Deadly

Emily pressed a hand to her chest. “I thought you forgave me for that!”

Carolyn shrugged. “I might have forgiven you if I hadn’t known you were still doing it, Emily. Now you’ve killed someone, and you’re still blaming everyone but yourself, basically. But you can’t make excuses anymore. I’m sorry Ali tried to kill you in the Poconos last year. I’m sorry you loved her, and she rejected you. But get over it. Take some responsibility.”

“Get over it?” Emily screamed, anger she’d never experienced before rising up her throat. “How can I get over it if she’s still doing it?”

“She’s not still doing anything!” Carolyn screeched back. “She’s dead! Face it! She’s gone, and what you did is nobody’s fault but yours.”

Emily let out a primal roar, ran for her sister, and grabbed her shoulders. “Why can’t you believe me?” she screamed. How did Carolyn not understand? How could her family believe she’d made all of this up, done something so awful?

Carolyn pushed Emily away, and Emily slammed against the back wall. Emily lunged for her sister again, and suddenly, they were on the ground. Carolyn’s strong body pressed into Emily’s. Her nails scratched Emily’s face. Emily shrieked and nudged Carolyn’s abdomen with her knees, then wrapped an arm around Carolyn and flipped her on her side. Carolyn’s eyes flashed. She bared her teeth and then bit down on Emily’s arm. Emily screamed and pulled away, staring at the marks where Carolyn’s teeth had broken the skin.

“Girls!” Mrs. Fields wailed. “Girls, stop!”

Two hands grabbed Emily around her waist and lifted her to stand. Emily felt her father’s hot breath on her neck, but she was so angry that she elbowed him off. She reached out and grabbed a chunk of Carolyn’s hair. Carolyn screamed and wrenched away, but not before Emily pulled several strands of hair from her sister’s head. Carolyn rammed her body into Emily hard, sending her careening across the room and knocking into a cabinet that held her mother’s Hummel knickknacks.

There was a creaking sound as the cabinet tipped on its side and slowly, slowly, slowly started to fall. Mrs. Fields leapt forward, trying to grab it, but it was too heavy and too late—the cabinet was already too far gone.

The floor shook. There was the sound of breaking glass, and all of the figurines spilled out. Suddenly, the room was silent. Emily and Carolyn stopped and stared. Mrs. Fields dropped to her knees, gaping at everything that had broken. At least that was what Emily thought she was doing until she turned around. Her mother’s face had turned a ghostly white. Her mouth was an O, and she sucked for air. She clutched at her chest, a look of terror frozen on her face.

“Mom?” Carolyn ran to her. “What’s going on?”

“It’s . . . my . . .” It was all Mrs. Fields could get out. She grabbed her left arm and hunched over.

Carolyn yanked the cordless phone from its cradle on the desk. Her fingers shook as she dialed 911. “Help!” she said, when someone answered. “My mother is having a heart attack!”

Emily knelt by her mother helplessly. She took her mom’s pulse. It was racing fast. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” she said tearfully, staring into her mother’s widened, desperate eyes.

Mr. Fields appeared from behind, pushed a baby aspirin into his wife’s mouth, and made her swallow. Seconds later, sirens blared from up the street. EMTs burst through the front door in a swirl of boots and reflective jackets. They elbowed Emily and the others out of the way and started to attach Mrs. Fields to monitors and an oxygen tank. Two strong men lifted her onto a stretcher, and before Emily knew it, they were carrying her out the door.

Everyone ran outside to where the ambulance was parked. A couple of neighbors stood on the adjacent lawns to gawk. “Only two can ride with us,” the head EMT was saying to Mr. Fields. “The other can follow along behind.”

Mr. Fields looked at Emily. “Stay here,” he growled at her. “Come on, Carolyn.”

Emily shrank back into the house like he’d kicked her. Her father had never spoken to her like that in her life.

She pushed the door shut and leaned against the back of it, breathing hard. In the kitchen, everything was still as they’d left it. Forks protruded out of bowls. The coffeemaker beeped loudly, indicating that the pot had finished brewing. In the living room, the Hummel cabinet lay ruined on the floor, broken Hummels scattered across the carpet. Emily walked over to them and knelt down. Her mom’s favorite milkmaid had a severed head. There was a single arm holding a water bucket by the vent. The little ballerinas were now legless, the tranquil-looking cows were hornless and without tails.

She wanted to find Ali and strangle her with all her might. But all she could do now was look at the shattered remains of her mother’s prized possessions and cry.

21

CLOSED DOORS

A week later, Spencer crept through the woods behind her house to meet Aria, Hanna, and Emily. It was almost too dark to see anything, so she used her cell-phone light to guide the way. Thick roots jutted up from the earth. A fallen log lay across her path. Before long, she came upon the old wishing well, a stone relic left behind from farmers in the 1700s. Moss grew over the sides. Some of the rock had crumbled away. Spencer peered over the edge and threw a pebble down the hole. There was an empty-sounding echo as it plopped into shallow water.

Then she turned and gazed down the hill at her house. Most of the lights were off. The basement window she’d snuck out of was ajar. The spot where her family’s barn apartment had been before Ali burned it down still had no grass. She counted seven news vehicles at the curb, staking out the house. They’d been parked there around the clock since their arrest.

“Hey.” Emily’s head appeared over the other side of the hill. It was a chilly night, and she had on a black hoodie and jeans. She glanced at the well and made a small whimper. “Do you think she really used to come here?”

“I guess.” Spencer dared touch the slimy curved stones. The frame was half-rotted, there was a fuzz of moss on the top and sides, and a rusted metal bucket lay a few feet away. “The top of this hill gave her the perfect vantage of my house.”

Emily clucked her tongue. A twig snapped, and they turned. Aria and Hanna trudged up the hill. When they got to the top, the girls just stood under the moon, staring at one another.

“Well?” Spencer finally blurted. “We’d better start talking. There will be a witch hunt for me soon.” There had been too much turmoil for the four of them to meet after they’d returned home, but finally, tonight, Hanna had sent a text that they needed to talk. But it was true about the witch hunt: The reporters camped outside Spencer’s house were so nosy and clever that they’d figure out she was missing before Spencer’s family did. In the week since the arrest, her mother had barely gotten out of bed, and Mr. Pennythistle had tiptoed around her nervously, as if afraid she was going to freak out and do something crazy. “I’m not actually a murderer!” Spencer had cried out to him once, but it hadn’t done any good.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t stay out long, either,” Aria mumbled. “But it is good to see you guys.”

“Seriously.” Emily looked at them, her eyes wet. “It’s awful, though, isn’t it?”

Hanna nodded despondently. “I’m going to lose my mind if I have to sit in my house another day.” That was part of their punishment: Until they were extradited to Jamaica, they were to remain in their homes full-time. Rosewood Day hadn’t expelled them, but the school didn’t allow the girls to come back, either.

“Everyone ready for finals?” Aria said in a not-so-joking voice. They were allowed to take their exams at home.

“I don’t see the point,” Spencer said sadly. She looked at the others. “I got a letter from Princeton this week. They don’t want an alleged murderer in their freshman class.”

Emily winced. “I heard from NC State, too.” She made a thumbs-down sign.

“Yep, I’m out of FIT,” Hanna mumbled. She squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her shoulders. “This isn’t fair, guys. That’s what I keep thinking. This. Just. Isn’t. Fair.”

“Tell me about it,” Aria murmured, shuffling her feet through the dry leaves. “But it’s not like we can do anything.”

Hanna pounded a fist into an open palm. “Yes, we can. I say we look for Ali again ourselves.”

“Are you crazy?” Spencer leaned against the well’s rickety frame. “A could still hurt a lot of people we love. Besides, we should just lie low and not do anything else to stir up the press.”

“So we just wait for them to send us away?” Hanna shrieked. “Have you seen the prisons in Jamaica? They’re filled with snakes. And they, like, force you to do gravity bongs there. It’s one of their torture methods.”

Spencer’s eyebrows knitted together. “I’m sure they don’t do that, Han.”

“I bet they do.” Hanna placed her hands on her hips. “Mike made me smoke out of one once, and I broke out into hives and hallucinated. I was in hell.”

“My dad promised that our legal team will figure out a way to keep us from going there,” Spencer said weakly.

Aria sighed. “No offense to your dad or our legal team, but all the papers are saying the FBI wants to make an example of us. It’s almost guaranteed we’re going to Jamaica.”

Spencer gritted her teeth. “Well, maybe Fuji will realize the truth. Or maybe Ali will screw up.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Emily said despondently. “Ali has us exactly where she wants us. And when has she ever screwed up?”

“I really don’t think we should start digging again, guys,” Spencer warned.

“But we have clues,” Aria said. “That doctored video. Whoever N is.”

Spencer paced in circles. “I know, but . . .”

“Your friend Chase is good with computers, right, Spence?” Hanna begged. “Maybe he can zoom into that video file and show the girls’ faces, prove to the cops it isn’t us.”

Spencer twisted her mouth. “But I can’t put him at risk.”

“He already is at risk,” Aria reminded her.

There was a long pause. A truck shifted gears far off on the turnpike.

“I’m not going to Jamaica,” Hanna said firmly. “I want to stay in Rosewood.”

Aria swallowed hard. “I do, too.”

Spencer stared into the dark sky. Aria was right. If Ali was going to get Chase, the plan was already in motion. Spencer hadn’t heard from Chase since before their arrest, but she knew he would do anything for her.

A light snapped on in her house, and she lowered her shoulders, half expecting her mom to appear on the back porch any second. “I’d better go back. But I’ll do it, Han. I’ll reach out to Chase.”

“Good.” Hanna sounded relieved.

Spencer started back down the hill, her heart pounding. Mercifully, the light snapped off shortly after it turned on, and no one appeared on the back deck. She walked around to the front of the house, eyeing the car in the driveway, then the vehicles parked at the curb. They’d see her if she backed out—she’d have to take the bus. There was a SEPTA stop only a mile from here, on Lancaster Avenue.