Heartless (7 page)

“Officer Wilden said you guys were trying to figure out who really killed Ali,” Byron said, his gravelly voice so loud and booming that Aria jumped. “But, honey, if Ian didn’t kill her, the cops will figure out who did.” He scratched the back of his neck, something he only did when he was stressed. “I’m worried about you. Ella is, too.”

Aria winced at Byron’s reference to her mother. Aria’s parents had separated this fall, and both had moved on to new relationships. Ever since Ella began dating Xavier, a lecherous artist who’d hit on Aria, Aria had been avoiding her. And while her dad certainly had a point, Aria was in too deep to unwind herself from the Ali investigation now.

“Talking about it might help,” Byron tried when Aria still didn’t answer, turning down the jazz CD. “You can even tell me about . . . you know. Seeing Alison.”

They passed a farm that had six stout white alpacas, then a Wawa.
Stop saying you saw Ali,
Wilden’s voice reverberated in Aria’s mind. Something about it continued to bother her. He sounded so . . .
aggressive.
“I don’t know what we saw,” she admitted weakly. “I want to believe that we just inhaled a lot of smoke and that’s the end of it. But what are the odds of us all seeing Ali at the exact same time, doing the exact same thing? Isn’t that kind of strange?”

Byron put his blinker on and shifted to the right lane. “It is strange.” He sipped from his Hollis College coffee mug. “Remember how a few months ago you asked me if ghosts could send text messages?”

The conversation was blurry in Aria’s mind, but she remembered talking to Byron after receiving the first message from Old A. Before Ali’s body was found in her old backyard, Aria had wondered if Ali’s ghost had been sending those messages from beyond the grave.

“Some people believe that the dead can’t rest until they impart an important message.” Byron braked at a stoplight behind a Toyota Prius that had a
VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS
bumper sticker.

“What do you mean?” Aria sat up straighter.

They swept past Clocktower, a million-dollar housing development with its own golf club, and then the little township park. A few brave souls were out in heavy down parkas, walking their dogs. Byron breathed out through his nose. “I just mean . . . Alison’s death was a mystery. They’ve arrested the killer, but no one really knows for sure what happened. And you girls
were
right where Alison died. Her body had been there for years.”

Aria reached over and took a sip from her dad’s mug. “So you’re saying . . . it could’ve been Ali’s ghost?”

Byron shrugged, making a right. They pulled into the drive at Rosewood Day and slowed to a crawl behind a line of buses. “Maybe.”

“And you think she wants to tell us something?”

Aria asked incredulously. “So you don’t think Ian did it either?”

Byron shook his head vehemently. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that sometimes, certain things can’t be explained rationally.”

A ghost.
It sounded like he was channeling hippy-dippy Meredith. But as Aria glanced at her dad’s profile, there were taut lines around his mouth. His eyebrows were knitted together, and he was doing that neck-scratching thing again. He was serious.

She turned to Byron, suddenly filled with questions. Why would Ali’s ghost be here? What was her unfinished business? And what was Aria supposed to do now?

But before she could say a word, there was a sharp knock on the passenger door. Aria hadn’t realized they’d already pulled to the curb of Rosewood Day. Three reporters swarmed around the car, snapping photos and pressing their faces against the window. “Miss Montgomery?” a woman called, her voice loud through the glass.

Aria gaped at them and then looked desperately at her dad. “Ignore them,” Byron urged. “Run.”

Taking a deep breath, Aria pushed the door open and barreled her way through the throng. Cameras flashed. Reporters babbled. Behind them, Aria saw students gaping, perversely fascinated by the commotion. “Did you really see Alison?” the reporters called. “Do you know who set the fire?” “Did someone set that fire in the woods to cover up a vital clue?”

Aria swiveled around at the last question but kept her mouth shut.

“Did
you
set the fire?” a dark-haired thirtysomething man shouted. The reporters moved in closer.

“Of course not!” Aria shouted, alarmed. Then she elbowed past them, scampering up the walk and bursting through the first available door, which led to the back stage of the auditorium.

The doors banged shut, and Aria let out a held breath and looked around. The big, high-ceilinged theater was empty. Boat sets from
South Pacific,
the school’s recent musical, were stacked in a corner. Sheet music was strewn haphazardly on the floor. The red velvet auditorium chairs spread out before her, every single seat folded up and unoccupied. It was too quiet in here. Eerily quiet.

When the wood floor squeaked, Aria stiffened. A shadow disappeared behind the curtain. She whipped around, a horrible possibility darting through her mind.
It’s the person who set the fire. The person who tried to kill us. They’re here.
But when she moved closer, there was no one there.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was Ali’s spirit, lurking close, desperate. If what Byron said was true—if a dead person couldn’t rest until her message had been heard—then maybe Aria needed to figure out how to communicate with her. Maybe it was time to hear what Ali had to say.

Chapter 6

Down the Rabbit Hole

Emily slammed her locker door Monday afternoon and hefted her biology, trig, and history books into her arms. A piece of paper slid out from inside one of her notebooks.
HOLY TRINITY YOUTH GROUP BOSTON TRIP
said big, curly letters.

She scowled. This paper had been lodged in her notebook since the week before when her then-boyfriend, Isaac, had asked her to come. Emily had even gotten permission from her parents—she’d thought it would be the perfect way to spend time with Isaac alone.

Not anymore.

Her chest tightened. It was hard to believe that just a few days ago, Emily had really and truly thought she and Isaac were in love—enough, in fact, to sleep with him, for her very first time. But then everything had gone horribly, dreadfully wrong. When Emily tried to tell Isaac about his mom’s evil glares and hurtful remarks, he’d broken up with her on the spot, more or less telling Emily she was psycho.

A few sophomores passed behind her, giggling and comparing lip glosses. How could Emily have thought he loved her? How could she have slept with him? By the time Isaac had found her at the Radley party on Saturday night and apologized, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him back anymore. Since the fire, he’d texted and called her several times, wanting to know if she was okay, but Emily hadn’t replied to those messages either. Things felt ruined between them. Isaac hadn’t even listened to her side of the story. Now, whenever she thought about what they’d done that day after school in Isaac’s bedroom, she wished she could grab a big bar of soap and scrub the deed off her skin.

Balling up the flyer in her hands, she tossed it in the nearest trash can and continued down the hall. The classical between-classes music lilted through the overhead speakers. Red-and-pink posters for the upcoming Rosewood Day valentine’s Ball wallpapered the halls. There was the usual traffic jam on the stairs, and someone had farted in the stairwell. It was a status quo Monday at school . . . except for one thing: Everyone was staring at her.

Literally
everyone.
Two senior boys on the baseball team mouthed
freak
as she passed. Mrs. Booth, Emily’s creative writing teacher from the year before, poked her head out of her classroom door, widened her eyes at Emily, and then scuttled back inside, like a mouse darting back into a hole. The only person who didn’t stare was Spencer. Instead, Spencer pointedly turned her head in the opposite direction, obviously still annoyed that Emily had told the police they’d seen Ali in her backyard.

Whatever.
Her friends might be convinced they’d collectively hallucinated, the DNA report might allegedly say the body in the hole was Ali’s, and all of Rosewood might think Emily was delusional, but she knew what she saw. Last night while she slept, she’d endured dream after dream about Ali, like Ali was begging Emily’s subconscious to come find her. In the first one, Emily had walked into her church and found Ali and Isaac sitting together in the back pew, giggling and whispering. In the dream after that, Emily and Isaac had been naked under the covers in Isaac’s bed, just like they’d been the week before. They heard footsteps on the stairs. Emily thought it was Isaac’s mother, but Ali had walked into the room instead. Her face was covered with soot, and her eyes were huge and frightened. “Someone’s trying to kill me,” she said. And then she disintegrated into a pile of ash.

Ali was out there.
But . . . whose body was in the hole then? And why was Wilden insisting it was Ali’s DNA if it really wasn’t? Someone had obviously set that fire to cover something up. Sure, Wilden had an alibi for when the fire started, but who was to say that receipt from CVS was even his? And wasn’t it a little convenient that he had the receipt at the ready? Emily thought of the lone police car she’d seen sneaking away from the Hastingses’ house the night of the fire, almost like whoever was driving didn’t want to be noticed. Wilden wasn’t on the scene that night . . . or
was
he?

She entered her biology classroom. It smelled of its usual jumble of leaky Bunsen burner gas, formaldehyde, and marker-board bleach. The teacher, Mr. Heinz, wasn’t there yet, and the students were gathered around one desk in the middle of the room, looking at something on a silver MacBook Air. When Sean Ackard noticed Emily, he paled and broke from the crowd. Lanie Iler, one of Emily’s friends from swimming, saw Emily next and opened and closed her mouth like a fish.

“Lanie?” Emily tried, her heart starting to thud. “What is it?”

Lanie had a conflicted expression on her face. After a moment, she pointed at the laptop.

Emily took a few steps toward the computer. A hush fell over the room and the crowd parted. The local news web page glowed on the screen.
POOR, POOR PRETTY LITTLE
liars read the headline under Emily, Aria, Spencer, and Hanna’s school pictures. Farther down on the page was a blurry picture of the girls in Spencer’s hospital room. They were all gathered over Spencer’s bed, talking worriedly.

Emily’s pulse raced. Spencer’s hospital room had been on the second floor, so how had the paparazzi gotten this photo?

Her eyes returned to their new nickname.
Pretty Little Liars.
A couple of kids behind her tittered. They thought this was
funny.
They thought Emily was a joke. She took a big step back, almost bumping into Ben, her old boyfriend from swimming. “I guess I should watch out for you, Little Liar,” he teased, smirking.

That was
it.
Without another glance at her classmates, she rushed out of the room and headed straight for the bathroom, her rubber Vans squeaking on the polished floor. Luckily, there was no one inside. The air smelled like freshly smoked cigarettes, and water dripped from one of the faucets into a pale blue basin. Leaning against the wall, Emily took heaving breaths.

Why was this happening? Why did no one believe her? When she’d seen Ali in the woods on Saturday night, her heart had filled with joy. Ali was
back.
They could resume their friendship. And then, in a blink, Ali was gone again, and now everyone thought Emily had made her up. What if Ali really was out there, hurt and scared? Was Emily honestly the only person who wanted to help her?

She ran cold water on her face, trying to catch her breath. Suddenly, her phone beeped, echoing loudly off the hard bathroom walls. She jumped and unhooked the backpack from her shoulder. Her phone was in the front pocket.
One new text message,
said the screen.

Her heart went into free fall. She looked around swiftly, anticipating a pair of eyes watching her from the utility closet, a pair of feet under a stall. But the bathroom was empty.

Her breathing was shallow in her chest as she looked at the screen.

Poor little Emily—
You and I both know she’s alive. The question is: What would you do to find her?—A

Gasping, Emily opened the keyboard to her phone and started to type.
I’ll do anything.

There was a return message almost immediately.
Do exactly as I say. Tell your parents you’re going on that church trip to Boston. But instead, you’ll go to Lancaster. For more, go to your locker. I’ve left you something there.

Emily squinted. Lancaster . . . Pennsylvania? And how did A know about the Boston trip? She envisioned the crumpled-up flyer sitting at the bottom of the hall trash can. Had A seen her throw it away? Was A here at school? And more specifically, could she actually trust A?

She looked down at her phone.
What would you do to find her?

Quickly, she sprinted up the stairs back to her locker, which was in the Foreign Languages wing. As French students sang along to “La Marseillaise,” Emily spun the dial and opened her locker door. At the bottom, next to a spare pair of swim fins, was a small grocery bag.
Wear me,
said messy Magic Marker scrawl on the front.

Emily’s hand fluttered to her mouth. How had this gotten here? Taking a deep breath, she picked up the bag and pulled out a long, plain dress. underneath that was a simple wool coat, stockings, and odd-looking shoes with little eyelet buttons. It looked like the
Little House on the Prairie
Halloween costume Emily had worn in fifth grade.