Read Pretty Little Liars Online
Authors: Sara Shepard
The organ started up again with its dreary music, and Ali's brother and the others filed out of the church. Spencer, tipsy from a few slugs of whiskey, noticed that her three old friends had stood up and were filing out of the pew, and she figured she should go, too.
Everyone from Rosewood Day hung out at the back of the church, from the lacrosse boys to the video gameâobsessed geeks who Ali no doubt would have teased back in seventh. Old Mr. Yewâthe one in charge of the Rosewood Day charity driveâstood in the corner, talking quietly to Mr. Kaplan, who taught art. Even Ali's older JV field hockey friends had returned from their respective colleges; they stood in a teary huddle near the door. Spencer scanned the familiar faces, remembering all the people she used to know and didn't anymore. And then, she saw a dogâa seeing-eye dog.
Oh my God.
Spencer grabbed Aria's arm. “By the exit,” she hissed.
Aria squinted. “Is thatâ¦?”
“Jenna,” Hanna murmured.
“And Toby,” Spencer added.
Emily turned pale. “What are they doing here?”
Spencer was too stunned to answer. They looked the same but totally different. His hair was long now, and she wasâ¦gorgeous, with long black hair and wearing big Gucci sunglasses.
Toby, Jenna's brother, caught Spencer staring. A sour, disgusted look settled over his face. Spencer quickly jerked her eyes away.
“I can't believe he showed up,” she whispered, too quietly for the others to hear.
By the time the girls reached the heavy wooden doors that led to the church's crumbling stone steps, Toby and Jenna were gone. Spencer squinted in the sunlight of the brilliant, perfectly blue sky. It was one of those lovely early-fall days with no humidity, where you were dying to skip school, lie in a field, and not think about your responsibilities. Why was it always on days like this that something horrible happened?
Someone touched her shoulder and Spencer jumped. It was a blond burly cop. She motioned for Hanna, Aria, and Emily to go on without her.
“Are you Spencer Hastings?” he asked.
She nodded dumbly.
The cop wrung his enormous hands together. “I'm
very sorry for your loss,” he said. “You were good friends with Ms. DiLaurentis, right?”
“Thanks. Yeah, I was.”
“I'm going to need to talk with you.” The cop reached into his pocket. “Here's my card. We're reopening the case. Since you were friends, you might be able to help us. Is it okay if I come by in a couple of days?”
“Um, sure,” Spencer stammered. “Whatever I can do.”
Zombielike, she caught up with her old friends, who'd gathered under a weeping willow. “What did he want?” Aria asked.
“They want to talk to me, too,” Emily said quickly. “It's not a big deal though, is it?”
“I'm sure it's the same old stuff,” Hanna said.
“He couldn't be wondering aboutâ¦,” Aria started. She looked nervously to the church's front door, where Toby, Jenna, and her dog had stood.
“No,” Emily said quickly. “We couldn't get in trouble for that now, could we?”
They all glanced at each other worriedly.
“Of course not,” Hanna finally said.
Spencer looked around at everyone talking quietly on the lawn. She felt sick after seeing Toby, and she hadn't seen Jenna since the accident. But it was a coincidence that the cop had spoken to her right after she'd seen them, right? Spencer quickly pulled out her emergency cigarettes and lit up. She needed something to do with her hands.
I'll tell everyone about The Jenna Thing.
You're just as guilty as I am.
But no one saw
me.
Spencer nervously exhaled and scanned the crowd.
There wasn't any proof
. End of story. Unlessâ¦
“This has been the worst week of my life,” Aria said suddenly.
“Mine too.” Hanna nodded.
“I guess we can look on the bright side,” Emily said, her voice high-pitched and jittery. “It can't get any worse than this.”
As they followed the procession out to the gravel parking lot, Spencer stopped. Her old friends stopped too. Spencer wanted to say something to themânot about Ali or A or Jenna or Toby or the police, but instead, more than anything, she wanted to tell them that she'd missed them all these years.
But before she could say it, Aria's phone rang.
“Hang onâ¦,” Aria muttered, rooting around in her bag for her phone. “It's probably my mom again.”
Then, Spencer's Sidekick vibrated. And rang. And chirped. It wasn't just her phone, but her friends' phones too. The sudden, high-pitched noises sounded even louder against the sober, silent funeral procession. The other mourners shot them dirty looks. Aria held hers up to silence it; Emily struggled to operate her Nokia. Spencer wrenched her phone out of her clutch's pocket.
Hanna read her screen. “I have one new message.”
“I do too,” Aria whispered.
“Same,” Emily echoed.
Spencer saw she did, too. Everyone hit
READ
. A moment of stunned silence passed.
“Oh my God,” Aria whispered.
“It's fromâ¦,” Hanna squeaked.
Aria murmured, “Do you think she means⦔
Spencer swallowed hard. In tandem, the girls read their texts out loud. Each said the exact same thing:
I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. âA
I owe a lot to a great group of people at Alloy Entertainment. I've known them for years and without them, this book could never have happened. Josh Bank, for being hilarious, magnetic, and brilliantâ¦and for giving me a chance years ago despite the fact that I so rudely crashed his company Christmas party. Ben Schrank, for encouraging me to do this project in the first place and for his invaluable writing advice. Of course Les Morgenstein, for believing in me. And my fantastic editor, Sara Shandler, for her friendship and dedicated help in shaping this novel.
I'm grateful to Elise Howard and Kristin Marang at HarperCollins for their support, insight, and enthusiasm. And huge thanks to Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at William Morris for all the magical things she made happen.
Thanks also to Doug and Fran Wilkens for a great summer in Pennsylvania. I'm grateful to Colleen
McGarry, for reminding me of our junior high and high school inside jokes, especially those about our fictitious band whose name I won't mention. Thanks to my parents, Bob and Mindy Shepard, for their help with sticky plot points and for encouraging me to be myself, however weird that might be. And I don't know what I'd do without my sister, Ali, who agrees that Icelandic boys are pussies who ride small, gay horses and is okay with a certain character in this book being named after her.
And finally, thanks to my husband, Joel, for being loving, silly, and patient, and also for reading every draft of this book (happily!) and offering good adviceâproof that boys might just understand more about girls' inner struggles than we think.
I bet you thought I was Alison, didn't you? Well, sorry, but I'm not. Duh. She's dead.
Nope, I'm very much aliveâ¦and I'm very, very close. And for a certain clique of four pretty girls, the fun has just started. Why? 'Cause I say so.
Naughty behavior deserves punishment, after all. And Rosewood's finest deserve to know that Aria's been doing some extra-credit smooching with her English teacher, don't they? Not to mention the nasty family secret she's been hiding for years. The girl is a train wreck.
While I'm at it, I really ought to tip Emily's parents off to the reason she's been acting funny lately. Hey there, Mr. and Mrs. Fields, nice weather, huh? And by the way, your daughter likes kissing girls.
Then there's Hanna. Poor Hanna. Just free-falling into dorkdom. She may try to claw her way back to the top,
but don't worryâI'll be there waiting to knock her rapidly growing behind back into a pair of stonewashed mom-jeans.
Oh my god, I almost forgot Spencer. She's a total mess! After all, her family thinks she's a completely worthless skank. That's gotta suck. And just between us, it's about to get much worse. Spencer's keeping a deep, dark secret that could pretty much ruin all four of their lives. But who would tell such an awful secret? Oh, I don't know. Take a wild guess.
Bingo.
Life's so much fun when you know everything.
Just how do I know so much? You're probably dying to know, aren't you? Well, relax. All in due time.
Believe me, I'd love to tell you. But what's the fun in that?
I'll be watching. âA
Produced by Alloy Entertainment 151 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001
Hand Lettering by Peter Horridge
Photography by Ali Smith
Doll Design by Tina Amantula
Cover Design by Jennifer Heuer
I woke up in a dingy claw-foot bathtub in an unfamiliar pink-tiled bathroom. A stack of
Maxim
s sat next to the toilet, green toothpaste globbed in the sink, and white drips streaked the mirror. The window showed a dark sky and a full moon. What day of the week was it? Where was I? A frat house at the U of A? Someone's apartment? I could barely remember that my name was Sutton Mercer, or that I lived in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona. Had someone slipped me something?
“Emma?” a guy's voice called from another room. “You home?”
“I'm busy!” called a voice close by.
A tall, thin girl opened the bathroom door, her tangled dark hair hanging in her face. “Hey!” I leapt to my feet. “Someone's in here already!” My body felt tingly, as if it had fallen asleep. When I looked down, it seemed like I was flickering on and off, like I was under a strobe light.
Freaky. Someone definitely slipped me something.
The girl didn't seem to hear me. She stumbled forward, her face covered in shadows.
“Hel
lo
?” I cried, climbing out of the tub. She didn't look over. “Are you deaf?” Nothing. She pumped a bottle of lavender-scented lotion and rubbed it on her arms.
The door flung open again, and a snub-nosed, unshaven teenage guy burst in. “Oh.” His gaze flew to the girl's tight-fitting T-shirt, which said
new york new york roller coaster
on the front. “I didn't know you were in here, Emma.”
“That's maybe why the door was
closed
?” Emma pushed him out and slammed it shut. She turned back to the mirror. I stood right behind her. “Hey!” I cried again.
Finally, she looked up. My eyes darted to the mirror to meet her gaze. But when I looked into the glass, I screamed.
Because Emma looked exactly like me.
And I wasn't there.
Emma turned and walked out of the bathroom, and I followed as if something was yanking me along behind her. Who was this girl? Why did we look the same? Why was I invisible? And why couldn't I remember, well,
anything
? The wrong memories snapped into aching, nostalgic focusâthe glittering sunset over the Catalinas, the smell of the lemon trees in my backyard in the morning, the feel of cashmere slippers on my toes. But other things, the most important things, had become muffled and fuzzy, as if I'd lived my whole life underwater. I saw vague shapes, but I couldn't make out what they were. I couldn't remember what I'd done for any summer vacations, who my first kiss had been with, or what it felt like to feel the sun on my face or dance to my favorite song. What
was
my favorite song? And even worse, every second that passed, things got fuzzier and fuzzier. Like they were disappearing.
Like
I
was disappearing.
But then I concentrated really hard and I heard a muffled scream. And suddenly it was like I was somewhere else. I felt pain shooting through my body, before a final, sleepy sensation of my muscles surrendering. As my eyes slowly closed, I saw a blurry, shadowy figure standing over me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
No wonder Emma didn't see me. No wonder I wasn't in the mirror. I wasn't really here.
I was dead.
Emma Paxton carried her canvas tote and a glass of iced tea out the back door of her new foster family's home on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Cars swished and grumbled on the nearby expressway, and the air smelled heavily of exhaust and the local water treatment plant. The only decorations in the backyard were dusty free weights, a rusted bug zapper, and kitschy terra-cotta statues.
It was a far cry from my backyard in Tucson, which was desert-landscaped to perfection and had a wooden swing set I used to pretend was a castle. Like I said, it was weird and random which details I still remembered and which ones had evaporated away. For the last hour, I'd been following Emma trying to make sense of her life and willing myself to remember my own. Not like I had a choice. Everywhere she went, I went. I wasn't entirely sure how I knew these things about Emma, eitherâthey just appeared in my head as I watched her like a text message popping in an inbox. I knew the details of her life better than I did my own.
Emma dropped the tote on the faux wrought-iron patio table, plopped down in a plastic lawn chair, and craned her neck upward. The only nice thing about this patio was that it faced away from the casinos, offering a large swath of clear, uninterrupted sky. The moon dangled halfway up the horizon, a bloated alabaster wafer. Emma's gaze drifted to two bright, familiar stars to the east. At nine years old, Emma had wistfully named the star on the right the Mom Star, the star on the left the Dad Star, and the smaller, brightly twinkling spot just below them the Emma Star. She'd made up all kinds of fairy tales about these stars, pretending that they were her real family and that one day they'd all be reunited on earth like they were in the sky.
Emma had been in foster care for most of her life. She'd never met her dad, but she remembered her mother,
with whom she had lived until she was five years old. Her mom's name was Becky. She was a slender woman who loved shouting out the answers to
Wheel of Fortune
, dancing around the living room to Michael Jackson songs, and reading tabloids that ran stories like
baby born from pumpkin!
and
bat boy lives!
Becky used to send Emma on scavenger hunts around their apartment complex, the prize always being a tube of used lipstick or a mini Snickers. She bought Emma frilly tutus and lacy dresses from Goodwill for dress-up. She read Emma
Harry Potter
before bed, making up different voices for every character.
But Becky was like a scratch-off lottery ticketâEmma never quite knew what she was going to get with her. Sometimes Becky spent the whole day crying on the couch, her face contorted and her cheeks streaked with tears. Other times she would drag Emma to the nearest department store and buy her two of everything. “Why do I need two pairs of the same shoes?” Emma would ask. A faraway look would come over Becky's face. “In case the first pair gets dirty, Emmy.”
Becky could be very forgetful, tooâlike the time she left Emma at a Circle K. One summer night not long after that, Emma slept over with Sasha Morgan, a friend from kindergarten. She woke up in the morning to Mrs. Morgan standing in the doorway, a sick look on her face. Apparently, Becky had left a note under the Morgans' front door, saying she'd “gone on a little trip.” Some trip
that
wasâit had lasted almost thirteen years and counting.
The sliding glass door opened, and Emma wheeled around. Travis, her new foster mom's eighteen-year-old son, strutted out and settled on top of the patio table. “Sorry about bursting in on you in the bathroom,” he said.
“It's okay,” Emma muttered bitterly, slowly inching away from Travis's outstretched legs. She was pretty sure Travis
wasn't
sorry. He practically made a sport of trying to see her naked. Today, Travis wore a blue ball cap pulled low over his eyes, a ratty, oversized plaid shirt, and baggy jean shorts with the crotch sagging almost to his knees. There was patchy stubble on his pointy-nosed, thin-lipped, pea-eyed face; he wasn't man enough to actually grow facial hair. His bloodshot brown eyes narrowed lasciviously. Emma could feel his gaze on her, canvassing her tight-fitting
new york new york
camisole, bare, tanned arms, and long legs.
With a grunt, Travis reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a joint, and lit up. As he blew a plume of smoke in her direction, the bug zapper glowed to life. With a crisp snap and a fizzle of blue light, it annihilated yet another mosquito. If only it could do that to Travis, too.
Back off, pot breath,
Emma wanted to say.
It's no wonder no girl will get near you.
But she bit her tongue; the comment would have to go into her Comebacks I Should've Said file, a list she'd compiled in a black cloth notebook hidden in her top drawer. The Comebacks list, CISS for short, was filled with pithy, snarky remarks Emma had longed to say to foster moms, creepy neighbors, bitchy girls at school, and a whole host of others. For the most part, Emma held her tongueâit was easier to keep quiet, not make trouble, and become whatever type of girl a situation needed her to be. Along the way, Emma had picked up some pretty impressive coping skills: At age ten, she honed her reflexes when Mr. Smythe, a tempestuous foster parent, got into one of his object-throwing moods. When Emma lived in Henderson with Ursula and Steve, the two hippies who grew their own food but were clueless about how to cook it, Emma had begrudgingly taken over kitchen duties, whipping up zucchini bread, veggie gratins, and some awesome stir-fries.
It had been just two months since Emma had moved in with Clarice, a single mom who worked as a bartender for VIP gamblers at The M Resort. Since then, Emma had spent the summer taking pictures, playing marathon games of Minesweeper on the banged-up BlackBerry her friend Alex had given her before she'd left her last foster home in Henderson, and working part-time operating the roller coaster at the New York New York casino. And, oh yeah, avoiding Travis as much as she could.
All Emma wanted to do was get through her senior year here. It was the end of August, and school started on Wednesday. She had the option of leaving Clarice's when she turned eighteen in two weeks, but that would mean quitting school, finding an apartment, and getting a full-time job to pay rent. Clarice had told Emma's social worker that Emma could stay here until she got her diploma.
Nine more months,
Emma chanted to herself like a mantra. She could hold on until then, couldn't she?
Travis took another hit off the joint. “You want some?” he asked in a choked voice, holding the smoke in his lungs.
“No thanks,” Emma said stiffly.
Travis finally exhaled. “Sweet little Emma,” he said in a syrupy voice. “But you aren't always this good, are you?”
Emma craned her neck up at the sky and paused on the Mom, Dad, and Emma stars again. Farther down the horizon was a star she'd recently named the Boyfriend Star. It seemed to be hovering closer than usual to the Emma Star tonightâmaybe it was a sign. Perhaps this would be the year she'd meet her perfect boyfriend, someone she was destined to be with.
“Shit,” Travis whispered suddenly, noticing something inside the house. He quickly stubbed out the joint and threw it under Emma's chair just as Clarice appeared on the back deck. Emma scowled at the joint's smoldering tipânice of Travis to try to pin it on herâand covered it with her shoe.
Clarice still had on her work uniform: a tuxedo jacket, silky white shirt, and black bow tie. Her dyed blond hair was slicked into an impeccable French twist, and her mouth was smeared with bright fuchsia lipstick that didn't flatter anyone's skin tone. She held a white envelope in her hands.
“I'm missing two hundred and fifty dollars,” Clarice announced flatly. The empty envelope crinkled. “It was a personal tip from Bruce Willis. He signed one of the bills. I was going to put it in my scrapbook.”
Emma sighed sympathetically. The only thing she'd gleaned about Clarice was that she was absolutely obsessed with celebrities. She kept a scrapbook describing every celeb interaction she'd ever had, and glossy signed headshots lined the wall space in the breakfast nook. Occasionally, Clarice and Emma ran into each another in the kitchen around noon, which was the crack of dawn for Clarice after a bar shift. The only thing Clarice ever wanted to talk about was how she'd had a long conversation with the latest winner of
American Idol
the night before, or how a certain action film starlet's boobs were definitely fake, or how the host of a dating reality show was kind of a bitch. Emma was always intrigued. She didn't care much about celebrity dirt but dreamed of someday being an investigative journalist. Not that she ever told Clarice that. Not that Clarice had ever asked anything personal about her.
“The money was in this envelope in my bedroom when I left for work this afternoon.” Clarice stared straight at Emma, her eyes squinting. “Now it's not. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Emma sneaked a peek at Travis, but he was fiddling with his BlackBerry. As he scrolled through his photos, Emma noticed a blurry shot of her at the bathroom mirror. Her hair was wet, and she'd knotted a towel under her arms.
Cheeks burning, Emma turned to Clarice. “I don't know anything about it,” she said in the most diplomatic voice she could muster. “But maybe you should ask Travis. He might know.”
“Ex
cuse
me?” Travis's voice cracked. “
I
didn't take any money.”
Emma made an incredulous noise at the back of her throat.
“You know I wouldn't do that, Mom,” Travis went on. He stood and pulled up his shorts around his waist. “I know how hard you work. I
did
see Emma go into your room today though.”
“What?” Emma whirled around to face him. “I did not!”
“Did too,” Travis shot back. As soon as he turned his back on his mom, his expression morphed from a fake smile to a wrinkled-nose, narrowed-eyes glower.
Emma gaped. It was amazing how calmly he lied. “I've seen you go through your mom's purse,” she announced.
Clarice leaned against the table, twisting her mouth to the right. “
Travis
did that?”
“No, I didn't.” Travis pointed accusingly at Emma. “Why would you believe her? You don't even know this girl.”
“I don't need money!” Emma pressed her hands to her chest. “I have a job! I'm fine!” She'd been working for years.
“Look.” Travis walked over to his mom and put his arm on her shoulder. “I think you need to know what Emma's really all about.” He pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket again and began to fiddle with the click wheel.
“What do you mean?” Emma walked over to them.
Travis gave her a sanctimonious look, hiding the BlackBerry screen from view. “I was going to talk to you about this in private. But it's too late for that now.”
“Talk to me about
what
?” Emma lunged forward, making the citronella candle in the center of the table wobble.
“
You
know what.” Travis tapped away on the keyboard with his thumbs. A mosquito buzzed around his head, but he didn't bother to flick it away. “You're a sick freak.”
“What do you mean, Travis?” Clarice's fuchsia-lined lips pursed worriedly.
Finally, Travis lowered the BlackBerry so everyone could see. “This,” he announced.
A stiff, hot wind blew against Emma's cheek, the dusty air irritating her eyes. The blue-black evening sky seemed to darken a few shades. Travis breathed heavily next to her, reeking of pot smoke, and pulled up a generic video uploading site. With a flourish, he typed in the keyword
SuttonInAZ
and hit
play
.
A video slowly loaded. A handheld camera panned over a clearing. No sound escaped from the speakers, as if the microphone had been muted. The camera whipped around to show a figure sitting in a chair with a black blindfold covering half her face. A round silver locket on a thick chain clung to a bony, feminine collarbone.
The girl thrashed her head frantically back and forth, the locket bouncing wildly. The picture went dark for a moment, and suddenly someone slipped behind her and pulled the necklace chain back so that it pressed up against the girl's throat. The girl's head arched back. She flailed her arms and kicked her legs.
“Oh my God.” Clarice's hand flew to her mouth.
“What
is
this?” Emma whispered.
The strangler pulled the chain harder and harder. Whoever it was had a mask over his head, so Emma couldn't see his face. After about thirty seconds, the girl in the video stopped struggling and went limp.
Emma backed away from the screen. Had they just watched someone
die
? What the hell? And what did this have to do with her?
The camera remained fixed on the blindfolded girl. She wasn't moving. Then the picture went momentarily dark again. When an image snapped back on the screen, the camera was tilted over, fallen on the ground. Emma could still see a sideways shot of the figure in the chair. Someone walked up to the girl and pulled the blindfold off her head. After a long pause, the girl coughed. Tears dotted her eyes. The corners of her mouth pulled down. She blinked slowly. For a split second before the screen went dark, she stared half-consciously into the lens.