Aria stared out the side window in an attempt to calm down. The courthouse was on a snowy hill overlooking the Rosewood Valley. In the summer, the thick foliage blocked the view, but now that the trees were bare, all of Rosewood was splayed out below. The Hollis spire looked so small, Aria could squish it between her thumb and pointer finger. The tiny Victorian houses below were like dollhouse toys, and Aria could even make out the star-shaped neon sign outside of Snooker’s, where she’d first met Ezra. Beyond that were the vast, untouched fields of the Rosewood Country Club golf course. She, Ali, and the others had spent every day of that first summer they were friends around the country club pool, ogling the older lifeguards. The lifeguard they ogled most was Ian.
She wished she could go back to that summer and revise everything that had happened to Ali—go back to before the workers even started digging that hole for the DiLaurentises’ big twenty-person gazebo. The first time Aria had been in Ali’s backyard, she’d stood almost precisely where that hole—and Ali’s body—would end up being, way at the back of the property near the woods. It was that fateful Saturday at the beginning of sixth grade, when they’d all shown up in Ali’s yard to steal the piece of her Time Capsule flag. Aria wished she could go back and change what had happened that day, too.
Judge Baxter emerged from his chamber. He was portly and red-faced, and had a squished-down nose and small, beady eyes. Aria suspected he’d smell like a cigar if she were closer. When Baxter summoned the two lawyers to the bench, Aria sat up straighter. The three of them talked heatedly, pointing every so often at Ian’s empty seat.
“This is crazy,” Hanna murmured, glancing over her shoulder. “Ian’s really late.”
The courtroom doors burst open, and the girls jumped. A cop Aria recognized from Ian’s arraignment strode up the aisle, right through the saloon-style doors and straight to the bench. “I just reached his family,” he said in a gruff voice. Sunlight glimmered off his silvery badge, bouncing shards of light all over the room. “They’re looking.”
Aria’s throat went dry. “Looking?” She exchanged a look with the others.
“What do they mean by that?” Emily squeaked.
Spencer bit her thumbnail. “Oh my God.”
Through the still-open door, Aria could see a black sedan pulled up to the curb. Ian’s father got out of the backseat. He was wearing funeral black and had a solemn, terrified look on his face. Aria assumed his mother wasn’t there because she was in the hospital.
A police car pulled up behind the sedan, but only two Rosewood police officers got out.
In seconds, Ian’s father walked up the aisle to the bench. “He was in his bedroom last night,” Mr. Thomas murmured quietly to Baxter—but not quietly enough. “I don’t know how this could happen.”
The judge’s face twitched for a moment. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Ian’s father hung his head solemnly. “He’s…gone.”
Aria’s mouth dropped open, her heart ricocheting around in her chest. Emily let out a moan. Hanna clutched her stomach, a gurgling noise escaping from the back of her throat. Spencer stood up halfway. “I think I should…,” she started, but trailed off and sat back down.
Judge Baxter banged his gavel. “I’m calling a recess,” he shouted to the crowd. “Until further notice. We’ll call you back when we’re ready.”
He made a motioning signal with his hands. All at once, about twenty Rosewood cops approached the bench, walkie-talkies blaring, guns poised in their holsters, ready to be pulled out and fired. After a few instructions, the cops turned away from the bench and started marching out of the courtroom to their cars.
He’s gone. Aria glanced out the window again, into the valley. There was a lot of Rosewood down there. Plenty of places for Ian to hide.
Emily sank onto the bench, raking her hands through her hair. “How could this happen?”
“Wasn’t there a cop watching him at all times?” Hanna echoed. “I mean, how could he have slipped out of the house without them seeing? It’s not possible!”
“Yes, it is.”
They all looked over at Spencer. Her eyes darted back and forth mechanically, and her hands fluttered. She slowly raised her head and gazed at the three of them, her face dripping with guilt. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered. “About…Ian. And you’re not going to like it.”
24 ET TU, KATE?
“On your left!” Hanna screamed.
A woman walking a wiener dog jumped and scuttled out of Hanna’s way. It was Friday evening after dinner, and Hanna was running the Stockbridge Trail, a three-mile loop that wound behind the old stone mansion that was now owned by the Rosewood Y. It probably wasn’t the safest thing, running on a secluded path with Ian Thomas allegedly on the loose. Although if Spencer had just sucked it up and told the cops Ian had broken house arrest and visited her the day before, he wouldn’t have escaped.
But Ian be damned—Hanna needed a run tonight. She usually came here to purge her stomach after she’d binged on too many Cheez-Its, but tonight, it was Hanna’s memory that needed purging instead.
The notes from A had begun to plague her. She didn’t want to believe that this new A was real…but what if what the notes said was true? And if New A was Ian and he’d been able to break house arrest, then it made sense that he could know what Kate was up to, right?
Hanna flew past the snow-covered benches and a big green sign that said, PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG!
Had she been a fool to so easily befriend Kate? Was this another one of Kate’s tricks? What if Kate was as diabolical as Mona was, and this was all a well-laid plan to ruin Hanna’s life? Slowly, she let her mind creep over the intricate details of her and Mona’s friendship—or maybe enemy-ship. They had become friends in eighth grade, after Ali had been missing for months. Mona had been the one who’d approached Hanna, complimenting her D&G sneakers and the David Yurman bracelet she’d gotten for her birthday. Hanna was weirded out at first—Mona was a dork, after all—but eventually, she’d seen beyond Mona’s exterior. Besides, she needed a new BFF.
But maybe Mona was never her BFF. Maybe she had just been waiting for the precise moment to take Hanna down, to get revenge for all the horrible things Hanna and her friends had said to her. It was Mona who cut Hanna off from her old friends, and it was Mona who had further perpetuated the animosity with Naomi and Riley. Hanna had considered trying to make amends with them after Ali was presumed dead, but Mona had said absolutely not. Naomi and Riley were strictly B-listers, and they should have nothing to do with them.
It was Mona, too, who first suggested that they shoplift, telling Hanna that it would give her such a high. And then there were the things Mona had pulled off as A. Mona had had it so easy with Hanna—she was witness to so many of Hanna’s blunders. Who’d been sitting next to Hanna the night she’d totaled Sean Ackard’s father’s BMW? Who’d been with Hanna when she’d gotten busted for shoplifting from Tiffany?
Her feet sank into random pockets of slush, but she kept running. Everything else Mona had done gushed into her mind, as sloppy and uncontrollable as champagne fizzing out of an uncorked bottle. Mona-as-A had sent her that child-size court dress, knowing that Hanna would wear it to Mona’s birthday party and the dress’s seams would burst. Mona-as-A had gleefully sent Hanna that note that Sean was at Foxy with Aria, knowing for sure that Hanna would rush back to Rosewood and chew Sean out, ruining her dinner with her dad and making Kate look like the perfect, obedient little daughter yet again.