Burned (28 page)

“Have you ever thought about just talking things out? Coming clean?” Naomi asked.

“It’s complicated,” Hanna mumbled. It wasn’t like she could tell Naomi about A.

“Did you put those photos on my computer, too?”

Hanna frowned. “What photos?”

Naomi balled up her fists. “A whole folder of new photos was mysteriously added to my desktop. I thought they were a virus, actually, so I didn’t look at them, but when I went to delete them, they were gone. Were you trying to crash my computer?”

Hanna’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Were the photos Naomi was talking about the ones of the girls in Jamaica? Had someone planted them there?

“I’m sorry,” she said one more time, not knowing how to explain.

Naomi pinched the bridge of her nose. She watched the waves for a few moments, then turned back to Hanna sharply. “Just to be clear, I had no idea Madison had someone with her in the car. She was so wasted that night she didn’t remember, either. What she
did
remember, though, was flashing headlights coming head-on just before the crash. That’s who we were investigating, you idiot.
Not
you.”

Hanna winced, but then nodded sheepishly. “I remember that car. It was like, one second, there was no one on the road, and the next, there it was, heading right for us.”

“We managed to find a witness,” Naomi said begrudgingly. “A lady lives in the house on the hill where the car crashed. She wasn’t home at the time, but she has a security camera in the driveway, and it caught some of the accident. There was this shadowy image of Madison’s car—I couldn’t tell there were two people in it. There was an image of a second car, too, forcing the BMW off the road. It was like they meant to do it.”

Hanna’s heart started to pound. “Do you have any idea who it was?”

“We have part of a license plate number, but that’s it. The cops asked Madison if she knew anyone who hated her so much they would want to hurt her, but she didn’t know anyone. I guess I should ask you the same thing.”

A shiver danced down Hanna’s spine. If
only
she knew who wanted to hurt her. But maybe that was how A knew what had happened that night: A had been the driver of the other car, forcing the accident. Of course A had had a front-row seat to what happened next. All A had to do was pull over around the bend, turn off the lights, and watch Hanna freak.

The boat slowed, and the port of Hamilton rose into view. Hanna’s friends, who were all the way across the boat, out of earshot, leaned over in their seats, and then turned back to Hanna. They were probably watching the conversation, trying to figure out what Hanna was saying. Hanna wondered if just by her body language they could deduce that Naomi wasn’t A.

Hanna glanced at Naomi again. There were a lot of things she wanted to say to Naomi. A thank-you
was
in order—they would have died without the rescue boat. She wanted to try and make it up to her, too, although she had no idea how. But saying either of those things seemed completely inappropriate. It was one thing when what she’d done was a contained secret, something she was tortured by but internalized. It was another when she saw how many lives it touched, altered. It added a whole new layer of guilt and shame.

“I’m really sorry about everything,” she mumbled once more.

“Yeah, well, you should be,” Naomi growled. When she glanced at Hanna, there was disgust in her eyes, but then she shrugged. “I’m not going to tell, if that’s what you’re worried about. But you owe me—got it? And let’s just hope they nail whoever that other driver was.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Hanna was surprised by Naomi’s sudden generosity. But Naomi just rolled her eyes and turned away.

A wave splashed up, misting Hanna’s face. She settled back in her seat, feeling a mix of shame and regret. All at once, she knew that the seed of friendship that had started to grow between them was probably lost forever. Too much had been said. Too much was damaged—and it was all Hanna’s fault. They might not taunt each other in the Rosewood halls anymore, but they wouldn’t sit together at Steam, either. It was just another thing A had wrecked.

The boat pulled up to the dock, and everyone lined up to get off. “You know, there’s something else I should probably tell you,” she said gruffly as they stepped on the docks.

“What’s that?” Hanna asked.

Naomi tucked a windswept piece of hair behind her ear. “Ali called me up once, after she came back to Rosewood as Courtney. She told me everything. That she was the
real
Ali, but she’d been imprisoned in the hospital at the beginning of sixth grade because of this fluke switch, and that it was sort of
your
fault it happened.”

Hanna’s eyes widened. “Did you tell anyone?”

Naomi shook her head. “I thought she was drunk—the story was so crazy. And she kept saying, ‘I hate them, Naomi. They ruined my life. They ruined yours, too, don’t you think? Don’t they owe you something?’”

“
Do
you think that?” Hanna asked.

Naomi shrugged. “It was cool to be Ali’s friend, and I
was
really pissed when she dropped Riley and me for you guys. But as time went on, I started to think it was a good thing. Ali was really bossy. And she kept a lot of secrets.”

“Like what?”

Naomi gave Hanna a crazy look. “Maybe that she had a twin sister no one knew about?” Then she cleared her throat. “She said something else on the phone to me last year, though. She said, ‘I’m going to get those bitches, Naomi. We’re going to make them pay for what they did.’”

“God,” Hanna whispered. Ali
had
made them pay.

Then she looked at Naomi. “I wish you would have said something earlier. I wish you would have told
someone
.” If Naomi had taken Ali more seriously, the girls might not have gone through that horrible ordeal in the Poconos. If Real Ali had gotten sent back to The Preserve—because surely she would have, if someone had known to believe her—Jamaica wouldn’t have happened, either. Tabitha would’ve just been a weird friend of Ali’s from The Preserve who acted strangely on Ali’s behalf, nothing more.

Hanna pictured time rewinding, every horrible thing they’d done turning to dust. What sort of life would she be living now? How happy would she be, how carefree? How amazing would it be if A wasn’t in her life?

A clever, vindictive look crossed Naomi’s face, reminding Hanna more of the girl she’d known for years, the girl who’d always been her enemy. “I guess that makes us even.”

The lobby of the Royal Arms Hotel was done up in beige and brown tones and filled with generic furniture and ugly brass light fixtures, making Spencer feel like she was at a hotel near the Philadelphia Airport instead of on the shores of Hamilton, Bermuda. The only thing special about the lobby was that it was jam-packed with kids evacuated from the cruise ship. Boys from Pritchard sat on couches. A bunch of kids from Rosewood Day swarmed the little restaurant, where three televisions were all tuned to cricket matches. Girls from Villa Louisa leaned against the front desk, talking to their parents on their cell phones. Everyone had gotten calls from their parents, who were furious that their children had had to flee for their lives on lifeboats. Rumors swirled about lawsuits against the cruise company. Mason Byers announced that his dad was taking a private plane to Bermuda that night and getting him the hell out of there. The story had even hit the news already—
THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
, a headline had read earlier on a news program before cricket, followed by footage of dozens of tiny lifeboats sailing away from the burning ship. Unfortunately, the story about the girls’ brush with death got some airplay, too—reporters practically salivated once they realized they were the Pretty Little Liars. Spencer had found out through the news that the authorities were still trying to figure out what had caused the explosion in the boiler room.

“Okay, everyone!” Jeremy shouted into a megaphone, still doing his best to remain chipper. “We’ve got the fire out on the boat, but it isn’t safe for travel, so we’re booking you plane tickets. You’ll leave either tomorrow or the next day. We’re trying to get you all rooms here, so no one go anywhere. Otherwise you’ll be stranded in Bermuda until your parents can come and get you.”

“As if that’s a
bad
thing?” Spencer murmured, rolling her eyes. She stood with her friends in a back hallway near a couple of computer terminals and vending machines, watching the chaos from afar. None of them had quite recovered from their time in the cold water—they all still had towels slung over their shoulders and goose bumps on their arms. Their hair had partially dried, but Aria had seaweed twisted in her bangs. Emily cupped a mug of hot chocolate in her hands, and Hanna was still shivering. But maybe that was because she’d just announced that Naomi
wasn’t
A.

“She didn’t know what I did to Madison,” Hanna went on after Jeremy finished his announcement. “And, I mean, she organized a rescue team for us. It’s pretty obvious the real A sent us down the wrong path again.”

Spencer nodded, not really surprised. As soon as Naomi had arrived with a rescue team in tow, she’d begun to doubt their suspicions. But it was incredible how expertly A had made it look like Naomi was the one after them. Sending them notes when Naomi was around, for one. Organizing Hanna and Naomi to room together, for another.

She shut her eyes. “But A
was
on the boat. And A
did
deflate our life raft—right?”

Aria nodded. “It’s too much of a coincidence. A definitely did it. So that leaves Graham. Maybe he’s the one and only A.”

“But I don’t understand how Graham could have followed us to the cove without us seeing him,” Emily said, looking puzzled. “We were on open water. And he must have acted quickly—we weren’t in that cove for very long.”

“Maybe he overheard us talking about going to the cove and headed out there first,” Hanna suggested. “Or he could have already
been
there when we arrived, hiding in one of the caves.”

Aria squinted. “I don’t know if he could have gotten out there that fast after the explosion. But I guess anything is possible.”

Spencer twisted her silver ring around her finger. “Graham probably spied on all of our conversations in the common room. And just because Naomi wasn’t around, we thought we were safe.”

“Has anyone
seen
Graham?” Hanna whispered. “He could be listening right now.”

Everyone looked up. Spencer scanned the crowd in the lobby. Jennifer Feldman was tapping on her iPad by the check-in desk. Lucas Beattie was roving around the lobby, taking pictures for yearbook. She didn’t see Graham anywhere.

“I wonder what his next move is,” she said uneasily. “Do you think he’s going to tell as soon as we get to back to the States?”

Aria squared her shoulders. “I think
we
should confess instead of letting Graham turn us in.”

Confess
. Spencer took a deep breath. Hanna and Emily shifted uncomfortably. It was obvious they were all contemplating the promise they’d made in the water.

Emily picked at her cuticles. “I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen when we tell.”

“We have to end this,” Aria said. “Out there in the water, I had this epiphany. I’d rather clear my conscience than live a lie. Even if that means suffering for it, I don’t think I can live another day with this hanging over me.”

Spencer nodded. “I feel that way, too. But you’re underestimating it when you say
suffer
, Aria. We could spend years in court. We could go to jail for the rest of our lives.”

“A could torment us for the rest of our lives, too,” Aria said.

“But we’ll never get to see our families again,” Hanna said. “Everyone we love will hate us.”

Tears filled Aria’s eyes. “I know. But like I said, I can confess for everyone, and—”

“
No
,” Spencer, Emily, and Hanna all said at once.

Spencer touched Aria’s hand and swallowed hard. “You’re right. We have to end this, and confessing is the only way. I’m in.”

“Me too,” Hanna said after a moment. Emily nodded as well.

They were silent for a while, listening to the din of the kids in the lobby. Jeremy once more announced that they were booking everyone on flights back to Philadelphia that would leave in the next few days. Spencer’s stomach sank just thinking about it. Once they got home, their lives would be over. If only she
could
stay in Bermuda forever.

Suddenly, a figure appeared in the doorway. Reefer stood with his hands in his pockets. “Can we talk?” he asked, eyeing Spencer.

Spencer glanced at her friends, who shrugged and nodded. She walked toward Reefer tentatively, her heart suddenly thrumming. As soon as he got close, he grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. “I just found out what happened,” he said into her ear. “Are you okay? What were you doing taking a lifeboat back to those coves?”

Spencer’s body remained stiff and cautious, and she glanced around the room to see who might be watching. Even though A wasn’t Naomi, A had still sent texts that she should stay away from Reefer.

But then she remembered that they were going to confess soon. Life was too short to stay away from him. “It’s a long story,” she admitted. “But I’m fine. Naomi rescued me, actually. So I guess she’s not such a psycho after all.”