Ruthless (4 page)

“Hey, Spencer,” another voice said. Darren Wilden, Melissa’s boyfriend, sat on the other side of Amelia, chewing on a piece of fresh-from-the-oven garlic bread. “What’s new?”

A fist clenched in Spencer’s chest. Though he now worked security at a museum in Philly, until recently Darren Wilden had been
Officer
Wilden, the chief investigator in the Alison DiLaurentis murder case, and it had been his job to sense when people were hiding something or lying. Could Wilden know about Spencer’s new stalker, who—of course—went by
A
? Could he suspect what she and her friends had done to Tabitha in Jamaica?

“Uh, nothing,” Spencer said haltingly, tugging on the collar of her blouse. She was being ridiculous. There was no way Wilden could know about A or Tabitha. He couldn’t possibly know that every night, Spencer had bad dreams about the Tabitha incident, replaying the awful day in Jamaica over and over again. Nor could he know that Spencer read and reread articles about the aftershocks of Tabitha’s death as often as she could—about how devastated Tabitha’s parents were. How her friends in New Jersey held vigils in her honor. How several new nonprofits had sprung up to condemn teenage drinking, which was what everyone had assumed had killed her.

But it
wasn’t
what killed her—and Spencer knew it. So did A.

Who could have seen them that night? Who hated them so much to torture them with the information and threaten to ruin their lives instead of going directly to the cops? Spencer couldn’t believe that she and her friends were yet again faced with the task of figuring out who A might be. Even worse, she couldn’t think of a single suspect. A hadn’t written Spencer or the others another note since that harrowing newscast two weeks ago, but Spencer was sure A wasn’t gone for good.

And what else did A know? A’s last message said,
This is just the tip of the iceberg
, as if he or she was privy to other secrets. Unfortunately, Spencer had a few more skeletons locked in her closet. Like what had happened with Kelsey Pierce at Penn last summer—Kelsey had been sent to juvie because of what Spencer had done to her. But surely A couldn’t know about
that
. Then again, A always seemed to know everything. . . .

“Seriously, nothing?” Wilden took another bite of crispy bread, his gray-green eyes on her. “That doesn’t sound like the whirlwind schedule of a soon-to-be Princeton student.”

Spencer pretended to wipe a spot off her water glass, wishing Wilden would stop staring at her as though she were a paramecium under a microscope. “I’m in the school play,” she mumbled.

“Not just
in
the school play, you’re the lead—as usual.” Melissa rolled her eyes good-naturedly. She smiled at Mr. Pennythistle and Amelia. “Spence has starred in every production since preschool.”

“And you’re playing Lady Macbeth this year.” Mr. Pennythistle sank ceremoniously into the heavy mahogany chair at the head of the table. “That’s a challenging role. I can’t wait to see the performance.”

“You don’t have to come,” Spencer blurted, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

“Of course Nicholas is coming!” Mrs. Hastings squeaked. “It’s marked on our calendars!”

Spencer stared at her reflection in the back of her spoon. The last thing she wanted was a man she barely knew feigning interest in her life. Mr. Pennythistle was only coming to the play because Spencer’s mom was making him.

Amelia speared a chicken breast from the platter that was being passed around. “I’m putting together an orchestra concert for charity,” she announced. “A bunch of girls at St. Agnes are going to be rehearsing here for the next few weeks, and we’re going to hold the concert at the Rosewood Abbey. Everyone can come to see my performance.”

Spencer rolled her eyes. St. Agnes was the snooty private school Amelia attended, an institution even more obnoxiously exclusive than Rosewood Day. She’d have to figure out a way to get out of attending the performance; her old friend Kelsey attended St. Agnes—or at least she used to. Spencer didn’t want to risk seeing her.

Mrs. Hastings clapped her hands together. “That sounds lovely, Amelia! Tell us the date, and we’ll be there.”

“I want to be available for
all
of you girls.” Mr. Pennythistle glanced from Amelia to Spencer to Melissa, his gray-blue eyes crinkling. “We’re a family now, and I’m really looking forward to us bonding.”

Spencer sniffed. Where’d he get
that
line, Dr. Phil? “I already
have
a family, thank you very much,” she said.

Melissa widened her eyes. Amelia had a smirk on her face like she’d just read a juicy piece of gossip in
Us Weekly
. Mrs. Hastings jumped to her feet. “You’re being very rude, Spencer. Please leave the table.”

Spencer let out a half laugh, but Mrs. Hastings nudged her chin toward the hall. “I’m serious. Go to your room.”

“Mom,” Melissa said gently. “This is Spencer’s favorite meal. And—”

“We’ll fix her a plate later.” Mrs. Hastings’s voice was strained, almost like she was about to cry. “Spencer, please. Just go.”

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mumbled as she stood, even though she wasn’t. Fathers weren’t interchangeable. She couldn’t randomly bond with some guy she didn’t even know. All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait until next fall when she was at Princeton. Away from Rosewood, away from her new family, away from A, away from the secret about Tabitha—and all the other secrets A might know, too. It couldn’t come fast enough.

Shoulders hunched, she stomped into the hall. A pile of mail was stacked neatly in the center of the hall table, a long, slender envelope from Princeton addressed to Spencer J. Hastings right on top. Spencer snatched it up, hoping for a fleeting second that perhaps the school was writing to tell her she could move in early—like now.

Soft, subdued voices sounded from the dining room. Spencer’s family’s two Labradoodles, Rufus and Beatrice, bounded toward the window, probably smelling deer on the lawn. Spencer sliced open the envelope with her fingernail and removed a single sheet of paper. A logo for the Princeton admissions committee paraded across the top.

Dear Miss Hastings,

It appears there has been a misunderstanding. Apparently, two Spencer Hastingses applied to Princeton’s incoming freshman class early decision—you, Spencer J. Hastings, and a male student, Spencer F. Hastings, from Darien, Connecticut. Unfortunately, our admissions board did not realize you were two separate individuals—some read your application, and others read the other Spencer’s application, but we all voted as if you were one applicant. Now that we’ve realized our oversight, our committee needs to reread and review both of your applications thoroughly and decide which of you shall be admitted. Both of you are strong candidates, so it will most likely be a very tough decision. If there is anything you’d like to add to your application that might sway the admissions board, now would be an excellent time.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and good luck!

All the best,

Bettina Bloom

President, Princeton Admissions Board

Spencer read over the letter three times until the school’s crest at the top of the page looked like a Rorschach blob. This couldn’t be right. She had gotten
in
to Princeton. This was
done
.

Two minutes ago, her future was secure. Now she was poised to lose it all.

A lilting giggle snaked around the room. On instinct, Spencer shot up and glanced out the side window, which faced the old DiLaurentis house next door. Something shifted beyond the trees. She stared hard, waiting. But the shadow she thought she’d seen didn’t reappear. Whoever had been there was gone.

Chapter 3

PRETTY LITTLE LONER

“
Connect with the divine source of all life
,” a soothing voice chanted in Aria Montgomery’s ears. “
With every exhale, let go of the tension in your body. First your arms, then your legs, then the muscles in your face, then . . .
”

Bang.
Aria opened her eyes. It was Thursday morning at school. The door to the Rosewood Day auxiliary gym had flung open, and a bunch of freshman girls dressed in leotards and leg warmers pranced into the room for the first-period modern dance class.

Aria shot up quickly and pulled the headphones from her ears. She’d been lying on a yoga mat on the floor, thrusting her butt up and down in the air—the guru on the meditation tape said that the motion would cleanse her chakras and help her forget her past. But by the smirks on some of the freshman girls’ faces, they probably thought she was doing some kind of weird sex stretch.

She scuttled into the busy Rosewood Day hall, tucking the iPod back into her bag. All of the thoughts she’d tried so hard to forget swarmed back into her head like a knot of angry bees. Slipping into an alcove by the water fountains, she grabbed her cell phone from her jacket pocket. With one press of a button, she called up the page she’d been stalking obsessively on Google for two weeks now.

Tabitha Clark Memorial.

Tabitha’s parents had set up the website to honor their daughter. On it were Twitter posts from friends, pictures of Tabitha from cheerleading practice and ballet recitals, details about a scholarship set up in her name, and links to Tabitha-related news stories. Aria couldn’t stop looking at the page. She pounced on all of the news stories, always terrified that something—or some
one
—would connect Tabitha’s death with her.

But everyone still thought Tabitha’s death was a tragic accident. No one had even suggested that it might have been murder, and no one had made the connection that Aria and her friends had been in Jamaica the same time Tabitha was and at the same resort. Even Aria’s brother, Mike, and her boyfriend, Noel, who had been there as well, didn’t comment on the news story. Aria wasn’t even sure if they’d seen it. To them, it was probably just another senseless death to tune out.

There was one person who knew the truth, though. A.

Someone giggled behind her. A bunch of sophomore girls stared at Aria from a bank of lockers across the hall. “Pretty Little Killer,” one of them whispered, sending the rest into a fit of laughter. Aria winced. Ever since the made-for-TV movie of the same name had aired, kids walked down the hall quoting lines from the biopic of Real Ali’s life to her face.
I thought we were best friends!
TV Aria said to Real Ali at the end, when Ali tried to burn down the Poconos house.
We were such losers before we met you!
Like Aria would have really
said
something like that.

Then a familiar figure swept into view. Noel Kahn, Aria’s boyfriend, guided Klaudia Huusko, the blond Finnish exchange student who was living with his family, into an English classroom. Klaudia grimaced with every step, holding her Ace-bandaged ankle in the air and leaning heavily on Noel’s muscled shoulder. Every guy in the hall stopped and stared at Klaudia’s jiggling double-Ds.

Aria’s heart started to bang. Two weeks ago, Noel, his two older brothers, Aria, and Klaudia took a trip to a ski resort in upstate New York. Once there, Klaudia told Aria that she was making a move on Noel and there was nothing Aria could do about it. Enraged, Aria had accidentally pushed Klaudia off the chair lift in retaliation. Aria told everyone Klaudia had slipped, and Klaudia played dumb like she couldn’t remember what had happened, but Noel blamed Aria anyway. Since the trip, he had fawned over Klaudia’s sprained ankle day and night, driving her to school, carrying her books between classes, and retrieving her coffees and sushi platters during lunch. It was a wonder he wasn’t feeding her sashimi with Rosewood Day–embossed chopsticks.

Playing Florence Nightingale meant there was no time for Aria—not a hello in the halls, not even a phone call. He’d bagged on their standing Saturday date to Rive Gauche in the King James Mall for two weeks now. He’d also skipped out on the cooking class they were taking together at Hollis College, missing the class on grilling and marinades.

Noel emerged from the English classroom a minute later. When he spied Aria, instead of pretending she wasn’t there and turning away, as he’d done the past two weeks, he strode straight toward her. Aria’s spirits lifted. Maybe he was going to apologize for ignoring her. Maybe things would go back to normal.

She looked down at her trembling fingers. Her swirling nerves reminded her of the one and only time Noel had spoken to Aria in seventh grade at one of Their Ali’s parties. They’d actually hit it off, and Aria had been on cloud nine until Ali sidled up to her later, telling Aria that she’d had a big wedge of cilantro between her teeth the entire time she and Noel had talked. “I really think Noel’s out of your league,” Ali—really Courtney—had told Aria in a gentle yet teasing voice. “And anyway, I think he likes someone else.”

Yeah, like you
? Aria had thought bitterly. What guy
didn’t
have a thing for Ali?

Now, Noel stopped in front of a display case that featured this year’s pieced-together and decorated Time Capsule game flag, the emblem of the yearly Rosewood Day scavenger hunt. Printed copies of other years’ flags hung in the case as well—the real ones were buried behind the soccer fields—including the one from when Aria was in sixth grade. A big chunk of flag was missing in the center—Real Ali had found that piece, Their Ali had stolen it, and then Jason DiLaurentis, their brother, had stolen it from
both
of them and given it to Aria. It was all because of that Time Capsule piece that Their Ali had been able to make the dangerous switch with her twin sister, sending Real Ali off to the mental hospital for four long years.