Aria laced her hands over her belly. “But going to the cemetery isn’t going to give me answers. It’s not like Ali’s going to talk back.”
“Okay.” Noel set his drink on the side table, pulled out his cell phone, and scrolled through his contacts. “How about I call the medium and tell her we can meet tomorrow night? I could pick you up and we could drive to Ali’s old backyard together.”
“Wait.” Aria sat up, the bedsprings squeaking. “Ali’s . . . backyard?”
Noel nodded. “We have to go where the person died. That’s how it works.”
Aria’s hands tingled and it felt like the temperature in the room had dropped at least ten degrees. The idea of standing over the half-dug hole where Ali had been found chilled Aria to the bone. Did she really want to speak to Ali’s ghost that badly?
Yet a nagging feeling tugged at her. Deep down, she felt like Ali really did have something important to say, and it was Aria’s responsibility to listen.
“Okay.” Aria gazed out the window at the fingernail-shaped moon above the trees. “I’ll do it.” She pulled her knees in so that she was sitting cross-legged. “Thanks for helping me with this. And for getting me out of that mess downstairs. And . . .” She took a deep breath. “Thanks for being so nice to me in general.”
Noel gave her a crazy look. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”
“Because . . .” Aria trailed off. Because you’re a Typical Rosewood Boy, she was about to say, but she stopped. She didn’t really know what that meant anymore.
They were silent for what seemed like hours. Not able to stand the tension any longer, she leaned over and kissed him. His skin smelled like chlorine from the hot tub, and his mouth tasted like gin. Aria shut her eyes, forgetting momentarily where she was. When she opened them, Noel was there, smiling at her, like he’d been waiting for her to do that for years.
Chapter 18 An Affair to Forget
Friday morning, Spencer sat at the kitchen table, slicing an apple over a bowl of steaming oatmeal. The yard workers had started early this morning, dragging more burnt timber out of the woods and loading it into a long green Dumpster. A police photographer was standing near the barn, taking pictures with a high-tech digital camera.
The phone rang. When Spencer picked up the kitchen extension, a woman’s voice screeched in her ear. “Is this Miss Hastings?”
“Uh,” Spencer stammered, caught off guard.
The woman spoke in rapid staccato. “My name is Anna Nichols. I’m a reporter with MSNBC. Would you like to give a comment about what you saw in the woods last week?”
Spencer’s muscles tensed. “No. Please, just leave me alone.”
“Can you confirm an unverified report that you actually wanted to be the leader of the clique? Maybe your frustration with Ms. DiLaurentis got the best of you and you accidentally . . . did something. It happens to all of us.”
Spencer squeezed the phone so hard that she accidentally hit a bunch of digits. They beeped in her ears. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing, nothing!” The reporter paused to murmur something to someone on her end. Spencer slammed the phone down, shaking. She was so overcome, the only thing she could do for the next few minutes was stare at the blinking red numbers on the microwave across the room.
Why was she still getting phone calls? And why were the reporters digging around to see if she could have had anything to do with Ali’s death? Ali was her best friend. And what about Ian? Didn’t the cops still think he was guilty? Or the person who’d tried to roast them alive in the woods? How could the public not realize they were all victims in this, the same as Ali?
A door slammed, and Spencer shot up from her slumped position against the wall. She heard voices in the laundry room and stood very still, listening.
“It would be better if you didn’t tell her,” Mrs. Hastings was saying.
“But, Mom,” Melissa whispered back, “I think she already knows.”
The door flung open, and Spencer shot back to the kitchen island, feigning obliviousness. Her mother paraded in from her morning walk, holding both the family’s labradoodles on a split leash. Then Spencer heard the laundry room door bang and saw Melissa storming around the side of the house toward the driveway.
Mrs. Hastings unhooked the dogs and set the leash on the island. “Hi, Spence!” she said in a voice that was way too chipper, as if she was working hard to seem nonchalant and unbothered. “Come see the purse I bought at the mall last night. Kate Spade’s spring line is gorgeous.”
Spencer couldn’t answer. Her limbs quivered, and her stomach felt sliced to ribbons. “Mom?” she said shakily. “What were you and Melissa whispering about?”
Mrs. Hastings turned quickly to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. “Oh, nothing important. Just stuff about Melissa’s town house.”
The phone rang again, but Spencer made no motion to get it. Her mom glanced at the phone, then at Spencer, but didn’t answer it either. After the answering machine picked up, she touched Spencer’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Tons of words felt choked in Spencer’s throat. “Thanks, Mom. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” A worried line formed between Mrs. Hastings’s perfectly waxed brows.
Spencer turned away. There was so much she wanted to talk about with her mom, but all of it seemed taboo. Why had her parents never told her that her dad and Ali’s dad went to Yale Law School together? Did it have something to do with why Mrs. Hastings didn’t like Ali? The whole time Ali’s family lived here, the families maintained a cool distance, behaving like strangers. In fact, in third grade, when Spencer giddily announced that a girl her age had moved in next door and asked if she could go over there and meet her, Spencer’s dad caught her arm and said, “We should give them some space. Let them settle in.” Then, when Ali chose Spencer as her new BFF, her parents seemed . . . well, not upset, exactly, but Mrs. Hastings hadn’t encouraged Spencer to invite Ali over for dinner, like she usually did with new friends. At the time, Spencer had thought her parents were just jealous—she thought everyone was jealous of Ali’s attention, even adults. But apparently, Spencer’s mom had thought her friendship with Ali was unhealthy.
Ali must not have known about their dads going to Yale Law together, either—if she had, she definitely would have brought it up. She did, though, make a lot of cutting remarks about Spencer’s parents. My parents think your parents are so showy. Do you guys seriously need another addition on your house? And toward the end of their friendship, she asked Spencer a lot of questions about her father, her voice dripping with disdain. Why does your dad wear those gay tight clothes when he goes on bike rides? Why does your dad still call his mother “Nana”? Ew!
“They’ll never be invited to my parents’ gazebo parties,” Ali had said just days before she disappeared. The way things had been going between them, Ali might as well have tacked on, and neither will you.
Spencer wanted to ask her mom why the families pretended not to know each other. Think that’s crazy? A’s note had said. Now take another spin through your dad’s hard drive... starting with J.