“So you lied ?” The reporters were practically frothing at the mouth. A bunch of students had stopped just behind Spencer too. A couple kids were waving at the cameras, but most were staring at her, agog. A freshman boy snapped a photo with his camera phone. Even Spencer’s AP econ teacher, Mr. McAdam, had paused in the lobby and was gaping at her through the big front windows.
“The brain conjures up all kinds of strange things when deprived of oxygen,” Spencer said, parroting what the ER doctor had told her. “It’s the same phenomenon that happens to people right before they die.” Then she extended her palm toward the screen. “No more questions.”
“Spencer!” called a familiar voice. Spencer whirled around. Her sister, Melissa, was in her silver Mercedes SUV, parked in one of the visitors’ spots. She waved her arm. “Come on!”
Saved. Spencer ducked the reporters and darted past the buses. Melissa smiled as Spencer climbed into the SuV, as if it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary that she was picking Spencer up from school.
“What are you doing back?” Spencer blurted. She hadn’t seen Melissa in almost a week, not since she swiftly bolted from the house after coming home from Nana’s funeral. That was right around the time Spencer had begun talking to Ian Thomas on IM. Spencer had looked for him on IM last night, hoping to talk to him about the fire, but he hadn’t logged on.
Spencer suspected Melissa thought Ian was innocent too—after Ian had been arrested and thrown in jail, Melissa insisted that he didn’t deserve a life sentence. She even admitted she’d talked to Ian on the phone when he was in prison. Her sister had packed up her things so hastily last week that Spencer wondered if Melissa felt she needed to get out of Rosewood for the same reasons Ian did—because she knew too much about what had really happened to Ali.
Melissa started the car. NPR blared, and she quickly turned it down. “I’m back because I heard about your brush with death. Obviously. And I wanted to see the destruction from the fire. It’s terrible, huh? The woods . . . the windmill . . . even the barn. So much of my stuff, too.”
Spencer hung her head. The barn had been Melissa’s apartment all through high school. She had stashed tons of yearbooks, journals, memorabilia, and clothes there.
“Mom told me about you, too.” Melissa backed out of the space, almost hitting a CNN cameraman filming the front of the school. “About . . . the surrogate thing. How are you doing?”
Spencer shrugged. “It was a shock. But for the best. It’s good that I know.”
“Yeah, well.” They passed the journalism barn and then the teachers’ parking area. It was filled with cars that were considerably older and humbler than the ones in the student lot. “I wish you wouldn’t have said I put the idea in your head. Mom really whaled on me for that. She was ruthless.”
Spencer felt a hot twinge of anger. Poor you, she wanted to snap. Like that really compared to what Spencer had been through.
They came to a stop at the light behind a Jeep Cherokee full of meaty-shouldered boys in baseball caps. Spencer took a long look at her sister. Melissa’s skin looked papery and tired, there was a zit on her forehead, and ligaments stood out in her neck, as if she was clenching her jaw tight. Last week, Spencer had noticed someone who looked suspiciously like Melissa searching through the woods behind their house, not far from where they’d discovered Ian’s body. Aria had found Ian’s ring in the woods just before the fire started—was that what Melissa had been looking for?
But before Spencer could ask, her cell phone bleated. She unclasped her purse and pulled it out. Take tomorrow off from school, a text said. Let’s have a spa day. My treat. Mom.
Spencer let out an involuntary squeal of delight. “Mom and I are having a spa day tomorrow!”
Melissa paled. Several emotions washed over her face at once. “You are?” She sounded incredulous.
“Uh-huh.” Spencer hit reply and typed Yes! Definitely.
Melissa smirked. “Is she trying to buy your love now?”
“No.” Spencer bristled. “It’s not like that.”
The light turned green, and Melissa hit the gas. “I guess our roles are reversed,” she said breezily, taking a corner too fast. “Now you’re Mom’s favorite and I’m the outcast.”
“What do you mean?” Spencer asked, trying to ignore the fact that Melissa had referred to her as an outcast. “Aren’t you getting along?”
Melissa rolled her jaw until the joint cracked. “Forget it.”
Spencer debated just letting it drop—Melissa was always overly theatrical. But curiosity got the best of her. “What happened?”
They whizzed past Wawa, Ferra’s Cheesesteaks, and the Rosewood Historical District, a string of old buildings that had been converted into candle shops, day spas, and real estate offices. Melissa let out a long sigh. “Before Ian was arrested, Wilden came over and questioned us about the night Ali went missing. He asked if we’d been together the whole time, if we saw anything strange, whatever.”
“Yeah?” Spencer had never told Melissa that she’d spied on her and Ian from the stairs that day, worried her sister was going to mention the fight Spencer and Ali had had outside the barn right before Ali disappeared. It was a memory Spencer had suppressed for years, but she’d let it slip to Melissa, even mentioning that Ali had admitted that she and Ian were secretly together and teased Spencer for wanting Ian too. Spencer had shoved Ali out of frustration, and Ali had slipped and hit her head on the rocky path. Luckily, Ali had been okay—until a few minutes later, anyway, when someone else shoved her in that half-dug hole in her backyard.
“I told Wilden that we hadn’t seen anything strange and that we’d been together the whole time,” Melissa went on. Spencer nodded. “But after that, Mom asked if I would’ve given Wilden the same story if Ian hadn’t been in the room with me. I told her it was the truth. But after she kept pushing, I slipped up and said we’d been drinking. Mom pounced on me. ‘You need to be really, really sure about what you tell the police,’ she kept saying. ‘The truth really matters.’ She kept grilling me about it until I suddenly wasn’t really sure what happened. I mean, there might have been a couple minutes when I woke up and Ian wasn’t there. I was pretty wasted that night. And I mean, I don’t even know if I was in my room the whole time or . . .”
She stopped abruptly, a muscle in her eye twitching. “My point is, I finally buckled. I said that maybe Ian had gotten up . . . even though I really didn’t know if he had or not. And she was like, ‘Okay then. You have to tell the cops that.’ Which is why we called Wilden back in to talk to me again. It was the day after you had that memory of Ian being in our yard when Ali died. My account was just the final nail in the coffin.”
Spencer’s jaw dropped. “But that’s the thing,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I remember Ian in the yard anymore. I saw someone . . . but I have no idea if it was him.”
Melissa made a left onto Weavertown Road, which was narrow and filled with apple orchards and farm co-ops. “Then I guess we both were wrong. And Ian paid the price.”
Spencer sat back, thinking about that second time Wilden had come to their house. The night before, they’d discovered that Mona Vanderwaal was A, and she had almost pushed Spencer over the edge of Floating Man Quarry. The next morning, Melissa had slumped guiltily on the couch. Their parents stood at the back of the room, their arms crossed impassively at their chests, the disappointment obvious on both their faces.
“I was a mess that day,” Melissa said, as if reading Spencer’s thoughts. She turned onto the Hastingses’ street, sweeping past the cop cars and landscaping trucks that were parked at the curb. Across the street, a plumber’s truck sat in the Cavanaughs’ driveway. During the latest freeze, one of the family’s main water pipes had burst. “I acted like I was really ashamed for not coming forward with the information sooner,” Melissa said. “But really, I was upset because I felt like I was selling out Ian for something I wasn’t sure he’d done.”