Remains of a teenage girl . . . Jamaica. Spencer reached for her phone just as Hanna was calling again. Spencer answered. “Is there something going on in Jamaica?”
“I’ve been calling you for over an hour,” Hanna whispered. “Spencer, oh my God.”
“Get over here,” Spencer said, running toward her house, heart pounding. “Get over here, now.”
Chapter 34
The girl on the beach
When Aria pulled up to Spencer’s, every light was on in the house. Hanna’s Prius and Emily’s Volvo wagon were also parked at the curb. As Aria cut the Subaru’s engine, she saw them delicately walking up the slippery driveway. She joined them at the door. “What’s this all about?” When Spencer had called her, Aria was just getting off the bus from New York. All Spencer would say was that she had to come over right away.
Hanna and Emily turned to her, wide-eyed. Before they could say anything, Spencer whipped the door open. Her face was drawn and pale. “Come with me.”
She led them through the hall to the family den. Aria looked around; she hadn’t been in this room in at least a year, but the same school pictures of Melissa and Spencer lined the walls. The television was on, the volume turned up loud. She saw the CNN logo in the bottom right-hand corner. A large yellow banner ran across the screen: FISHERMAN FINDS REMAINS OF MISSING GIRL IN JAMAICA.
“Jamaica?” Aria whispered, staggering backward. She looked at the others. Emily covered her mouth. Hanna had a hand on her stomach like she was about to puke. And Spencer couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screen, which showed a robin’s-egg blue ocean and a smooth, tan shore. A rusty-looking fishing boat sat on the sand, and about a zillion reporters and officials gathered around it, taking pictures.
Hanna’s eyes shifted back and forth. “This doesn’t mean anything. It could be anyone.”
“It’s not anyone,” Spencer said in a shaky voice. “Just watch.”
A blond reporter wearing a green CNN-logo polo popped up on the screen. “What we’re seeing below is the ongoing police investigation of the discovered remains on the shore earlier this morning,” she explained, her hair whipping across her face. “According to the fisherman, who wishes to remain anonymous, he found the remains in a cove about six miles south of Negril.”
“Negril?” Hanna stared around the others, her lower lip trembling. “You guys . . .”
“Shh.” Spencer waved her hands to silence her. The newscaster was speaking again. “Judging by the condition of the remains, experts say the girl was about seventeen. From the level of decay, they believe she died about a year ago. Forensic experts are working very diligently to identify who this victim might be.”
“Oh my God.” Aria slumped down in the chair. “You guys, is this . . . Ali?”
“How is that possible?” Hanna held up her phone. “Isn’t she the one sending us the texts? Isn’t she the one who saw what we did?”
“What are the odds that another seventeen-year-old girl died near The Cliffs?” Spencer barked, her mouth a wobbly rectangle. “This is her, you guys. And when the cops identify her and figure out that we were there around that time, they’ll put two and two together.”
“They don’t have any proof it was us!” Hanna said.
“They will.” Spencer squeezed the bridge of her nose. “A is going to tell them.”
Aria looked around the room, as though the school pictures on the wall might give her some solace. Everything suddenly felt turned on its head. So Ali really did die in the fall? Had the ocean swept her away that quickly, before they could even find her on the beach? Why had it taken her a whole year to turn up in a cove only six miles away?
And, the biggest question of alclass="underline" Who was A, if not Ali?
“I’m just getting some new information!” the newscaster shouted, making the girls’ heads snap up. The camera wobbled, first showing the knot of people on the beach, then focusing on the newscaster’s feet, then righting itself on her face once more. The newscaster pressed her finger to her ear, listening to someone’s voice through an earpiece. “They’ve identified the body,” she said. “We have a match.”
Hanna gasped. Aria grabbed Emily’s hand and squeezed. Alison DiLaurentis, Aria waited for the reporter to say slowly. A look of confusion would surely wash over her face. She’d worry that she hadn’t gotten that name quite right. Wasn’t Alison DiLaurentis dead? she’d think. Or was this a girl by the same name, a cruel coincidence?
Suddenly, a photograph filled the screen, and the girls screamed. There was Ali in her latest incarnation, with her straight blond hair, slightly pointier chin, higher cheekbones, and thinner lips. It was exactly the girl they’d met on the roof deck after dinner that horrible night. Exactly the girl who’d teased them with eerie secrets only Ali knew, lured them up to the roof, and almost pushed Hanna off. It was almost a relief to Aria to finally see her again, though. At least they knew she was really dead.
“The parents have just identified the deceased by three pins in her ankle bone from an old accident,” the newscaster explained, the photo of Ali minimizing to the corner of the screen. “They’ve released this photograph of what she looked like just before she disappeared. Her name was Tabitha Clark from New Jersey.”
For a moment, Aria thought her brain had malfunctioned. She swung around and stared at Spencer at the exact same time Spencer turned to look at her. Emily leapt to her feet. Hanna tipped closer to the TV, as if she didn’t believe it. “Wait a minute, what did she just say?” Hanna said.
“Her name was Tabitha Clark,” Spencer repeated in monotone, looking stunned. “From New Jersey.”
“But . . . no!” Aria’s head started to spin. “Her name wasn’t Tabitha! It was Alison! Our Alison!”
Spencer whipped around and pointed at Emily. “You were sure of it! You looked at her and said ‘That’s Ali’!”
“She knew things only Ali knew!” Emily cried. “You guys believed it, too!”
“We all did,” Aria whispered, staring dazedly ahead.
The newscaster continued. The girls turned back to the screen. “According to her parents, Tabitha had run away from home about a year ago. She was always a troubled child, first suffering from a near-fatal house fire when she was thirteen years old, then undergoing agonizing reconstructive surgeries to deal with the burns. Her parents knew she’d been in Jamaica, but they didn’t realize anything was wrong until five months ago, when she didn’t check in with them as usual. They tracked down her friends, who said they hadn’t heard from Tabitha in more than a year.”
The newscaster paused and sadly shook her head. “I’m just getting word that Mr. and Mrs. Clark have been looking for her for months to no avail. It’s heartbreaking that their long search for their daughter had to end in such tragedy.”
Another image appeared on the screen. It was a picture of Tabitha in a cheerleading uniform, surrounded by girls Aria had never seen before. Then, there was a photo of Tabitha standing in front of a stadium, wearing an oversized New Jersey Devils T-shirt and giving a thumbs-up. Ali never would have worn something as garish as a New Jersey Devils T-shirt.