Aria glanced at Hanna, a lump growing in her throat. Metal guards lined the sides of her bed, as if she was a toddler at risk of rolling out. There were green bruises on her face, and her eyes seemed sealed closed. This was the first time Aria had seen a coma patient up close. A monitor recording Hanna’s heartbeat and blood pressure let out a constant beep, beep, beep noise. It made Aria uneasy. She couldn’t help but anticipate that the beeping would abruptly flatline, like it always did in the movies before someone died. “So, have the doctors said anything about her prognosis?” Aria asked shakily.
“Well, her hand’s fluttering. Like that, see?” Lucas gestured to Hanna’s right hand, the one with the cast on it. Her fingernails looked like someone had recently painted them a brilliant coral. “Which seems promising. But the doctors say it might not mean anything—they still aren’t sure if she has any brain damage.”
Aria’s stomach dropped.
“But I’m trying to think positive. The fluttering means she’s about to wake up.” Lucas closed the magazine and set it on Hanna’s bedside table. “And apparently, some of her brain activity readouts show that she might’ve been awake last night…but nobody saw it.” He sighed. “I’m going to go get a soda. Want anything?”
Aria shook her head. Lucas stood up from his chair and Aria took his place. Before Lucas left, he drummed his fingers against the door frame. “Did you hear there’s going to be a candlelight vigil for Hanna on Friday?”
Aria shrugged. “Don’t you think it’s sort of bizarre that it’s at a country club?”
“Sort of,” Lucas whispered. “Or fitting.”
He gave Aria a smirk and padded away. As he smacked the automatic door button and walked out of the ICU ward, Aria smiled. She liked Lucas. He seemed as jaded about pretentious Rosewood bullshit as she was. And he certainly was a good friend. Aria had no idea how he was able to miss so much school to stay with Hanna, but it was nice that someone was with her.
Aria reached out and touched Hanna’s hand, and Hanna’s fingers curled around hers. Aria pulled away, startled, then chastised herself. It wasn’t like Hanna was dead. It wasn’t like Aria had squeezed a corpse’s hand and the corpse had squeezed back.
“Okay, I can be there this afternoon, and we can go through the candids together,” a voice said behind her. “Is that doable?”
Aria whirled around, nearly falling off her chair. Spencer hit the OFF button on her Sidekick and gave Aria an apologetic smile. “Sorry.” She rolled her eyes. “Yearbook can’t do anything without me.” She looked at Hanna, paling a bit. “I came here as soon as my free period started. How’s she doing?”
Aria cracked her knuckles so hard, her thumb joint made a disconcerting pop. It was amazing that in the middle of all this, Spencer still ran eight thousand committees and had even found time to be on the front page of yesterday’s Philadelphia Sentinel. Even though Wilden had more or less exonerated Spencer, there was still something about her that gave Aria pause.
“Where have you been?” Aria asked sharply.
Spencer took a step back, as if Aria had shoved her. “I had to go away with my parents. To New Jersey. I came as soon as I could.”
“Did you get A’s note on Saturday?” Aria demanded. “She knew too much?”
Spencer nodded but didn’t speak. She flicked the tassels of her tweed Kate Spade bag and looked warily at all of Hanna’s electronic medical devices.
“Did Hanna tell you who it is?” Aria goaded.
Spencer frowned. “Who who is?”
“A.” Spencer still looked confused, and an edgy feeling gnawed at Aria’s gut. “Hanna knew who A was, Spencer.” She looked at Spencer carefully. “Hanna didn’t tell you why she wanted to meet?”
“No.” Spencer’s voice cracked. “She just said she had something important to tell me.” She let out a long breath.
Aria thought of Spencer’s cagey, crazy eyes peeping out from the woods behind Rosewood Day. “I saw you, you know,” she blurted out. “I saw you in the woods on Saturday. You were just…standing there. What were you doing?”
The pigment disappeared from Spencer’s face. “I was scared,” she whispered. “I’d never seen anything so scary in my whole life. I couldn’t believe that someone would actually do that to Hanna.”
Spencer looked terrified. All of a sudden, Aria felt her suspicion seep out of her. She wondered what Spencer would think if she knew Aria had thought Spencer was Ali’s killer, and had even shared that theory with Wilden. She recalled Wilden’s judging words: Is this what you girls do? Blame your old friends for murder? Maybe Wilden was right: Spencer might have starred in some of the school plays, but she wasn’t a good enough actress to have killed Ali, traipsed back to the barn, and convinced her remaining best friends that she was as innocent, clueless, and scared as they all were.
“I can’t believe anyone would do that to Hanna either,” Aria said quietly. She sighed. “So, I figured something out Saturday night. I think…I think Ali and Ian Thomas were dating, back when we were in seventh grade.”
Spencer’s mouth fell open. “I figured that out Saturday, too.”
“You didn’t already know?” Aria scratched her head, thrown off guard.
Spencer took another step into the room. She kept her eyes fixed on the clear liquid that filled Hanna’s IV bag. “No.”
“Do you think anyone else knew?”
An indescribable expression crossed Spencer’s face. Talking about all this seemed to make her really uncomfortable. “I think my sister did.”
“Melissa knew all this time but never said anything?” Aria ran her hands along the edge of her chin. “That’s weird.” She thought of A’s three clues about Ali’s killer: that she was close by, that she wanted something Ali had, and that she knew every inch of the DiLaurentises’ yard. All three clues together only applied to a handful of people. If Melissa knew about Ali and Ian, then maybe she was one of them.
“Should we tell the cops about Ian and Ali?” Spencer suggested.
Aria wrung her hands together. “I mentioned it to Wilden.”
A flush of surprise passed over Spencer’s face. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.
“Is that okay?” Aria asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course,” Spencer said briskly, regaining composure. “So…do you think we should tell him about A?”
Aria widened her eyes. “If we do, A might…” She trailed off, feeling nauseated.
Spencer stared at Aria for a long time. “A’s completely running our lives,” she whispered.
Hanna was still immobile in her bed. Aria wondered if she really could hear them, just like Lucas said. Perhaps she’d heard everything they’d just said about A and wanted to tell them what she knew, only she was trapped inside her coma. Or maybe she’d heard everything they’d said and was disgusted that they were talking about this instead of fretting over whether Hanna would ever wake up.
Aria smoothed the sheets over Hanna’s chest, tucking them up to her chin like Ella used to do when Aria had the flu. Then, a flickering reflection in the little window behind Hanna’s bed caught her eye. Aria straightened, her nerves jangling. It looked like someone outside Hanna’s partition was lurking next to an empty wheelchair, trying not to be seen.
She whipped around, her heart racing, and pulled back the curtain.