Wanted

9 SECRETS, SECRETS EVERYWHERE

“Welcome to the Ruff House Grooming Salon!” a chipper woman in a red smock said to Spencer and Melissa as they guided the family’s two labradoodles into the luxurious doggie spa. Grooming duty was usually Mrs. Hastings’s job, but Mrs. Hastings couldn’t even groom herself right now.

As the dogs stopped to sniff a large potted fern in the corner—and then lift their legs on it—Melissa let out a dramatic sigh and shot a resentful glance in Spencer’s direction. Spencer grimaced. Okay, so Melissa still hated her for turning their mother into a catatonic agoraphobe. Duly noted. Did she have to ram it down Spencer’s throat every chance she got?

A pigtailed groomer, who didn’t look much older than Spencer, said she’d be with them in a few minutes. Spencer flopped down on a leather chair, and Beatrice slumped at her feet, chewing on one of the toes of Spencer’s Kate Spade ballet flats.

Someone cleared her throat across the room. Spencer looked up. A wild-haired old woman holding a teacup Chihuahua was giving her the stink eye. “You’re that girl whose dead friend had a secret twin, right?” she said, pointing. When Spencer nodded, the woman made a tsk sound and pulled her dog close, as if Spencer were possessed. “Nothing good can come from that. Nothing good.”

Spencer’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”

“Mrs. Abernathy?” a voice called from the hall. “We’re ready for you and Mr. Belvedere.” The old woman stood, shoving her dog under her arm. She gave Spencer a final foreboding look and disappeared around the corner.

Next to her, Melissa let out a baffled sniff. Spencer sneaked a tiny peek at her. As usual, her sister’s chin-length hair was smooth and straight, her peachy skin was flawless, and her checkered wool coat was lint-free. All at once, Spencer was so sick of their stupid rift. If crazy old ladies in vintage Chanel had opinions about the bomb Mrs. DiLaurentis dropped yesterday, then certainly Melissa did, too. Ali wasn’t the only one with a secret sister—Courtney was Spencer and Melissa’s half sister, too.

“What do you think we should do about Courtney?” Spencer asked her.

Melissa dropped an organic dog biscuit back into a crystal bowl. “Pardon?”

“Courtney said that Ali told her a lot about us. Should I get to know her since…you know, we’re related?”

Melissa looked away. “I didn’t realize Ali and Courtney were very close. What kind of stuff did she know?” She unscrewed the cap to her purple Nalgene bottle and took a long gulp.

Spencer felt an anxious pull in the pit of her stomach. “What did you say to Jason at the press conference, anyway?”

Melissa nearly choked on a mouthful of water. “Nothing.”

Spencer clutched Beatrice’s leash. Somewhere in the spa, a dog let out an unhappy yowl. It was clearly not nothing. “And since when are you friends with Jason? I haven’t seen you two talk since high school.”

The bells at the front door jingled, and a man walked in with an enormous poodle, a bandana around her neck. Both Rufus and Beatrice jumped to their feet, instantly alert. Spencer kept her eyes on her sister, determined not to back down until Melissa told her the truth.

Finally, Melissa sighed. “I was telling Jason that he should’ve told me that Courtney was back.”

The New Age music that had been tinkling through the stereo suddenly went silent. “What do you mean ‘back’? Did you know about Courtney?” Spencer whispered.

Melissa kept her eyes on her coat in her lap. “Um, kind of.”

“For how long?”

“Since high school.”

“What?”

“Look, Jason had this huge crush on me.” Melissa pulled Rufus toward her and stroked his head. “And one day, he blurted out that he had this secret sister who was in the hospital. He begged me not to tell anyone. It was the least I could do.”

“What do you mean?”

A woman with two neatly groomed bichons frises passed. “Well, I kind of ditched Jason for Ian,” Melissa said, not meeting Spencer’s gaze. “I broke his heart.”

Spencer tried to picture when it might have happened. Before the barn burned, she’d unearthed an old math notebook from when Melissa was in high school; inside was a note about Melissa and Jason hooking up. Spencer also remembered the Saturday after sixth grade started when she and her old friends had crept into Ali’s yard to steal her piece of the Time Capsule flag. Two people had been fighting inside Ali’s house—Ali screamed “Stop it!” and then someone else had mimicked her in a high-pitched voice. Next there was a crash, a loud thump, and then Jason had stormed out of the house. He stopped midway across the yard to glower at Ian and Melissa, who were on the Hastingses’ deck. Melissa and Ian had started dating a few days before….

If Melissa and Jason had had a fling, it must have been before that. Which meant Melissa had known that Ali had a secret twin even before Spencer and Ali became friends.

“Nice of you to say something,” Spencer said through clenched teeth. The music clicked back on, this time with an old Enya song.

“I made a promise,” Melissa said, wrapping Rufus’s leash around her hand so tightly it started to cut off her circulation. “It was Ali’s place to tell you.”

“Well, she didn’t.”

Melissa rolled her eyes. “Well, Ali was kind of a bitch.”

The overpowering scent of eucalyptus dog toothpaste turned Spencer’s stomach. She wanted to tell Melissa that she was a bitch, too. Screw protecting Jason—Melissa never protected anybody. No, Melissa had kept the secret because knowledge meant power and control—just like it had for Ali. Spencer’s sisters were more alike than she’d ever realized. But Ali and Melissa weren’t Spencer’s only sisters.

Just days ago, she’d wished for an opportunity to start over with Ali without manipulation, lies, or competition. She’d never have that chance, but maybe she had the next best thing.

Without a word, Spencer handed Melissa Beatrice’s leash and stormed out of the salon.

When Spencer pulled up to the DiLaurentises’ new home, she was relieved to find that the news vans, cop cars, and barricades from the press conference yesterday were gone. It looked like a normal house again, identical to all the other houses except for the staircase over the garage, which led to Jason’s studio apartment.

Spencer climbed out of the car and stood very still. A snowblower grumbled in the distance. Three crows sat on a green electrical box across the street. The air smelled like spilled motor oil and snow.

Rolling her shoulders, she walked up the gray flagstone path and rang the DiLaurentises’ bell. There was a thud from inside. Spencer hopped from foot to foot, wondering if this was a mistake. What if Courtney didn’t know they were related—or didn’t care? Just because Spencer wanted a sister didn’t mean she’d get one.

Suddenly the door flung open, and Courtney appeared. Spencer gasped involuntarily. “What?” Courtney asked sharply. Her eyebrows made a V.

“Sorry,” Spencer blurted. “It’s just…you look so…”

Here was Ali, exactly as she was in Spencer’s memory. Her blond hair was wild and wavy over her shoulders, her skin gleamed, and her blue eyes sparkled under a fringe of thick, long eyelashes. There was such a disconnect in Spencer’s mind—this girl looked just like Ali, and yet she wasn’t her old friend.

Spencer waved her hands in front of her face, wishing she could shut the door and start this all over again.

“So, what’s up?” Courtney said, leaning against the doorjamb. There was a hole in her left red-and-white-striped sock.

Spencer chewed her lip awkwardly. God, she even sounded like Ali. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Cool.” Courtney ushered Spencer in, then turned and padded down the hall toward the stairs. Framed photos of the DiLaurentis family lined the walls. Spencer recognized many of them from the DiLaurentises’ old house. There was the picture of the family on a double-decker bus in London, a black-and-white one of them on a beach in the Bahamas, and the fish-eye-lens photo of them in front of the giraffe habitat at the Philadelphia Zoo. The familiar images took on new significance as Spencer followed the unpictured DiLaurentis through the house. Why hadn’t Courtney gone on any of the vacations? Had she been too sick?

Spencer stopped in front of a photo she didn’t recognize. It was of the family on the back porch of their old house. Mother, father, son, and daughter grinned broadly, happily, as if they didn’t have a secret in the world. It must have been close to the time Ali went missing—there was a big bulldozer looming in the yard, near where the gazebo was going to be. There was another shape at the edge of the property, too. It looked like a person. Spencer leaned close, squinting, but couldn’t quite make out who it was. Courtney cleared her throat, waiting on one of the upper steps. “Coming?” she asked, and Spencer scuttled away from the photos, like she’d been caught spying. She sprinted up the stairs.

There were lots of moving boxes in the upstairs hallway. Spencer dug her fingers into her palm when she saw one labeled Ali—Field Hockey. Courtney skirted around a purple Dyson vacuum and pushed through a door at the end of the hall. “Here we are.”

When Spencer saw the room, she felt as though she’d stepped back in time. She recognized the hot-pink bedspread immediately—she’d helped Ali pick it out at Saks. There was the big black Rockefeller Center subway station sign that Ali’s parents had bought for her at an antique store in SoHo. And the license-plate mirror over the bureau was the most familiar of all. Spencer had given it to Ali on her thirteenth birthday.

These were Ali’s things, all of them. Didn’t Courtney have any possessions of her own?

Courtney flopped down on the bed. “What’s on your mind?”

Spencer sank into the paisley, stuffed chair across the room and straightened the protective arm covers so the patterns matched up. This wasn’t something she could drop on a person without warning—especially someone who’d spent her life battling a mysterious illness. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she should just up and leave. Maybe…

“Let me guess.” Courtney picked at a loose thread on the duvet. “You want to talk about the affair.” Courtney shrugged. “Your dad. My mom.”

Spencer gasped. “You know?”

“I’ve always known.”

“But…how?” Spencer cried.

Courtney’s head was down, and Spencer could see her jagged part and perfectly honey-blond roots. “Ali found out. And then she told me on one of her visits.”

“Ali knew? Billy wasn’t just making that up?” Billy-as-Ian had IM’ed Spencer about the affair right before he’d killed Jenna.

“And she never told you, right?” Courtney clucked her tongue.

A sparrow landed on the ledge of Courtney’s window. The room smelled suddenly of new carpet and fresh paint. Spencer blinked hard. “Do Jason and your dad know?”

“I’m not sure. No one’s ever said anything. But if my sister knew, my brother probably does, too. And my parents pretty much hate each other—which means my dad is probably clued in.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear they only stayed together because Ali went missing. I’ll bet you that a year from now they divorce.”

Spencer felt a tangerine-size lump in her throat. “I don’t even know where my dad is right now. And my mom just found out about this. She’s really messed up.”

“I’m sorry.” Courtney looked straight at Spencer.

Spencer shifted her weight, and the chair squeaked angrily. “Everyone was keeping things from me,” she said quietly. “I have an older sister, Melissa. You may have seen her at the press conference. She was talking to your brother.” She was also the one who glared at you, she wanted to add.

“Melissa told me she’s known that Ali had a twin since high school,” Spencer continued. “She never bothered to mention it to me. I’m sure she loved knowing something I didn’t. Some sister, huh?” She let out a loud, clumsy sniff.

Courtney rose, plucked a Kleenex box off the bedside table, and plopped down at Spencer’s feet. “She sounds really competitive and insecure,” she said. “That’s how Ali was with me, too. She always wanted the limelight. She hated if I was better at anything. I know she was pretty competitive with you, too.”

That was an understatement. Spencer and Ali used to compete over everything—who could bike to Wawa the fastest, who could kiss the most older guys, or who could make JV field hockey in seventh grade. There were lots of times Spencer didn’t want to race, but Ali always insisted. Was it because Ali knew they were also sisters? Was she trying to prove something?

Salty tears spilled down Spencer’s cheeks, and sobs rose in her chest. She wasn’t even sure what she was crying about. All the lies, maybe. All the hurt. All the deaths.

Courtney pulled her in and hugged her tight. She smelled like cinnamon gum and Mane ‘n Tail shampoo. “Who cares what our sisters knew?” she murmured. “The past is the past. We have each other now—right?”

“Uh-huh,” Spencer murmured, still choking on sobs.

Courtney pulled away, her face brightening. “Hey! Want to go dancing tomorrow?”

“Dancing?” Spencer wiped her puffy eyes. Tomorrow was a school night. She had an AP history test at the end of the week. She hadn’t seen Andrew in days, and she still needed to get a dress for the Valentine’s Day dance. “I don’t know….”

Courtney grabbed her hands. “C’mon. It’ll be our chance to break free of our evil sisters! It’s like that ‘Survivor’ song!” And then she leaned back and launched into the old Destiny’s Child song. “‘I’m a sur-vi-vor!’” she sang as she waved her hands over her head, stuck out her butt, and wheeled around crazily. “Come on, Spencer! Say you’ll go dancing with me!”

Despite all her grief and confusion, Spencer burst out laughing. Maybe Courtney was right—maybe the best thing to do amidst all this craziness was kick back, let go, and have a good time. This was what she’d wanted, after all—a sister she could confide in, rely on, and have fun with. Courtney seemed to want the same exact thing.

“Okay,” Spencer said. And at that, she let out a big breath of air, stood up, and sang along with her sister.