Ruthless

Chapter 12 SOMEONE IS WATCHING

Later that night, Emily rolled her family’s Volvo station wagon into the Rosewood Day teacher’s lot and turned off the engine. As it was eight on a Saturday, the campus was empty, and all of the Gothic-style arched windows were dark. She stared at the school’s stone façade, a flurry of memories flooding her mind: walking single-file into school in fifth grade, watching enviously as Real Ali, Naomi Zeigler, and Riley Wolfe stood at the front of the line; running to get to class and accidentally bumping Real Ali’s shoulder. “Watch it, Oscar the Grouch!” Ali teased. People used to call Emily that because of her chlorine-green, swim-damaged hair, but it hurt the most when Ali said it.

And then there was the day when Real Ali stood on this very strip of concrete, bragging about how her brother, Jason, had told her where a Time Capsule flag piece was hidden. She’d been so infuriatingly confident that day, filling Emily both with longing and frustration. I could steal her the piece, Emily had thought brazenly. What unfolded next led to the most wonderful, bizarre, and scary years of Emily’s life.

Usually, thinking about Real Ali filled Emily with ambivalence. How could she both fear and feel for someone at the same time? How could she have let a psychopath go free? And why did she find herself looking around for Real Ali everywhere, desperate to prove that she was still here, even though that would mean certain death for her and her friends?

But today, she felt too dazed and tired to dwell on it for long. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kay. At the end of the show last night, both of them a little more than tipsy, they’d set up a time to hang out next week. This morning, Kay had already sent a couple of steamy IMs. Can’t wait to see you again, hot stuff. And, Hope you got your cute butt out of bed this morning! Emily hadn’t received such provocative notes since Maya. But maybe Kay was flirty in general.

Now, she glanced at her cell phone again. About an hour ago, Spencer had sent a group text to Emily, Aria, and Hanna. We need to talk. Come to the swings. Eight p.m. Emily had texted her back, wanting details, but Spencer hadn’t answered. She wondered if this was about A.

Shivering, she climbed out of the car and trudged over to the swings by the elementary school, the spot where Emily and her friends had regularly met through the years—long ago to gossip, but more recently to talk about A’s chilling notes. The climbing dome towered in the distance, looking like a many-legged giant spider. The large avant-garde shark a local artist had created for the school loomed in the field beyond, the moonlight reflecting eerily off its smooth planes. Spencer was sitting on the middle swing, bundled up in a blue duffel coat and Ugg boots. Hanna leaned against the slide, arms crossed over her slender chest. And Aria, who had a faraway, dreamy expression on her face, huddled by the infamous spinning disc kids called the Hurl Wheel.

Spencer cleared her throat when Emily approached. “I got another note from A.”

Emily’s stomach twisted. Aria swallowed audibly. Hanna kicked a boot against the slide, making a hollow sound.

“Has anyone else?” Spencer went on.

“I did,” Hanna said in a quavering voice. “On Wednesday. But I took care of it.”

Spencer’s eyes bulged. “What do you mean, ‘took care of it’?”

Hanna wrapped her arms around her body. “It’s personal.”

“Was your note about Kelsey?” Spencer demanded.

“Who’s Kelsey?” Hanna squinted.

Spencer settled back on the swing. “Kelsey, Hanna. The girl you . . . you know . . . this summer. At Penn. The one you . . .”

Hanna flinched. “My note wasn’t about her. It was about . . . something else.”

“Well, my note was about Kelsey,” Spencer said.

Aria frowned. “Kelsey, your friend from the summer program?”

“Uh huh,” Spencer said. “A knows what I did to her.”

Emily shifted her weight, vaguely remembering Spencer mentioning Kelsey. Spencer had called Emily a few times last summer, since they’d both been in the city, but Emily hadn’t hung out with her at all. And as June dragged into July, there was something . . . off about Spencer’s tone of voice on the phone. She spoke so fast, like she was trying to set a world record for the most number of words said in a minute. Once, Emily had been sitting outside Poseidon’s on Penn’s Landing with her friend Derrick, who worked at the restaurant as a line cook. Derrick was the only person Emily had told her secrets to—well, some of her secrets, anyway. She’d been pouring her heart out about how she was going to have this baby without her parents knowing when Spencer’s name flashed on her cell phone screen. Emily answered, and Spencer instantly launched into a story about how her new friend, Kelsey, did the funniest impression of Snooki from Jersey Shore. She was talking so quickly her words all ran together.

“Are you okay, Spence?” Emily asked.

“Of course I’m okay,” Spencer answered breathlessly. “I’m better than okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You sound weird, that’s all. Like you’re on something.”

Spencer snickered. “Well, I mean, I took a little something, Em. But it’s no biggie.”

“You took drugs?” Emily whispered, awkwardly leaping to her feet. A few passersby stared at her giant 16 and Pregnant stomach.

“Chill,” Spencer answered. “It’s just these pills called Easy A.”

“Just? Are they safe?”

“God, Emily, don’t freak out, okay? It’s a study drug. This guy I get it from, Phineas, took it for a year with no side effects. And he’s doing better here at Penn than I am.”

Emily didn’t answer. She watched as people boarded the Moshulu restaurant clipper ship in the harbor, looking happy and problem-free.

Finally, Spencer sighed. “I’m fine, Em. I promise. You don’t have to worry about me, Killer.” It was the nickname Their Ali had given Emily long ago when she thought Emily was too protective. Then Spencer hung up without saying good-bye.

Emily looked at Derrick, who was sitting quietly on the bench next to her. “Is everything okay?” he asked in a heartbreakingly sweet voice.

All of a sudden, Emily felt like she was going to cry. What was happening to her friends? Spencer wasn’t the kind of girl who turned to drugs. Emily wasn’t the type of girl who got pregnant. “What do you know about a drug called Easy A?” she asked Derrick.

He frowned. “It’s not something I would try.”

Now, Aria wrapped her fingers around the pole that supported the swings, and Emily came back to the present. “What did you do to Kelsey?” Aria asked.

Hanna’s head shot up. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t, either,” Emily said, looking back and forth at both of them.

Spencer stared off into the trees. “It was that night when I called you from the police station, Aria. The cops had caught Kelsey and me with drugs. They questioned us separately, and I was sure Kelsey was placing all the blame on me. That’s what the police told me, at least. So I called all of you. Emily didn’t pick up, and you . . .” She trailed off, staring down at the ground.

“I didn’t think it was right to help,” Aria filled in, sounding defensive.

“Right.” Spencer’s voice was tight. “So I called Hanna next. I had her plant pills in Kelsey’s room and then call the cops and say she was a known dealer.”

Emily stepped back, feeling her shoes sink into a muddy patch of grass. “Seriously?”

“I didn’t know what else to do!” Spencer raised her hands in protest. “I panicked.”

“Don’t forget the part about finding out that Kelsey didn’t tell on you after all,” Hanna said nervously, casting her eyes around the empty playground.

“I only found out after it was too late,” Spencer said.

“So you did it for no reason?” Aria squeaked, her tone a tad sanctimonious.

“Look, I’m not proud of it,” Spencer said, her cheeks reddening. “But Kelsey showed up at my house today to hang out with my stepsister, and she was acting all cagey and weird. At first, I wasn’t sure if she knew I sent her to juvie, but this note pretty much proves it.” She held her phone screen up. Think your summer bestie forgives you for being such a pill?

Hanna picked nervously at her bottom lip. “How would Kelsey know you sent her to juvie? You said there was no way for the cops to trace it back to us.”

“I have no idea.” Spencer sounded exasperated. “Maybe Kelsey figured it out. Maybe she’s A. She had her phone out when I got my text!”

Aria spun the Hurl Wheel with the tips of her fingers. “But Kelsey wasn’t in Jamaica, was she?”

“And I don’t know why Kelsey would be after all of us,” Emily added. “Aria and I didn’t do anything to her.”

“Maybe she thinks we were all in on what I did to her,” Spencer said.

“That would make sense.” Hanna gave an empty swing a slight push. “Think of that People article. It said we were best friends. Told each other everything. Kelsey could have assumed all of us had a hand in framing her and protecting Spencer.”

Emily’s stomach swirled. Could that be possible?

“I’m still not sure,” Aria said. “Maybe A is one of Tabitha’s friends. Or someone who knew Mona Vanderwaal or Jenna Cavanaugh.”

“Jenna’s friends would be after Ali, not us,” Spencer argued.

“Maybe A is Ali,” Emily suggested hesitantly.

Everyone swung around and glared at Emily. “What?”

Emily lifted her hands in surrender. “Two weeks ago, we thought Ali survived the fire. Who’s to say Ali wasn’t in Jamaica, feeding Tabitha those crazy lines about all of us? We still don’t know how Tabitha knew our secrets or had Ali’s string bracelet. Maybe Ali followed us back here after Tabitha died and watched us all summer.”

Spencer slapped her arms to her sides. “Em, Ali died in the Poconos. There’s no way she made it out of that house.”

“Why didn’t the cops ever find her body?”

“Haven’t we been over this?” Spencer said through her teeth.

Hanna leaned against the slide. “I really think she’s gone, Em.”

Aria nodded. “When we ran out of the house, the door slammed shut. Even if Ali made it to the door, it’s unlikely she could’ve pushed it open after inhaling all that smoke. Remember how heavy it was? And seconds later, the house exploded. Even the DiLaurentises’ fireproof safe burned up.”

Emily rocked back and forth on her heels, thinking of the moment in the Poconos when she’d left the door ajar so Ali could escape. “What if the door was open? Maybe the wind blew it open or something.”

Hanna put her hands on her hips. “Why are you so sure Ali’s alive? Do you know something we don’t?”

The trees swished in the distance. A car drove slowly past the school, its high beams on. The secret pulsed inside Emily. If she told her friends, they’d never trust her again.

“No, no reason,” she mumbled.

Suddenly, a snap sounded from the woods. All of the girls turned and squinted into the distance. It was so dark out that Emily could barely see the outlines of the trees.

“Maybe we should go to the cops,” Emily whispered.

Hanna sighed. “And say what? That we’re killers?”

“We can’t go through this again!” Emily’s breath came out in billowing white puffs. “Maybe the cops will understand about Tabitha. Maybe they’ll . . .”

Suddenly, she felt so exhausted. Of course the cops wouldn’t understand about Tabitha. They’d lock Emily and her friends up for the rest of their lives.

“Look,” Spencer said after a moment. “Let’s not do anything rash, okay? There’s way too much at stake here. We need to figure out who A is and what A plans to do next before it happens—without help from the cops. My money’s on Kelsey.” She pressed a button on her phone. “She’s the only person with a real motive. I’ll try and find out what she’s up to the next time she shows up at my house. You never know, she might be watching you guys, too. Do you remember what she looks like?”

Aria raised one shoulder. “Vaguely.”

“She was at that party at the Kahns’,” Hanna murmured.

“I’ve never seen her,” Emily pointed out.

Spencer pulled her finger across her phone and then turned it toward the others. “This is from last summer, but she looks exactly the same.”

Everyone leaned in to look at the picture on the screen. A petite redheaded girl wearing a tight-fitting St. Agnes School T-shirt grinned back at them. Emily blinked hard at the girl’s familiar upturned nose, arched eyebrows, and mysterious smile, the kind that said I’ve got a secret, and I dare you to get it out of me. Her thoughts scattered in a thousand directions. She did know Kelsey after all.

She was Kay.