Crushed

Another memory flickered into her head, faded and almost forgotten. A Reykjavik cab had picked them up to go to the airport the morning of their flight home. As they drove out of the city, they passed the huge chateau on the hill. Police cars surrounded the place. Cops stood on the driveway, and sirens whirled. Aria slumped down in her seat, but Noel stared straight at it, fascinated. “Huh,” he had said in the croaky voice from a night of too much drinking. “I wonder what happened there.” And then he’d looked pointedly at Aria.

But he couldn’t have known. Right?

She swallowed a huge lump in her throat and went back inside the house. The stairs creaked noisily as she climbed back to her bedroom. She pushed open the door, nearly bursting into tears at the two unfinished plates of food on the table. She walked over to the closet, whipped the door open, pushed the sweatshirts aside, and stared at the rolled-up canvas. If only she could just burn it.

A square wallet on her desk caught her eye, and she straightened. It wasn’t hers, but she knew it well. She picked it up, tracing the embossed NAK—Noel Alexander Kahn. Noel always took his wallet out of his back pocket when they made out—it was much more comfortable that way. But he’d never forgotten it before. And Aria had never looked through it.

Don’t, she told herself. But her hands inched toward it anyway.

The wallet made a squeaky-leather sound as she opened it. Inside the pockets were two credit cards, Noel’s driver’s license, a couple of twenties, and some singles. His student ID was tucked into a back slot. So was a free pass to the Rosewood Go-Kart track and a receipt from Wordsmith’s Books for a coffee.

Aria stared at the ceiling, suddenly feeling oily and gross. Noel wasn’t hiding anything. This was just A being A and ruining everything.

But then she noticed a faded ticket stub behind the bills. THE WOODS CINEMA, it read in purple ink. Aria had never heard of it before. The stub was a pass to a Spider-Man movie. Aria frowned. The latest Spider-Man had come out the last summer she was in Iceland—before junior year. Why would Noel keep this?

She turned the stub over. There was faded handwriting on the back, but Aria could still make out the words. Thanks for believing in me! Next time, I’ll get the popcorn.

The note was punctuated by a little doodle. At first, it looked like just a blob, but when Aria brought it into the light, it was of a girl playing field hockey, her hands curled around a stick, the ball shooting through the air. Aria sank onto the bed. She’d seen this exact doodle before—on someone’s piece of the Time Capsule flag. She’d been given it accidentally, and she’d hidden it in her room ever since.

It had been Ali’s.

20

The Sting

That same afternoon, Spencer, clad once again in her Britney wig and sunglasses, paced back and forth in front of a Philly brownstone near the Schuylkill River. Boats honked. A double-decker bus full of tourists in faux Ben Franklin glasses and Liberty Bell sweatshirts swept by. Rain had just fallen, and the air smelled like slick cement and exhaust. She checked her school e-mail on her old cell phone, piggybacking off someone’s unencrypted WiFi. A new message had come in. Dear Spencer, Perhaps our wires crossed. I was hoping to see you at your house yesterday, but maybe you didn’t get my message. Can we try for tomorrow? Sincerely, Jasmine Fuji.

Bile filled her stomach. Yesterday, she’d taken special care not to be anywhere near her house around four PM, when Agent Fuji said she was going to oh-so-casually drop by. She’d treated Mr. Pennythistle, her mother, and Amelia to ice cream at the King James Mall so they wouldn’t be home when Fuji came by, either. But Spencer couldn’t dodge her forever.

“Boo,” a voice said. Spencer whirled around and put up her fists.

“Just me, Britney!” Chase held up his hands in mock terror, backing away.

“Don’t do that.” Spencer gave him a playful shove. Then she examined him more closely. Today, he wore skinny-ish jeans, a button-down polo, and a down vest that made him look rugged and tough. Was it possible he looked even better than he had the last time she’d seen him? Spencer had been thrilled when he’d sent her an IM yesterday saying, My connection at CVS found an address for Barbara Rogers in their system. 2560 Spruce Street, Apt. 4B, 4 PM tomorrow?

She looked at the brownstone. “Now what do we do?”

“Knock on her door,” Chase said matter-of-factly.

Spencer gave him a crazy look. “Are we sure she even lives here?”

“Let’s check.” He climbed the steps and looked at the names on the buzzers, then frowned. “Hmm. There’s no Rogers listed.”

“It could be an outdated directory,” Spencer suggested. “Or maybe she’s not on the lease.”

“Let’s buzz.” Chase reached toward the 4B button.

Spencer caught his arm. “Wait! Maybe we shouldn’t let her know we’re coming.”

Chase squinted at her. “Then how are we going to get into the building?”

At that very moment, the red door opened, and an old man with white hair walked out. Spencer tried to catch it, but the door banged shut and locked behind him. She turned to the man instead. “Um, I’m Barbara Rogers’s niece. Can you let me in?”

The man glowered at Spencer’s Britney wig. “Never heard of her.” He shuffled down the stairs.

Spencer exchanged a look with Chase. Something told her the guy was lying. “Are you sure?” she called after the man.

“I said I don’t know anything,” he called over his shoulder, practically diving into a parked Audi. In seconds, he started the engine and pulled away from the curb. Black exhaust sputtered out of the tailpipe.

Chase climbed down the steps and stood by Spencer. “Oh-kaaay.”

Spencer leaned against the wrought-iron railing, trying to get a look at the vanishing license plate, but it was already too far away. “It seems like he wanted to get away from us really quickly, didn’t it? Almost like someone got to him, told him not to talk.”

“And if people got to him, they had to have a reason,” Chase went on. “Maybe Barbara Rogers is Alison’s nurse.” He glanced up at the brownstone again. “Let’s wait for someone else to come out and catch the door before it shuts.”

“Good idea.” Spencer sat down on the first step and stared fixedly at the door, willing someone to appear. Cars honked on the main avenue. A couple of pigeons fought over a bread crust on the sidewalk. But no one emerged in the foyer. How long would they have to wait?

“So did you get your blog emergency sorted out the other day?” Spencer asked.

Chase looked at her blankly. “What?”

“You know, the reason you had to cut our first meeting so short,” Spencer prompted. “Was there breaking news about Benjamin Franklin secretly running a meth lab? Independence Hall once being a whorehouse?” In some of their chats, Chase had revealed some of the ridiculous myths that his readers debated.

“Oh.” Chase stared at his hands. “Actually, it wasn’t a blog emergency at all. It was more of a family thing. My brother needed my help.”

A trail of pale green leaves swirled down the street. One of them flew right into Chase’s cheek. Spencer resisted the urge to brush it away. “Is your brother older or younger?” she asked.

“A year younger,” Chase said. “We’re pretty close. We weren’t when we were little, but after the stalker thing . . .” He trailed off, his gaze suddenly distant.

Spencer rolled her jaw. “That must have been intense,” she said quietly. “What happened, exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Chase’s gaze slid to the right. “At first, the guy and I were friends. But then, something changed. He threatened me. Tried to kill me. Messed me up pretty badly.”

“There’s not a mark on you.” Spencer allowed herself a few moments to stare.

Chase ducked his head. There was a long pause before he spoke again. “Yeah, well. Most of the scars you can’t see.”

Spencer knew exactly what he meant. And she hated that she knew. She watched the pedestrians on the street, lost for a moment in memories of Ali. “Do you know what happened to him?” she asked after a while. “Did he go to jail?”

Chase looked pained. “He was under eighteen, so no. And like I said, his parents were loaded. They kept this out of the press, paid off the cops. He left school, but that’s all I know.”

Spencer shook her head. “That is so unfair. So he’s just walking the streets?”

Chase nodded. “I guess so.”

He turned his head away then and made a pained noise that broke Spencer’s heart. She touched his arm, all at once so sad and heartbroken, both for Chase’s experience and her own. How dare someone torment him? How dare someone torment her?

“I know what it’s like,” she whispered. “I’ve been stalked, too.”

Chase turned around, his brow furrowed. “You have?”

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Spencer removed the Britney wig and took off the sunglasses. “I’m Spencer Hastings,” she said. “One of the girls Ali tried to, uh, kill.”

Chase’s mouth made an O. All sorts of expressions crossed his face in a single second. “I wondered if it was you,” he said after a moment in a voice so tender it made Spencer’s heart break. “But I was afraid to ask. I was afraid to scare you away.”

Spencer pulled the wig back onto her head. “You can’t tell anyone, though, okay? I’m trusting you. If I see this show up on your blog . . .”

“That will never happen!” Chase said, urgently shaking his head. Then he leaned back and blinked at her. “Jesus. Spencer Hastings. Now I feel like an idiot telling you all that stalker stuff. It pales in comparison.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Spencer said firmly. “The same thing happened to both of us. Someone we trusted screwed us over in the worst way possible.” All of a sudden, she felt tears filling her eyes. She’d connected with other people about Ali, confessed what Ali had done to other boys she’d been interested in, but no one had gone through it, too. She’d always laughed at the expression kindred spirits, but now, with Chase, she understood what it meant. If only she could see Chase on occasions other than Ali stakeouts. She had a feeling they could talk all night without ever running out of things to say.

She swallowed hard. “Will you go to prom with me?”

Chase sat back and blinked. “Wait. What?”

“We both need something fun in our lives. Something to take our minds off what happened. We could go just as friends. As whatever. And you probably couldn’t tell my friends that you run an Ali blog, and you’d have to promise not to talk about any of us in it—”

“Spencer,” Chase interrupted. “I already told you, I’d never do that.”

Spencer nodded. “So what do you say?”

Her heart pounded as she watched Chase tilt his head back and peer down his nose at her, as if trying to see her from a different angle. The longer he didn’t say anything, the more ridiculous Spencer felt. It was a horrible idea. Chase was out of high school, too cool to go to proms.