. “Emily!” Mrs. Fields called out. But Emily didn’t turn back. She whipped blindly past kids in her class, fumbling for an exit. Across the room, she noticed Spencer in the doorway, a panicked, nervous look on her face. But Emily couldn’t go to her right then. She needed a few minutes alone.
She found a dark hall at the back of the country club and turned down it. Then she leaned against the wall and took heaving breaths. Get a grip, she told herself, but her mind felt like it was careening down a long, steep hill into a deep ravine. Even glancing at Melodie’s expectant expression had just made her think, Why bother? Ali would ruin that, too.
Then Ali’s red furious face looming above her in the natatorium flooded her thoughts, pumping her with so much anger she whipped around and smacked the wall hard. Why couldn’t they find her? Why wouldn’t she just die?
Spikes of laughter drifted down the hall, along with the beginning notes of Lorde’s “Royals.” Emily slid to the floor and looked hard at the surveillance feed. There had to be something there. But it was the same birds landing on the same branches brushing across the window. The same flicker-and-pop in the fourth-quadrant image, the one that showed the only view of the main room. The same fluttering of leaves.
Until she realized.
The leaves kept fluttering against the window in exactly the same way. It was uncanny: One maple leaf would flatten completely against the window for a second, then droop. Was it that windy up there? Did the wind keep gusting in the same direction?
Then she noticed the same fizzle and pop from that same camera angle. There seemed to be a pattern: fizzle-pop, then gust of wind, then flattened leaf, then a long stretch of nothing. Emily looked at her watch. Five minutes passed, but the sequence repeated. She counted off another five minutes again. There was the fizzle-pop and flattened leaf again.
Her hands started to shake. It seemed like the video was on a loop. She’d seen it in movies: Burglars would use loops to fool security guards so they could sneak in unseen and steal the jewels. Had Ali done the same thing? That camera angle showed the inside of the house, unlike the others. When had this started?
“Emily!” Spencer ran down the hall, her hair streaming behind her and her breathing hard. “I don’t even know how to say this. The guy I’ve been seeing? He’s an Ali Cat. And I told him everything. About the cameras. About how we know where Ali is.” She winced. “So now he knows. Which means Ali knows, too.”
Emily held up the phone. “I know,” she said shakily. “And I think Ali’s already done something about it.”
29
A LIGHT IN THE ATTIC
Ten minutes later, Hanna had swung into the driver’s seat of the Prius and started the engine. Her friends piled in next to her, looking bare in their skimpy party dresses. Their faces glowed in the dim, greenish interior lights.
“Okay, what does all this mean?” Hanna demanded.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Spencer asked, her eyes wild. “When I told Greg about the camera, he was totally surprised. He must have told Ali, and she must have just made the loop to throw us off. Which means she had to be at the pool house to access the camera to make the loop. And the only reason she might want to make the loop is if she’s there, right now, doing something in the pool house. We have to get her before she leaves again!”
Hanna glanced over her shoulder at the bunch of balloons and the ROSEWOOD RALLIES banner across the front entrance. She felt a guilty pang. It felt weird to leave the party, even if it sucked. What if Mike showed up? She’d texted him a thousand times, apologizing again and again and begging him to come to the party so they could reconcile. Mike hadn’t replied, but Hanna hated to think that he might change his mind and she wouldn’t even be here.
“What if it’s a trap?” she said quietly. “What if Ali’s not there at all? Maybe she just made that loop to get us up there.”
Spencer’s brow furrowed. She looked at Aria worriedly. But Emily shook her head. “We won’t know until we actually check it out. We’re going to get her tonight, you guys. I can feel it.”
“But there’s only one camera on a loop, right?” Hanna asked. “Wouldn’t the other cameras show Ali on the porch? Coming through the door?”
“She could have come in a back window,” Emily said. “For all we know, she could have scaled a wall and climbed in through the second floor.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Hanna asked, her last-ditch effort.
Everyone was silent for a moment. Spencer licked her lips. “And tell them . . . what?”
“We could have them come to the pool house,” Hanna suggested, feeling desperate. “Or we could tell them about Greg—that he knows Ali.”
Aria spun a silver ring on her finger around and around. “If they drive up to the property, Ali will see the cop cars and bolt. She’ll probably never go to that place again. And the police will be furious that we trespassed and put up cameras.”
“And I don’t know what we could say about Greg,” Spencer said. “Even if they found him and asked him questions, he’d lie. He’d say he’d never talked to Ali. I doubt he’s kept any evidence that he’s been in touch with her.”
“That’s why we have to go ourselves,” Emily said determinedly.
Hanna ran her fingers on the surface of her clutch. “I just hate that we’re doing this alone,” she said in a small voice.
Spencer grabbed her hand. “We’re not alone—we’re together. And this time, we’re really going to finish this.”