Crushed

6 The Situation Room

On Thursday, after the last bell rang, Hanna scuttled toward the parking lot, her leather tote bumping against her back. When she heard someone call her name, she turned. Chassey Bledsoe stood at the curb, smiling eagerly, every inch of her formerly pockmarked skin eerily blemish-free.

“We’re shooting campaign videos,” Chassey chirped. “Aren’t you coming?”

Hanna glanced toward the lot, then back at Chassey. “Um, I can’t.”

Chassey looked disappointed. “Do you want me to tell them to reschedule?”

Hanna chewed on her lip. All she wanted was to make a video that was a zillion times better than anything Chassey could do. But then she thought of A’s note about campaigning. It was painful to see all the VOTE CHASSEY posters on the wall when she couldn’t put up a single HANNA FOR MAY DAY QUEEN one. What if Chassey won by a landslide? Hanna would be humiliated.

“That’s okay. I have an appointment I can’t miss,” she said. “It’s sort of hard to explain. Good luck, though!”

“But . . . ,” Chassey started, but Hanna just waved, turned, and jogged up the hill to her car. Before she got in, she pulled a black knit cap over her head and shrugged into a black peacoat she’d stashed in the back of the Prius. Time to get into secret-mission mode.

She climbed into the car, gunned out of the lot—well, as fast as a Prius could gun—and pulled onto the highway. She threw the new burner cell she’d picked up at Radio Shack in the console, then glanced at the car’s GPS. The next turn wasn’t for a few miles yet, but what was with that black SUV on her tail? She squinted in the rearview mirror, trying to get a glimpse of the driver. The windows were tinted. Her heart began to bang. Black SUVs were a dime a dozen here in Rosewood—it could be anyone in there.

She took the very next exit. Recalculating, the GPS said. The SUV followed. Hanna slowed at a stop sign and took a left. The SUV did the same. “Oh my God,” Hanna whispered. Was it A?

She spied a Wawa ahead and pulled into the parking lot. The SUV whizzed past. Hanna reached for a pen to scribble down the license plate, but the car was out of view before she could read the last two letters. Shifting into reverse, she peeled out and took the back way to the highway. When she merged into traffic, the black SUV was nowhere in sight. She wished she could call Mike and tell him about how much of a badass she was. But as of now, Mike didn’t even have the number for her burner cell, a hideous flip-phone thing that Hanna couldn’t even buy a bejeweled Tory Burch case for.

Twenty minutes, three more suspicious vehicles, and several more evasive turns later, Hanna pulled up to a secluded street of huge, cookie-cutter mansions. A man-made lake glittered in the distance—even the plump, brilliantly colored mallard ducks looked like models. A few athletic-looking people were out walking their dogs, even though a steady rain had started to fall. Hanna pulled into the long slate driveway of number 11, noticing a light on inside.

She got out of the car and tiptoed toward the door. The heavy scent of pine bombarded her nostrils. For a neighborhood in the middle of the bustling Main Line, it was eerily quiet, the only sounds the chirps, crunches, and flutters of nature.

Before she could ring the bell, a hand grabbed her arm from behind. She started to scream, but a second hand in a black glove clapped over her mouth. “Shh,” Spencer whispered, pulling the hood off her face. “Didn’t I tell you not to go in the front?”

“I forgot,” Hanna said, suddenly irritated. She’d lost four tails! She couldn’t be expected to remember everything.

Spencer led her through a side entrance and into a mudroom that smelled like 409 cleaner and cinnamon candle. Then she guided her down a flight of stairs into a finished basement with a game room, wine cellar, and home theater. To the left was a heavy iron door with a spinning bank vault handle. Spencer wrenched it open. “Go,” she whispered, pushing Hanna inside like she was a hostage.

Hanna squinted in the dim light. The room had thick, solid walls. There was a small denim couch, a few chairs, and a card table in the corner, along with a bookcase that held some magazines and board games. On two walls were video cameras of the house’s massive front and back yards. Hanna watched them for a few minutes. Trees brushed back and forth. A rabbit hopped in front of one of the cameras.

One of the screens showed a cab pulling up to the driveway. Aria, wearing a black hoodie like Spencer’s, slunk out of the car and crept toward the house. Spencer appeared on the screen and led Aria to the same entrance Hanna had come through.

Emily arrived a few minutes later. Then Spencer unfurled a large piece of blank paper and taped it over the closed vault door. “Okay. Let’s get started.”

She pulled a black marker from her purse and wrote A at the top of the piece of paper. “What do we know so far?” she asked.

Hanna jiggled her leg. “Well, A killed Tabitha. So it’s someone who was in Jamaica.”

Jamaica, Spencer wrote. “What else?”

“Do you think A was a friend of Tabitha’s, or an enemy?” Emily asked. “I would say an enemy since A killed her, but maybe that’s what A wants us to think.”

Aria nodded. “A was poised on the beach, so A knew Tabitha was going up to the roof to talk to us. Do you think A told Tabitha to say all those Ali-like things to us, too? Like how you guys seemed like long-lost sisters, Spence? Or how you used to be chubby, Hanna?”

“Maybe. And A could have given that string bracelet to Tabitha, too,” Hanna said. “But why would someone want us to think Tabitha was Ali?”

“To pique our curiosity, so we would definitely go on the roof deck with her when she asked?” Aria said. “And then . . . what? Orchestrate things so that we’d push Tabitha off? How would A know that was going to happen? A’s not a mind reader.”

“It might have just been an accident that Tabitha fell,” Hanna decided. “What if A really asked Tabitha to push me? But then Aria stepped in and pushed her instead. Everything went wrong, until A realized how to make it right. A killed Tabitha when she fell and then blamed it on us.”

Spencer capped the marker. “That could be how it went down, I suppose. But who would do something like that?”

Emily looked at the others. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Hanna swallowed hard. “Real Ali?”

Emily shifted her weight on the couch. “It makes sense. First of all, she knew our weaknesses—it would have been easy for her to tell Tabitha what to say. She wanted revenge once and for all. And it makes sense how she knew Tabitha—she met her at The Preserve. But how did she get Tabitha to do all that—even potentially murder for her? What did Tabitha have to gain from it? Do you think she paid her?”

“Tabitha’s family was rich.” Hanna leaned toward the TV screens. “Besides, does Ali have money? Even if she had some sort of trust account, she couldn’t draw from it—I’m sure her accounts are being monitored, if her family hasn’t already taken back all the funds.”

“Maybe someone else is giving her money.” Spencer tossed the marker from hand to hand.

There was a silence. It was so quiet inside the panic room that Hanna could hear the ticking of Spencer’s Cartier watch. “It doesn’t explain why Ali would have bludgeoned her to death, though,” she said. “I mean, someone could have seen her. She took a big risk.”

Aria breathed in. “Someone could have seen Real Ali, period. How was it that no one noticed her in Jamaica? Isn’t that weird?”

“That brings us back to the money thing,” Spencer said, writing money on the sheet of paper. “Now that I think about it, the DiLaurentis family definitely didn’t have cash. When I found out all that stuff about Ali and Courtney being my half sisters, part of it was about how the DiLaurentises were broke—probably from paying those outrageous hospital bills for all those years. So how could Ali have gotten the cash to travel to Jamaica? And if she’s A, how did she come back to Rosewood and stalk us so expertly?”

“And go on the cruise,” Aria added. “All of that takes money.”

“She has to have someone bankrolling her,” Hanna concluded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense—not just for the money aspect, but because of other stuff, too. She can’t be everywhere at once. It’s just not possible.”

“So she has a helper, then,” Spencer said. “Just like we thought.”

Hanna nodded. “Honestly, who’s to say Ali has ever been working alone? Maybe she had someone help her drag Ian’s body out of the woods that night after we found him. Remember how quickly he was gone?”

She shivered, thinking back to that cold, creepy night. They’d come upon Ian’s bloated, blue body and had run back to get Officer Wilden, only to find a matted patch of grass when they’d returned. The mechanics of it had always bothered Hanna. Ali was tough, but she wasn’t strong enough to drag a six-two, one-hundred-eighty-pound guy away from a crime scene in under ten minutes.

Spencer sat down on the couch. “Someone could have helped her carry Ian up the stairs and put him in the closet at the Poconos house, too. That same someone could have been the one to kidnap Melissa.”

“And kill Jenna Cavanaugh,” Hanna said, shifting to the edge of the couch excitedly.

“And set that fire in Spencer’s backyard,” Aria added.

Everyone stared at each other. It seemed so obvious now. Ali wasn’t superhuman. Of course she had help. But who was crazy enough to help her?

“It has to be someone who loves her, obviously,” Aria said faintly.

Spencer wrote love on the paper. “Like a friend or a boyfriend, right?”

“Sure.” Emily sounded a little pained. “But that could be anyone.”

Hanna sat back to think. “Well, Real Ali was in The Preserve for a long time. So maybe it was someone she met while she was there.”

“Like Graham?” Emily asked, looking at Aria.

Aria hunched her shoulders. “Graham seemed more into Tabitha than Ali, and he told me he never visited The Preserve. And I’m not sure he’s A—he’s been in a coma since before the latest notes came in.”

“But maybe Ali wrote the most recent notes,” Spencer suggested, writing down Graham’s name anyway.

“And potentially bugged our houses? I don’t know about that.” Aria tucked her feet under her butt. “And anyway, A is threatening to frame us for hurting Graham. My money is on Graham seeing Ali’s helper. I bet that’s what he was trying to tell me in the boiler room.”

Hanna perked up. “Ali did have some good friends at The Preserve, though. Remember Iris, Ali’s roommate? When I was there, she talked about Ali—well, she called her Courtney—all the time.”

“Ooh, that’s good.” Spencer wrote Iris beneath Graham’s name.

Then Hanna tapped her lips. “Although I’m not sure Iris could be Ali’s henchman. She was at The Preserve when Ian was killed. I don’t know how she could have snuck out to haul Ian’s body to the Poconos, either. We’ll have to figure out a way to see if she was there when we were in Jamaica, too.”

“Still, she could know something.” Spencer turned back to their list. “Who else?”

“We can’t leave off Jason,” Aria volunteered.

Hanna frowned. “Ali’s brother? Do you really think he’d help her?”

“Who knows?” Aria shrugged. “That family is beyond weird.”

Hanna raised an eyebrow as Spencer wrote it down. That was big of Aria to suggest it—she’d had a crush on Jason forever.

“What about Cassie, Ali’s field hockey friend?” Spencer asked. “Remember, before Ali died, how she bragged about Cassie nonstop? How she was going to high school parties. How Cassie was the coolest. How Cassie was going to be her new BFF.”

Emily didn’t look convinced. “I ran into Cassie last Christmas, and she seemed okay. And anyway, that was our Ali’s friend, not Real Ali.”

Spencer smacked her forehead. “Right. God. It’s hard to keep track.”

They wrote down a few more names, including Darren Wilden and Melissa, only because the two of them had been involved in Ali’s case from start to finish. But they didn’t seem like very likely suspects. Spencer scratched her chin. “I still feel like we’re missing something huge. Maybe Ali’s helper is right in front of us and we don’t see it. Is there anyone besides the four of us who has been around this whole time? During Ian’s death, Jenna’s death, the fires, Jamaica, that summer, all of it?”

Hanna cleared her throat. “Well, I can think of two people, but I don’t think either of them would be Ali’s helper.”

“Who?” Spencer’s eyes widened.

“Mike.” Hanna looked guiltily at Aria. “ . . . and Noel.”

Aria burst out laughing. “Never in a million years.”

Spencer’s marker hovered over the paper. “We can’t rule anyone out, though.”

She wrote Noel’s name at the bottom, then capped the marker once more. Aria glowered at her. “Why aren’t you writing Mike’s name?”

Spencer sank into one hip. “Do you seriously think your brother would do that to you?”

Aria pressed her lips together. “Well, maybe not. Besides, Mike’s an idiot.”

Hanna let out a small squeak. “Hey! He’s my boyfriend!”

“Well, Noel’s my boyfriend.” Aria peered at everyone anxiously. “You guys, this is crazy. Just because Noel was everywhere with us doesn’t make him guilty—it’s just a terrible coincidence.”

“We know,” Spencer assured her. “We just have to write down everyone, okay? That’s the point of this meeting. We’ll probably be crossing him off the list in days.” She turned back to the list. “This is a good start, don’t you think? We should investigate some of these people. Graham, Iris—there are some good leads here.”

Emily looked at Hanna. “You should take Graham. You’ve volunteered at the Bill Beach before—maybe you could get your job back.”

Hanna shot up straight. “I don’t want to go there again!”

“Em’s right, Hanna,” Spencer said. “You make the most sense. You want to figure this out, right?”

A foul taste welled up in Hanna’s mouth. She thought of the clinic’s horrible antiseptic smell. The yellow pee in the bedpans. Dealing with Sean, her ex. Then again, it was a better option than going to The Preserve. It would be just her luck that they’d readmit her or something.

“I’ll do it,” Hanna mumbled.

“And I’ll talk to Iris,” Emily volunteered. She looked at Hanna. “Do you think she’s still at The Preserve?”

Hanna closed her eyes, remembering the last time they’d all been to the mental hospital to question Kelsey Pierce, the girl Spencer had framed for drug possession who then almost hurled herself off Floating Man Quarry. “I don’t remember seeing her,” she murmured.

Spencer peered at the video cameras. The lawn was still empty. “I’ll go after Real Ali herself. Maybe there’s a way to find her. Maybe we’re missing something. If we found her, we could end this even faster.”

“Who should I investigate?” Aria asked, winding a piece of hair around her finger.

Spencer shifted awkwardly. “Well, you could look into Noel. Just to get him off the list.”

Aria’s eyes blazed. “A isn’t Noel!”

“I know,” Spencer said. “But you could peek around his room. Make sure he doesn’t have a second cell phone or a secret e-mail account. Not that he ever would, of course.”

Aria looked miserable. “If my relationship ends because of this, it’s your fault.”

They talked through a few more possibilities, solidifying their plans. After another fifteen minutes, they felt like they had worked through as much as they could. Spencer stood and stretched.

Hanna turned to the cameras once more. The picture was in black and white, and something at the very edge of the back lawn flickered into view. She inhaled sharply. Had someone just moved behind a tree?

She shot up, staring at the fuzzy image. It was difficult to tell whether it was a person, an animal, or nothing at all. She looked at her new phone’s screen. No alerts had come in.

Aria, Spencer, and Emily were peeking at their phones, too. It was as if they were waiting for A to write, saying Gotcha! Or, Did you really think you could outsmart me? One minute passed. Then another. Finally, Spencer breathed out. “I think we’re good.”

Hanna shut her eyes. All her life, she’d fought to not be invisible, to not be a nobody. But right now, it was the best feeling in the world.