Crushed

Spencer’s heart stopped. “A priceless Van Gogh is in your closet?”

Aria’s eyes filled with tears. “The article says the authorities couldn’t find the painting when they searched Olaf’s house. Ali must have gone there, chopped up Olaf—the article says blood was all over the floor—moved his body somewhere, ransacked his place, and taken it. And then she brought it back here.”

Hanna frowned. “I’m not sure if Ali could have done all that. How could she have gotten a passport? And Olaf was over six feet. It’s like the Ian thing—Ali couldn’t have been strong enough to strangle him all by herself.”

Aria shrugged. “Maybe her helper did it, then. It doesn’t change the fact that Team A killed Olaf so that they could get the painting. And now, one well-placed call from A, and I’ll have a SWAT team on my lawn.”

“Whoa,” Emily whispered.

“Maybe you should turn the painting in anonymously,” Hanna suggested, wrapping a piece of hair around and around her finger nervously.

Spencer’s eyes widened. “Art theft is, like, a major crime. You could be on a surveillance camera. You could get in serious trouble.”

“And now you guys could get in trouble, too,” Aria cried. “All of you know what I did now. You know where a stolen painting is.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You can turn me in if you want. I understand.”

Emily touched her arm. “We aren’t going to do that.”

“We’ll figure this out without any of us getting in trouble, okay?” Spencer added. “I just don’t understand how A knew what you did.”

“I guess A followed us to Iceland,” Hanna concluded.

“And followed me to the chateau?” Aria held her palms to the ceiling. “There weren’t any other cars even on the road until the police came. I suppose A could have come on foot, but—”

“What if A listened in on our call on my end?” Hanna interrupted.

Aria pushed a strand of hair out of her face. “You think A was staying in our guesthouse?”

Spencer leaned back in the chair and shut her eyes. Her head was throbbing, and she felt that same old rising panic that had plagued her many times before. How could A be in so many places at once? How could A know everything?

Then she opened her eyes. “Aria, maybe A was staying in your room.”

She must have had a telling tone, because Aria set her mouth in a line. “A is not Noel.”

“Are you sure?” Spencer threw up her hands. “Aria, Noel has been everywhere bad stuff has happened to us. Jamaica. The cruise. Now Iceland. Do you really think that’s just a coincidence?”

“Noel was dead-drunk that night,” Aria protested, her voice going high.

Spencer paced back and forth around the little room. “Maybe it was just an act. Hanna, do you remember where Noel was when you talked to Aria?”

Hanna shoved her hands in her pockets, the light from the digital clock on the wall glowing red on her face. “Well, he wasn’t in bed when I woke up. And I didn’t see him in the hall, which is where I was for most of the conversation. He came inside from the back when we got home, though. He said he was smoking a joint, but he didn’t smell like weed at all.”

Aria’s eyes blazed. “Now you’re against me, too?”

“Of course I’m not against you!” Hanna said. “But, Aria, it is weird.”

Spencer shifted forward in the chair. “Remember how strange Noel was when ‘Courtney’ came to Rosewood?” she asked. “He was in a support group with her. He urged you guys to be friends. And you caught them making out at the Valentine’s Day dance. . . .”

Aria slapped her arms to her sides. “Ali ambushed him! Noel didn’t want to kiss her. She just made it look like he did.”

“Are you sure?” Spencer asked. “It was that kiss that made you get in the car to go with us to the Poconos. What if Noel was in on it?”

Aria’s mouth hung open. “I can’t believe you.”

One of the surveillance monitors went dark. Everyone’s gaze shot to it. There was fuzz, but then the image reappeared. The yard was empty. A few leaves drifted past the camera, and that was all.

Spencer shook her head. “I’m sorry, Aria. I don’t want it to be Noel, either. I just wish we could rule Noel out for good. The article says Olaf was killed at the beginning of January. Do you know where Noel was around then?”

Aria ran her tongue over her teeth. “Switzerland. His family was skiing. He asked me to go, but I wanted to stay home and spend time with Lola.”

“Are you sure they were skiing? Switzerland isn’t that far from Iceland.”

Aria pounded a fist on the arm of the sofa. “He posted a ton of pictures on Facebook! Do you honestly think Noel flew to Iceland, killed a guy, and came home the next day like nothing ever happened? You think he’s that good of a liar?”

“Just see if you can find a lift ticket or something from January fourth, okay? And ask him where he was yesterday when someone snuck that painting into your house. It must have been while we were at school, right? So, basically, Noel will tell you he was in eighth period or whatever, and tons of people will vouch for him.”

A worried look crossed Aria’s face, but then she shook her head. “I’m not interrogating my boyfriend. If he finds out why I’m asking him these questions, he’ll dump me.”

“No one wants you guys to break up,” Emily said quickly.

“Look, the rest of us will see what we can discover,” Spencer said, slumping against the wall. “Until then, don’t do anything with the painting, okay, Aria?”

Aria’s mouth made an O. “I’m supposed to keep it in my closet?”

“Just hide it.” Spencer glanced at Hanna. “What’s going on with the burn clinic?”

Hanna sighed. “I really don’t want to volunteer there. But I’m talking to Sean’s dad about it tomorrow.”

“And how about Iris?” Spencer asked Emily.

Emily chewed her bottom lip. “I haven’t found out anything about Ali yet. But Iris has been at The Preserve for four years without a break, so there’s no way she can be Ali’s helper.”

“Good.” Spencer stood up, uncapped the marker she’d brought, and crossed Iris’s name off their list. “Hopefully she’ll tell you who is.”

Aria placed her hands on her hips. “And how is your investigation going, Spence?” she asked, a bitter tone in her voice. “Why haven’t you tracked down Ali yet?”

Spencer bristled. “Um, I’m working on it.” She could feel Aria’s gaze on her, but she didn’t know what else to say.

They shut off the lights in the panic room. Since Spencer had driven, she offered to take the girls who had come in cabs back home. As they walked out the door of the panic room, Spencer stared at Aria’s straight back and wondered what was going through her mind. She felt kind of . . . betrayed. After all that had happened, after A had tormented them about so many things, how had Aria kept quiet about the painting? And now Olaf, whoever he was, was missing and maybe even dead. Aria was right: They all could go to jail for knowing where a stolen painting was hidden and not coming forward with the information.

Ping.

It was Spencer’s old phone, still connected via WiFi. She cautiously looked at the screen. It was an e-mail on her newly created account. The return sender was PHILADELPHIA CONSPIRACY THEORIES.

She glanced at her friends. Hanna was peeking out the window. Aria was staring into space, lost in her own world. Emily was looking at her own phone with a glazed-over expression. Head lowered, Spencer clicked OPEN and read the two sentences. We should definitely talk. There’s a lot you need to know.

She hit REPLY. I’m available whenever, she wrote back. The sooner, the better.

10

Just Like Old Times

The sky turned gloomy as Hanna steered the Prius into the parking lot of the William Atlantic Plastic Surgery and Burn Rehabilitation Clinic. She shut off the engine and looked at the squat, übermodern building. Was she seriously doing this? Part of her wanted to call up Spencer and beg for a different mission.

Her old phone bleated a new message from her school e-mail account. It was from Chassey Bledsoe: VOTE CHASSEY FOR QUEEN!

Hanna squeezed the phone between her hands, wishing she could send an alert, too. How else would people know what an awesome queen she’d make? And she’d heard that, as part of the Starry Night theme, the queen’s crown would be even more bejeweled than ever.

The Starry Night. Her insides twisted. It was such an eerie coincidence that the very painting Aria had stolen was this year’s prom theme—if it was a coincidence at all. All A would have to do was tip the cops off that the painting was in Aria’s closet and she’d be done for. And though the police might not ever know that Spencer and Emily knew about the theft, there were Hanna’s phone records from that night in Iceland. She’d be ruined, too. Who knew, maybe A would even figure out a way to blame them for Olaf’s death.

What had Aria seen in Olaf, anyway? His beard was nasty. The cap he wore looked like it was from a Dumpster. But Aria was always into those grungy dudes—Hanna had been surprised, actually, when she started dating Noel. Neither of them were each other’s types—a few boys on the lacrosse team even joked for a while that Noel was dating Aria because her dad, Byron, had access to good pot. Hanna was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but what if Noel did have an ulterior motive to go for Aria? What if someone had put him up to it? Someone like . . . Ali? Could Noel be Ali’s helper?

Hanna hated to think it, but Ali having a helper made a lot of sense. It also fit that Noel was that person—for a lot of different reasons. At the beginning of sixth grade, when Real Ali was still around and Hanna was still a loserish nothing, her BFF was Scott Chin. Scott was out of the closet even then, and he had a raging crush on Noel and was always jealous of his girlfriends. “What does he see in Alison DiLaurentis?” he whined at lunch one day when he spied Ali and Noel giggling at the cool table. “She’s such a butter face. Everything about her is pretty . . . but her face.”

Hanna rolled her eyes. “She’s not a butter face.” Alison was the most beautiful girl ever. She’d modeled at the King James Mall spring and fall runway shows, and rumor had it she’d even been tapped by a big agency in New York City.

“Oh please, yes, she is.” Scott’s eyebrows, which Hanna suspected he plucked, knitted together. “I wonder if Noel has to close his eyes when he makes out with her.”

Hanna lowered her PB&J. “Do you think they actually make out?” Kissing was still exotic to her. She couldn’t believe kids her age were doing it.

“Oh, yeah.” Scott had nodded. “I saw them doing it in the woods behind the playground.”

Sighing, Hanna returned to the present and pushed through the double doors. Instantly, the familiar odor of gauze, antiseptic, and something that could only be described as burnt skin hit her like a tidal wave. She looked around, taking in the fake flowers on the tables and the patient art on the walls. Everything was the same as the last time she’d been here, down to the peppermints in the dish on the front desk. She remembered, suddenly, running into Mona in this lobby. Mona had acted all weird and cagey about why she was there, not admitting she was getting treatment for the burns from the prank-gone-wrong that Ali, Hanna, and the others had played on Toby Cavanaugh. In all the time they’d been friends, Hanna had never known Mona had been at the Cavanaughs that night, watching Ali shoot that firework into the tree house, witnessing Jenna getting blinded, maybe even hearing the fight Ali and Toby had afterward. Of course, Mona’s silence had been intentional.