Burned (Pretty Little Liars #12)

As if sensing her gaze, Graham turned and looked at Hanna, too. He didn’t blink. Hanna flinched and turned away. She followed Naomi to peruse the book of songs, her heart banging the whole time. I could be standing next to A right now, she kept thinking. This girl could know all the horrible things I’ve ever done.

She eyed “California Gurls” by Katy Perry and considered suggesting it, but then decided it was too cheesy. But suddenly, Naomi pointed at it, too. “I think we could rock this one, don’t you?”

“Let’s do it.” Hanna wrote it down next to their names. There was no way she was quibbling with A.

They sat down at a table and waited their turn. Though Hanna had to keep jiggling her leg to assuage her nerves, she pretended to be completely calm, watching as a bunch of guys from Ulster growled out something by a metal band and three girls with the same blond haircut pretended they were Britney Spears. Naomi pulled out her cell phone, and though Hanna was dying to look at what she was writing, she kept her gaze pasted on her drink, her heart thudding hard.

Naomi dropped her phone back in her bag. “I wish they would serve us,” she sighed. “I so need a cocktail. I’m having major guy issues, and I want to drown my sorrows.”

“What’s going on?” Hanna asked, shakily resting her chin in her palm. Fake-friending Rule #1: Always pretend to care about the fake friend’s boy problems.

Naomi sighed. “The guy I’m into likes Spencer.”

Hanna sipped the water that had been placed in front of her, surprised Spencer hadn’t brought this up when they’d talked about A last night. “That sucks,” she said fumblingly.

“It does suck.” Naomi’s eyes widened. “Hey, got any dirt on her? You know, something that would make him run screaming?”

Hanna coughed. “I don’t really know anything that good.” Except that she’s a murderer, a voice growled in her head. Or that she took drugs last summer and framed someone else for possession. Or that she helped me move your cousin into the driver’s seat of the car I was driving.

Then again, if Naomi was A, she already knew all of that.

“Aw, I’m just kidding.” Naomi nudged her playfully after a moment, probably registering Hanna’s uncomfortable expression. She squeezed Hanna’s hand. “You’re so lucky you have Mike, you know.”

“Yeah,” Hanna said, feeling herself relax, smiling as she thought of him.

“He’s better than Sean Ackard,” Naomi added. “You know I dated him too, right?”

Hanna nodded. “In ninth grade.”

Naomi looked surprised. “How did you remember that?”

Hanna laughed. “I pined over Sean for years—I knew everyone he dated. But, you know, when I got him, he was a huge disappointment. He was just so … good.”

“You mean the no-sex thing, right?” Naomi rolled her eyes. “He’s always been like that. I was at this party with him once, and all the couples were peeling off to make out. But Sean and I sat on the couch, watching this stupid movie on TV like we were the parents. It was so lame.”

“What does Kate see in him?” Hanna giggled.

“Maybe she’s into virgins,” Naomi snickered. “I heard she’s going to V Club with him now.”

“Actually, I—” Hanna was about to say she’d seen Kate and Sean leave a V Club meeting a few weeks ago but stopped herself just in time. She’d been with Liam when she caught Kate and Sean at the V Club meeting.

Then again, if Naomi was A, she would know that, too.

Hanna straightened up, feeling nervous. “You know, if you really want a cocktail, we could sneak off the boat when we get to Puerto Rico and go to a bar or something. I have a fake ID. And you have your, um, cousin’s, right?”

A strange expression flashed across Naomi’s face. “Yeah.”

“Are you guys close?” Her heart was pounding hard. She felt ridiculously transparent.

Naomi picked at her nails. “Like sisters. Her name’s Madison. She went to St. Agnes. Now she goes to Penn State. Or, well, she did go to Penn State until the accident.”

Hanna’s stomach dropped. “Did she … die?” She braced herself for the answer. Or for Naomi to start screaming that she knew everything and wanted Hanna dead.

Naomi glanced at Hanna for a long moment, almost as though she were sizing her up. But before she could answer, the beginning notes of “California Gurls” boomed through the space, and the lyrics appeared on the screen behind the stage.

Naomi leapt up. “God, I’m such a buzzkill! C’mon. Let’s forget about this and have fun.”

They rushed up to the front and grabbed the microphones. But when Hanna opened her mouth to sing, her voice sounded unsteady and thin. She kept picturing Madison in a hospital bed, post-crash, one of those horrible masks on her face breathing for her. She pictured Naomi, Madison’s favorite cousin, sitting by her side, a blubbering mess. Finding out that someone else was to blame would drive anyone to revenge. But how was Naomi able to play it so cool right now?

She glanced over at Naomi now. Her eyes were clear, her tears gone, and she was singing gleefully into the microphone as though she’d put the pain behind her. As the peppy chorus began, a bunch of kids in the audience sang along. Naomi’s voice rose. She turned around and slapped her butt. Hanna couldn’t help but snicker.

Then Hanna threw her head back and sang louder, too. Her voice sounded good blended with Naomi’s. When she opened her eyes, Naomi grabbed her hands and spun her around. She flipped her skirt, and Hanna grabbed two glowsticks from a nearby table, pretending firecrackers were exploding from her boobs. The crowd cheered. When Hanna looked out at their faces, even Graham was smiling.

When the song ended, a bunch of guys sitting along the wall chanted, “En-core! En-core!”

“The public loves us!” Hanna giggled as they stepped off the stage.

“That’s because we’re awesome!” Naomi looped her arm through Hanna’s elbow. “We should perform that at the talent show, don’t you think?”

“Um, sure,” Hanna said, remembering her promise to Spencer and the others to do the hula with them. But it wasn’t like she could say no—not to the girl who was potentially A.

And then, as if on cue, when she got back to her seat, her cell phone light was blinking. There was a new text message.

Naomi’s head had turned and she was talking to Ursula Tippington, paying no attention. Hanna cast a glance at Naomi’s phone on the table beside her. All she had to do was reach over and grab it, but her limbs felt as if they were filled with sand. Swallowing hard, she opened her text.

Hanna Marin got in a crash

Moved a girl to cover her ass

Hanna Marin fled the scene

But someone saw it all—me.

—A

13

PEOPLE WHO FLOAT IN GLASS BOATS SHOULDN’T THROW STONES

“Welcome to Puerto Rico!” Jeremy boomed over the loudspeaker on Thursday morning. He said it with a flamboyant Spanish accent, rolling the rs.

Emily watched as a lot of kids waved scarves at the people on shore. An acoustic, dreamy version of “Over the Rainbow” tinkled over the loudspeakers, and everyone groaned. That same song had played when they’d pulled out of Newark, then the following morning at sea, then to summon them to dinner the night before. It was getting a little old.

She sat down on a bench, inhaling the humid air. Jordan had left her a note on her bedside table earlier, saying she was grabbing coffee but that Emily should meet her. When her phone rang, she expected to see Jordan’s name, but it was Hanna instead.

“I have Spencer and Aria on the phone, too,” Hanna said as soon as Emily answered. “I hung out with Naomi. She doesn’t seem to know that we were involved in Madison’s accident—but someone does. A sent me another note about it.”

“Did you find out if Madison died?” Emily asked, her heart stopping in her chest. Please say she didn’t, she thought. If someone else died because of her, she wasn’t sure how she could go on. But then, finding out that Madison hadn’t been just passed-out drunk, as they’d all thought, was enough of a mind game. How could she have fled the scene, leaving a hurt, innocent girl behind? Emily kept picturing the police reading her charges, the looks on her parents’ faces. Her mother would probably keel over dead—and that would be yet another death Emily was responsible for.

“I don’t know if she died yet,” Hanna admitted. “We were interrupted before I could get to that, and I felt weird pushing it.”

“You have to try to find out what happened, Hanna,” Aria urged. “If she did die, or if she was hurt, that makes a stronger case for Naomi being A.”

“I know, I know.” Hanna sounded distraught. Then she sighed. “But I’m confused. Naomi seems so poised and innocent. Could she be that good of an actress?”

“I got a note from A yesterday, and when I looked up, Naomi was staring right at me,” Aria said. “My note made another reference to Jamaica. We need to figure this out soon and bring A down before A ruins us.”

“You know who I’m not so sure about?” Hanna said. “Tabitha’s ex. He was all alone in the karaoke bar, Aria, and it seemed like he was watching me.”

“He’s not A,” Aria said stubbornly.

“How can you be so sure?” Spencer asked. “He was there when you got the A note yesterday, too, wasn’t he?”

“But how could he know about everything else we did?” Aria said. “He was in South America last summer, remember?”

“So he says.”

There was a tense pause on the line. Finally, Spencer sighed and said she had to go. The other girls hung up, too, but they promised to meet up later to talk about their hula dance. After she hit END, Emily chewed hard on her gum. Though she didn’t believe Naomi was A, she also remembered something from the previous summer—maybe she and Naomi did share a connection. After the accident, when Emily was in Philadelphia, she’d been waddling home from the fish restaurant where she worked, deep in conversation with Derrick, her friend and coworker. They’d been talking about how heartbreaking Real Ali’s return to Rosewood had been for Emily, especially the kiss they’d shared.

“Are you sad she died in the fire?” Derrick had asked.

“Sort of,” Emily said, looking away. It wasn’t like she could tell Derrick that Ali hadn’t died in the fire—that she’d escaped through the door Emily had left open. Ali had died when Aria pushed her off the roof in Jamaica, though.

Then she had stopped short, spying someone across the intersection. There, standing at the window of the BCBG store, was Naomi Zeigler.

“Oh my God,” she’d gasped, pulling Derrick around the corner. She waited until Naomi had walked on, then figured she was safe. But what if Naomi had seen?

Emily’s phone bleated again, bringing her back to the present. Aria, said the Caller ID. “What are you doing today, Em?” she asked. “Do you want to get breakfast?”