Wanted

16 IF NOT NOW, EM, WHEN?

The following morning, Emily and her sister Carolyn walked into the Rosewood Diner. Their grueling swimming practice had ended a little early, which meant they actually had time to eat a real meal before school.

The diner’s owners left their Christmas lights up all year long, which made the room feel cozy and festive. The kitchen smelled of pancakes, syrup, sausages, and coffee. A couple of discarded newspapers lay on the counter. Photo in Window Isn’t of Ford read one of the headlines. Beneath it was a scan of the blurry Polaroid Aria had told Emily about. She’d called late last night, explaining that she’d found two photos in the woods. She’d dropped off the photos anonymously, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself.

Emily stared hard at the fuzzy image. The face was overexposed from the flash, making it look like an apparition. The person had blond hair like Billy’s, but the shapes of the person’s jaw, eyes, and nose were completely different. The space behind Emily’s eyes started to throb. Why did Billy have those Polaroids if he wasn’t the one who’d taken the pictures? Did he have an accomplice that night? Or had someone planted them in his car?

Emily followed Carolyn into the big red booth. Her cell phone beeped from inside her swim bag. One new text. It was from Courtney DiLaurentis. Ali.

Can’t wait to see you in gym 2day. XX

Emily’s heart flipped. Can’t wait to see you too, she texted back, watching the little envelope spin until the text was sent.

She could still taste Ali’s minty breath and feel her soft, full lips on hers. She could still see Ali dancing seductively at that club on Wednesday night, the spotlight shining on the crown of her golden head.

Carolyn leaned over and glanced at Emily’s cell phone screen. Her eyes widened. “Are you and Courtney friends?”

“She seems nice,” Emily said, trying not to give anything away.

Carolyn folded the menu and slid it to the edge of the table. “It’s so weird that Ali had a twin. Did you ever suspect?”

Emily shrugged. In hindsight, it all fit together. She should’ve guessed something weird was going on the day before the seventh-grade sleepover. When Ali had met the girls on the porch, she’d had no memory of talking to them in her room just moments before. Then later that same afternoon, Emily had excused herself to use the DiLaurentises’ bathroom. Inside, she’d heard Jason whispering angrily to someone on the stairs. “You’d better stop it,” he warned. “You know how that pisses them off.”

“I’m not hurting anyone,” another voice had protested. It sounded a lot like Ali, but it had clearly been Courtney. Jason was probably scolding her for impersonating her sister—again.

She tried to drown me, Ali had said. She wanted to kill me to be me. Emily shuddered.

But what about the other time Courtney had been home, when she’d switched from the Radley to the Preserve? Ali had said it was early in sixth grade. Could it have been the same Saturday that Emily, Spencer, and the others had sneaked into Ali’s yard, hoping to steal her Time Capsule flag? Emily remembered hearing an argument from inside the DiLaurentises’ house—Ali had screamed “Stop it!” and then someone had yelled “Stop it!” back in the same high-pitched voice. She’d figured it was Jason, but it also could have been Courtney.

That was the first day Ali had ever talked to any of them, and for a while, she’d seemed almost friendly. She didn’t even stop the conversation when Mrs. DiLaurentis stepped out on the porch and told Ali she was leaving. Looking back on it now, Emily wondered if Ali’s family was taking Courtney to the Preserve, the new facility. If she’d paid more attention to the DiLaurentises’ Mercedes as it pulled away from the house, would she have seen a face eerily identical to Ali’s in the backseat?

The waitress approached their table and asked if they’d decided what they wanted for breakfast. Carolyn ordered a western omelet, and Emily requested a Belgian waffle. After the waitress strode away, Carolyn dumped a container of creamer into her coffee mug. “Courtney seems really different than Ali.”

Emily stirred her hot chocolate, trying to remain neutral. “Why do you say that?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t really put my finger on it, but the differences are there.”

The bell on the counter rang. The waitress carried two trays of food in her arms, teetering slightly beneath the weight. Emily wished she could tell Carolyn the truth about Ali, but Ali had sworn her to secrecy. Emily wondered just how long Ali would have to pretend to be Courtney. Until she was eighteen? Forever?

Carolyn raised an eyebrow, looking past Emily at something out the window. “Isn’t that Officer Wilden?”

Emily turned. Two people were huddled together across the parking lot. A blond girl in a checkered coat was talking to a familiar cop. It was Wilden and Spencer’s sister, Melissa. Whatever they were saying looked heated.

Melissa shook her finger in Wilden’s face. Wilden said something back, waving his hand like he didn’t believe what Melissa was saying. Melissa threw her hands in the air in apparent frustration, and Wilden walked away. She called out to him, but he didn’t turn around.

“Whoa,” Carolyn said quietly. “What was that all about?”

“No clue,” Emily said softly.

The door of the diner opened, and two guys in Tate Prep Diving warm-up jackets strutted in. Carolyn turned back to Emily, taking another sip of coffee. “So are you and Isaac going to the Valentine’s Day dance? I haven’t seen him around lately.”

Isaac. For a moment, Emily couldn’t even remember her old boyfriend’s face. Not long ago, she’d thought Isaac Colbert was the love of her life—enough even to sleep with him. But then he hadn’t believed Emily when she told him that his mother was tormenting her. It felt like it had happened a millennium ago. “Uh…I doubt it.”

“What happened?”

Emily pretended to be fascinated by the laminated place mat in front of her, a kitschy, fact-filled map of the United States. Her parents and sister still thought she’d gone on a choir trip to Boston with Isaac a few weeks ago, but she’d really been in Amish Country, unearthing information on Wilden’s past. When the cops brought Emily home the night she’d almost broken into the Rosewood PD evidence room—the same night Jenna was killed—she’d told her mom she was dressed in Amish garb for a role-playing game she’d taken part in during the Boston trip. Emily was pretty sure her mom didn’t believe her, but Mrs. Fields hadn’t pressed the issue.

After a couple of seconds of Emily not answering, Carolyn shifted her weight, a smile crawling across her face. “You’re not with Isaac anymore, are you?”

“No,” Emily admitted, choosing her words carefully. “I like someone else.”

Carolyn’s eyes widened. It probably wasn’t hard for her to guess who: Mona-as-A had made Emily’s longtime crush on Ali very plain to the entire school.

“Is Courtney…like that?” Carolyn whispered.

“I don’t know.” Emily pressed her thumb into the tines of the fork. I always wanted to do that again, Ali had said. Was Ali like that? Why else would she say those things?

The waitress set down their plates. Emily stared at her syrup-and-butter-laden waffle. She was suddenly too nervous to be hungry.

Carolyn placed her palms flat on the table. “You should ask her to the dance,” she decided.

“I can’t!” Emily exclaimed, a little surprised that her sister was being so open-minded.

“Why not? What do you have to lose?” Carolyn popped a bite of omelet into her mouth. “You can ride with me and Topher. We’re renting a limo.” Topher was Carolyn’s longtime boyfriend.

Emily opened her mouth, and then shut it again. Carolyn didn’t understand. This wasn’t a normal crush like the one she had on Maya or Isaac. For years she’d thought of being with Ali, of going to Stanford with her and then maybe—if she was lucky—getting a little house together with one of those cute rooster weather vanes out front. The idea of coming on too strong and ruining her chances with Ali paralyzed Emily. Ali’s opinion meant everything, and if Ali rejected her, Emily wasn’t sure what she’d do. There was no risk in getting crushed if she kept her feelings to herself.

Emily’s phone buzzed again, and she yanked it open. Ali had texted back with a line of Xs. Then again, what if Ali wanted this, too?