Flawless (20 page)

Meredith crossed her arms over her chest. “I do know all that,” she answered, starting to shut the door. “And I’m sorry. I really am. But we’re in love.”

23

NEXT STOP, GREATER ROSEWOOD JAIL

Late Saturday afternoon, a few hours before Foxy, Spencer sat at her computer. She’d just addressed an e-mail to Squidward and attached her essays.
Just send it,
she told herself. She closed her eyes, clicked the mouse, and, when she opened them, her work had been sent.

Well, it was
sort of
her work.

She hadn’t cheated. Really. Well, maybe she had. But who could blame her? After A’s message came in last night, she’d spent the whole night calling Wren, but his phone kept going to voice mail. And she’d left five messages for him, each of them becoming more frantic. She’d put on her shoes twelve separate times, ready to drive into Philadelphia to see if Wren was okay, but then talked herself out of it. The one time her Sidekick chimed, she dove for it, but it was just a classwide e-mail from Squidward, reminding everyone of the proper annotation style for the essay questions.

When someone put their hand on Spencer’s shoulder, she screamed.

Melissa stepped back. “Whoa! Sorry! Just me!”

Spencer righted herself, breathing hard. “I…” She surveyed her desk.
Shit.
There was a slip of paper that said,
Gynecologist, Tuesday, 5
P.M
. Ortho Tri-Cyclen?
And she had Melissa’s old history essays on her computer screen. She kicked the computer hard drive’s on/off switch with her foot, and the monitor went black.

“You stressed?” Melissa asked. “Lots of homework before Foxy?”

“Kinda.” Spencer quickly shoved all of her desk’s random papers into neat piles.

“Wanna borrow my lavender neck pillow?” Melissa asked. “It’s a stress reliever.”

“That’s all right,” Spencer answered, not even daring to look at her sister.
I stole your paper and your boyfriend,
she thought.
You shouldn’t be nice to me.

Melissa pushed her lips together. “Well, not to make you more stressed, but there’s a cop downstairs. He says he wants to ask you some questions.”

“
What?
” Spencer cried.

“It’s about Alison.” Melissa said. She shook her head, making the ends of her hair swing. “They shouldn’t make you talk about it—the
week
of her memorial. It’s sick.”

Spencer tried not to panic. She stared at herself in the mirror, smoothing down her blond hair and dabbing concealer under her eyes. She pulled on a white button-down blouse and skinny khaki pants. There. She looked trustworthy and innocent.

But her whole body was shaking.

Sure enough, there was a cop standing in the living room but looking into her father’s second office, where he kept his vintage guitar collection. When the cop turned around, Spencer realized that he wasn’t the one she’d spoken to at the funeral. This guy was young. And he looked familiar, like she might’ve seen him somewhere else.

“Are you Spencer?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

He stuck out his hand. “I’m Darren Wilden. I’ve just been assigned to Alison DiLaurentis’s murder case.”

“Murder,” Spencer repeated.

“Yes,” Officer Wilden said. “Well, we’re investigating it as a murder.”

“Okay.” Spencer tried to sound even and mature. “Wow.”

Wilden motioned for Spencer to sit down on her living room couch; then he sat opposite her on the chaise. She realized where she knew him from: Rosewood Day. He’d gone there when she was in sixth grade, and he’d earned a reputation as a badass. One of Melissa’s nerdy friends, Liana, had a crush on him, and once made Spencer deliver a secret admirer note to him at the espresso bar where he worked. Spencer recalled thinking that Darren had biceps the size of Chunky Soup cans.

Now he was staring at her. Spencer felt her nose itch, and the grandfather clock made a few loud ticks. Finally, he said, “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

Fear shot through her chest. “Tell you?”

Wilden sat back. “About Alison.”

Spencer blinked. Something about this felt wrong. “She was my best friend,” she managed. Her palms felt sweaty. “I was with her the night she went missing.”

“Right.” Wilden looked at a notepad. “That’s in our files. You talked to someone at the police station after she went missing, right?”

“Yes. Twice.”

“Right.” Wilden clasped his hands together. “Are you sure you told them
everything
? Was there someone who hated Alison? Maybe the officer asked you all these questions before, but since I’m new, maybe you could refresh my memory.”

Spencer’s brain stalled. Truthfully, lots of girls had hated Ali.
Spencer
even hated Ali sometimes, especially the way she always could manipulate her, and how she’d threatened to point the finger at Spencer for The Jenna Thing if she ever told what she knew. And secretly, it was kind of a relief when Ali disappeared. Ali gone and Toby away at school meant their secret was hidden for good.

She swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure what this cop knew. A could have tipped the cops off that she was hiding something. And it was brilliant—if Spencer told him,
Yes, I
do
know someone who hated Ali,
really
hated her enough to kill her,
she’d have to confess her involvement in The Jenna Thing. If she said nothing and protected herself, A still might punish her friends…and Wren.

You hurt me, so I’m going to hurt you.

Sweat prickled on the back of her neck. But then there was more: What if Toby was back to hurt her? What if he and A were working together? What if he was A? But if he was—and he killed Ali—would he go to the cops and incriminate himself? “I’m pretty sure I told them everything,” she finally said.

There was a long, long pause. Wilden stared at Spencer. Spencer stared at Wilden. It made Spencer think about the night after The Jenna Thing happened. She’d dozed into a fitful, paranoid sleep, her friends quietly crying around her. But all of a sudden, she was awake again. The cable box clock said 3:43
A.M
., and the room was still. She felt unhinged, and found Ali, sleeping sitting up on the couch with Emily’s head in her lap. “I can’t do this,” she said, shaking her awake. “We should turn ourselves in.”

Ali got up, led Spencer into the hall bathroom, and sat down on the edge of the tub. “Get a grip, Spence,” Ali said. “You can’t spaz if the police ask us questions.”

“The
police
?” Spencer shrieked, her heart picking up speed.

“
Shhh,
” Ali whispered. She drummed her nails against the tub’s porcelain edge. “I’m not saying the police are definitely going to talk to us, but we have to make a plan in case they
do
. All we need is a solid story. An alibi.”

“Why can’t we just tell them the truth?” Spencer asked. “Exactly what you saw Toby do, and that it surprised you so much, you set the firework off by accident?”

Ali shook her head. “It’s better my way. We keep Toby’s secret, he keeps ours.”

A knock on the door made them stand up. “Guys?” a voice called. It was Aria.

“Fair enough,” Wilden finally said, breaking Spencer from her memory. He handed her a business card. “Call me if you think of anything, all right?”

“Of course,” Spencer whimpered.

Wilden put his hands on his hips and looked around the room. At the Chippendale furniture; the exquisite stained-glass window; the heavy, framed art on the walls; and her father’s prized George Washington clock that had been in the family since the 1800s. Then he canvassed Spencer, from the diamond studs in her ears to the delicate Cartier watch on her wrist to her blond highlights, which cost $300 every six weeks. The smug little smile on his face seemed to say,
You seem like a girl who has a lot to lose.

“You going to that benefit tonight?” he asked, making her jump. “Foxy?”

“Um, yeah,” Spencer said quietly.

“Well.” Wilden gave her a little salute. “Have fun.” His voice was totally normal, but she could’ve sworn the look on his face said,
I’m not through with you yet.

24

$250 GETS YOU DINNER, DANCING…AND A WARNING

Foxy was held in Kingman Hall, an old English countryside mansion built by a man who’d invented some new-fangled milking machine in the early 1900s. In fourth grade, when they learned about the hall in the All About Pennsylvania social studies unit, Emily nicknamed it “Moo Mansion.”

As the check-in girl scrutinized their invites, Emily looked around. The place had a labyrinthine garden in its front yard. Gargoyles leered from the arches of the mansion’s stately front. Ahead of her was the tent where the actual event was being held. It was lit up with fairy lights and full of people.

“Wow.” Toby came up beside her. Beautiful girls swished by them toward the tent, wearing elaborate, custom-made dresses and carrying bejeweled bags. Emily looked down at her own dress—it was a simple, strapless pink sheath Carolyn had worn to prom last year. She’d done her hair herself, put on a lot of Carolyn’s ultra-girly Lovely perfume—which made her sneeze—and was wearing earrings for the first time in a while, poking them forcefully through the holes in her ears that had almost closed up. Even with all that, she still felt plain next to everyone else.

Yesterday, when Emily called Toby to ask him to Foxy, he’d sounded so surprised—but really excited. She was psyched, too. They would go to Foxy, share another kiss, and who knew? Maybe become a couple. In time, they would visit Jenna at her school in Philadelphia, and Emily would somehow make it all up to her. She’d foster Jenna’s next Seeing Eye dog. She’d read to her all the books that hadn’t yet come out in Braille. Maybe, in time, Emily would confess her involvement in Jenna’s accident.

Or maybe not.

Except now that she was at Foxy, something just felt…wrong. Emily’s body kept feeling hot, then cold, and her stomach kept clenching up in pain. Toby’s hands felt too scratchy, and she’d been so nervous, they’d barely said anything to each other on the way over. Foxy itself didn’t seem to be very calming, either; everyone was so stiff and poised. And Emily was sure someone was watching her. As she inspected every girl’s made-up, glossy face and every guy’s scrubbed, handsome one, she wondered,
Are you A?

“Smile!” A flashbulb popped in Emily’s face, and she let out a little scream. When the spots faded from her eyes, a blond girl in a merlot-red dress with a press badge over her right boob and a digital camera slung over her shoulder was laughing at her. “I was just taking photos for the
Philadelphia Inquirer
,” she explained. “Wanna try that again, without the freaked expression this time?” Emily clutched Toby’s arm and tried to look happy, except her expression was more of a petrified grimace.

After the press girl whirled away, Toby turned to Emily. “Is something wrong? You seemed so relaxed in front of a camera before.”

Emily stiffened. “When have you seen me in front of a camera?”

“The Rosewood versus Tate?” Toby reminded her. “That crazy yearbook kid?”

“Oh, right.” Emily breathed out.

Toby’s eyes followed a waiter scurrying around with a drink tray. “So, is this your scene?”

“God, no!” Emily said. “I’ve never been to anything like this in my life.”

He looked around. “Everyone looks so…so plastic. I used to want to kill most of these people.”

A sharp, startled frisson passed through Emily. It was the same sort of feeling she’d felt when she woke up in the back of Toby’s car. When Toby noticed her face, he quickly smiled. “Not
literally
.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re much prettier than all the girls here.”

Emily flushed. Only she was finding that her insides didn’t turn upside down when he said it or when he touched her. They
should
. Toby looked hot. Gorgeous, actually, in his black suit and black wingtips, with his hair pushed back off his angular, square-jawed face. Every girl was checking him out. When he’d shown up on her porch, even mild-mannered Carolyn had squealed, “He’s so cute!”

But when he held her hand, as much as she wanted it to feel like something, it felt like nothing. It was like holding hands with her sister.

Emily tried to relax. She and Toby made their way into the tent, got two virgin piña coladas, and joined a bunch of kids on the dance floor. There were only a handful of girls who were trying to dance in that über-sexy, hands-above-the-head, I’m getting my moves down for MTV Spring Break way. Most everyone else was just jumping around, singing along to Madonna. Technicians were setting up a karaoke machine in the corner, and girls were writing down the songs they wanted to sing.

Emily broke away to go to the bathroom, leaving the tent and walking through a sexy, candlelit hallway paved in rose petals. Girls passed her, arm and arm, whispering and giggling. Emily discreetly checked out her chest; she’d never worn a strapless dress before and was certain it was going to fall down and expose her boobs to the world.

“Want a reading?”

Emily looked over. A dark-haired woman dressed in a silky, paisley-print dress sat at a small table under a huge portrait of Horace Kingman, the milking-machine inventor himself. She wore a ton of bracelets on her left arm and a large snake brooch at her throat. A deck of cards sat next to her along with a little sign at the edge of the table:
THE MAGIC OF THE TAROT
.

“That’s okay,” Emily told her. The tarot reader was so…public. Out here in the open, in the middle of the hall.

The woman extended a long fingernail toward her. “You need one, though. Something’s going to happen to you tonight. Something life-changing.”

Emily stiffened.
“Me?”

“Yes, you. And the date you brought? He’s not the one you want. You must go to the one you really love.”

Emily’s mouth fell open, and her mind began to race.

The tarot reader looked as if she was about to say something else, but Naomi Zeigler pushed past Emily and sat down at the table. “I met you here last year,” Naomi gushed, leaning excitedly on her elbows. “You gave me the best reading ever.”