Chloe’s head remained turned for a long while. The chicken-shaped clock over the stove ticked loudly. The adults murmured in the other room. Finally, she looked at Emily with cold, tired eyes and sighed. “I won’t tell your secret if you leave my dad alone.”
“Thank you,” Emily said. “And of course I will.”
She moved toward Chloe for a hug, but Chloe pushed her away like Emily was a rude dog nosing for table food. “That doesn’t mean I want to be friends.”
“What?” Emily cried. “W-why?”
“I just can’t.” Chloe turned on her heel and walked toward the kitchen door. “Tell my parents I got a phone call and I’m in the car, okay?” she said over her shoulder. “No offense, but I don’t really want to do the ‘Yay, Emily’ cake thing right now.”
Emily watched as Chloe yanked on the kitchen door and then slammed it shut again. It felt like someone had just scooped out her heart and run it through a potato masher. Everything was ruined. Sure she had a scholarship, sure her future was set, but it felt like she’d won it at too great a cost.
Squeak.
Emily turned around, squinting in the blinding sunlight that poured through the windows. What was that? She scanned the cabinets and the floors, then noticed a thin sheet of paper at the foot of the door Chloe had just passed through. Her heart kicked in her chest. She ran to the window and stared outside, searching for whoever had put it there. Was that a shape disappearing through the trees? What was that movement in the cornfield?
She opened the back door, letting the cold air rush in. “Ali?” she screamed. “Ali!” But no one answered. “Chloe?” she called next, thinking Chloe might have seen something. But Chloe didn’t answer, either.
The adults laughed at something in the other room. Grace let out a happy cry. Trembling, Emily picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. Spiky handwriting blurred before her eyes.
She may not tell, but I can’t make the same promise—about
ANY of your secrets. Sorry! –A
Chapter 32
Ali, the cunning cat
“Um, excuse me?”
Hanna looked down from the elliptical trainer she was chugging away on and saw a petite girl with big doe eyes and a size 23 waist staring up at her. “There’s a thirty-minute limit on these machines,” the girl complained. “And, like, you’ve been on for sixty-three.”
“Too bad,” Hanna snapped back, wheeling faster. Let the gym police kick her off.
It was later that Saturday afternoon—the anniversary of Alison DiLaurentis’s death, all the news channels blared, not that Hanna could ever forget—and Hanna was at the Rosewood Country Club’s state-of-the-art gym. The room smelled like ylang-ylang candles, MTV appeared on every TV mounted over the machines, and a very hyper Zumba instructor was screaming so loudly in the fitness room that Hanna could hear her over the hip-hop music blaring on her iPod. She’d hoped the elliptical would exorcise the memories of Tabitha, Jamaica, the elevator incident, and especially A, but it wasn’t really working. She kept feeling Tabitha’s—Ali’s—hands on her shoulders, ready to push her off the roof. She kept hearing her friends’ screams. And then Aria had stepped in, and everything moved so fast . . .
At first, Hanna had been relieved that Aria pushed Ali over the side. She’d killed so many people, getting rid of her felt like a good deed for all humanity. But then she realized what they’d done. A life was still a life. They weren’t murderers.
Hanna and her friends ran down to the beach, taking the stairs two at a time. They banged out the back door onto the sand and looked around. The moon cast a silvery stripe down the beach. The ocean roared. Hanna stared at her pale feet below, hoping she wouldn’t bump into Ali’s limp, twisted body. Surely she’d died on impact, right?
“Do you see her?” Aria’s voice called from a distance.
“Not yet,” Spencer answered. “Keep looking!”
They ran up and down the shore, splashing through the warm water, searching the dunes, even looping around and checking out the coves and cliffs. But there was no body anywhere.
“What the hell?” Aria stopped, out of breath. “Where did she go?”
Hanna looked around frantically. It wasn’t possible. Ali couldn’t just disappear. Aria had pushed her. She had fallen hard. They’d heard her hit the sand. They’d looked over the rail and, in the fuzzy darkness, they’d sworn they’d seen a body. Hadn’t they?
“The tide must have picked her up.” Spencer gestured to the sea. “She’s probably washed away by now.”
“What happens if she washes back up?” Aria whispered.
“It’s not as if anyone can prove we did it.” Spencer looked around, checking the beach again. It was still empty. No one was watching. “And Aria, it—it was self-defense—Ali could have killed us.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” Aria’s eyes were wide and scared. “Maybe we misunderstood her up there. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
“You should have,” Spencer said sharply. “If you wouldn’t have pushed her, we might not be standing here right now.”
Everyone was silent for a moment. Emily stared at the round moon above them. “What if Ali didn’t wash away?” she whispered. “What if she survived the fall and crawled away to find help?”
Hanna’s stomach swirled. She’d been thinking the same exact thing.
Spencer kicked at a clump of sand. “There’s no way. She couldn’t have survived that fall.”
“She survived a fire,” Emily reminded her. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with. She’s, like, bionic.”
Spencer’s eyes blazed. “Just let it go, okay? She washed out to sea. She’s dead.”
Now, Hanna noticed something across the gym. Jeremiah stood in the doorway near the check-in desk, glaring right at her.
Hanna jumped off the elliptical and toweled off her face. She could feel her racing pulse even in her lips. As Jeremiah approached, she gave him a big, innocent smile. “Uh, do you go to this gym?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Jeremiah snapped. His face was purple with fury. “Or I should say I did. Your father got me a complimentary membership. But now that’s been revoked.”
“Oh,” Hanna said quietly.
“Oh? That’s all you can say? Oh?” Jeremiah was so angry he was shaking. “I hope you’re happy, Hanna. This is all because of you.”
A shockwave rippled through Hanna’s skin, but she stood her ground. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just told my dad that I saw you go upstairs.”
“You didn’t see anything, and you know it.” He leaned closer to her, his breath smelling sour and unclean. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”
Hanna turned her head away. The girl who’d wanted her elliptical glanced over at them, her brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jeremiah pointed a finger at her. “You’ve ruined my career. And I have a feeling you’re going to find a way to ruin your father’s campaign. Remember that anonymous note I got, saying you were hiding something? I’m going to look into it, Hanna. And you’re going down.”
Hanna let out a terrified squeak. Jeremiah remained in Hanna’s face for a moment longer, then wheeled around and marched back through the room.