Sara Shepard - Toxic

She had to weave around a lot of kids, fake palm trees, bistro tables, a large statue of a scuba diver, and several huge potted plants to get to the back. Then she peered around into the sea of extras. None of them was Ali. Spots formed in front of Hanna’s eyes. Had she imagined it?

But one of the exit doors was easing shut. Hanna rushed for it, nearly tripping over a light cable. She almost had her hand on the knob when someone grabbed her arm. She whirled around, her heart thudding hard.

It was Jared, the guy playing Mike. “Hanna, right?” His eyes shifted back and forth. “Everything okay?”

Hanna looked at the door. “I—I need to go outside for a sec.”

Jared shook his head. “Not through that door. An alarm will sound. Hank will freak.”

Hanna glanced at the door again. EMERGENCY EXIT, read big, bright letters above it. “But someone just went through here, though, and nothing happened,” she protested weakly. Her head was suddenly swimming.

Jared patted Hanna’s arm and guided her away from the door. “Take a deep breath, okay? I’ve worked on a lot of films, and first days can definitely be hairy. I’ve seen people with way more experience panic much worse than you.”

“But I’m not . . .” Hanna trailed off. She wasn’t panicking. She’d been perfectly calm and centered before Ali appeared in the crowd.

Only, had it been Ali? How could someone go through an emergency exit without setting off the alarm?

You imagined it , she told herself as fake-Mike escorted her back to the scene. But she peeked behind her one more time to be sure Ali wasn’t there.

She wasn’t, of course. But Hanna still had the eerie sense she was close. Watching.

Aria sat in her father’s airy den, listlessly pulling apart a stick of Monterey Jack string cheese. Byron flitted around the room, doing his annual reorganizing of the bookshelves, a ritual in which he pulled all his tomes off the wall and arranged them in a new way that was understandable only to him. His new baby, Lola, cooed happily from a jungle-themed jumping apparatus in the corner, a tinny version of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” tinkling through the tiny speakers.

Byron’s wife, Meredith, flipped through channels. Finally, she settled on a celebrity exposé on Bravo, which was utterly un Meredith—Aria had always thought she’d be the type of person who hated reality TV. She turned to Aria and smiled brightly. “I heard your friend Hanna is going to be in a movie!”

“Uh-huh,” Aria mumbled, hoping that Meredith wouldn’t ask the obvious follow-up question—why she wasn’t in the movie, too. Aria was happy that Hanna felt comfortable enough to act in the film— one of them should get to capitalize off this nightmare. But Aria was a behind-the-scenes kind of girl—when she and her friends were younger, she used to direct artsy movies, usually making Courtney-as-Ali the star. And anyway, she’d had enough time in front of a camera with all those torturous Ali interviews.

When the show broke for commercials, Meredith flipped the channel again, this time landing on a local newscast. Aria tuned out—now that their Ali struggle was old news, the reporters were back to talking about picayune stuff like squabbles at town hall or whether to put a new GAP on this corner or that corner. But then Meredith exclaimed brightly, “Oh! How nice!”

“Huh?” Aria turned around. On the screen was a banner that read ROSEWOOD RALLIES FOR YOUTHS. Then came a shot of the outside of the Rosewood Country Club; Aria used to spend a lot of time there because Spencer’s dad was a member.

A woman with light blond hair held back in a black headband popped up on the screen. The name Sharon Winters appeared under her face. “We’ve had a lot of tragedy happen in this town, but it’s time to turn it into something positive,” she said. “Next Friday, we’re throwing a fund-raiser for all the disadvantaged and troubled youth in Rosewood and its surrounding areas. My hope is that everyone comes out and supports the cause.”

Meredith looked at Aria excitedly. “Didn’t you get an invite for this?”

“Maybe,” Aria mumbled, staring at the string cheese in her hands.

Byron stopped to look at the screen. “Hmm. Perhaps we should all go.”

“Are you kidding?” Aria cried. Her dad usually hated big parties.

Byron shrugged. “They should throw you a party after all you’ve been through. And you can take Noel.”

He smiled at her dopily. Aria looked at the floor. “Noel’s busy that night,” she muttered, thinking about their conversation outside the gallery the other day.

Her phone buzzed, and Hanna’s name appeared on the screen. Aria squinted at the text. I just saw Ali.

Aria’s blood ran cold. She shot up and walked out of the room, dialing Hanna’s number.

Hanna picked up right away. “What are you talking about?” Aria whispered.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Hanna whispered back. “But she’s on the set—she was in a crowd scene I was in. I looked across the room and saw this blond head . . . and I had this sense. It was her.”

Aria sank into the window seat in the living room. “But you’re not sure .”

“Well, no, but . . .”

Aria jumped up nervously and started pacing around. “Let’s try to think about this logically. Could Ali actually get onto a movie set? Isn’t there lots of security?”

“Yeah . . .” Hanna sounded uncertain. “But she’s a master at sneaking in and out.”

“But why would she risk mixing with people who might recognize her? And she’d be on camera.”

“True,” Hanna said. She exhaled loudly. “Okay. Maybe it was my imagination. I mean, that has to be it, right? Ali wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“She wouldn’t,” Aria assured her.

But when she hung up, she wandered into the kitchen and stared blankly out the stained-glass window over the sink. Past the flat expanse of grass was a long, gradual slope leading to thick, dark woods. Ali had set fire to those woods the year before, nearly killing Aria and the others and decimating Spencer’s family’s barn. What if Hanna was right? What if Ali was somewhere close, ready to torment them again?

She stared at her phone, figuring it was the perfect time to receive a text from A. On cue, her phone bleated. The device fell from her hands and clattered to the wood floor. A 610 number flashed on the screen.

It took Aria a moment to realize it was her mom at the gallery. “Aria?” Ella said when Aria answered. “Are you sitting down?”

“Yeah . . . ,” Aria said uncertainly, her heart starting to thud all over again as she sat at the breakfast table. Maybe Ella had seen Ali?

“You aren’t going to believe this”—Ella’s voice swooped—“but we got a call from a very wealthy New York collector today. Mr. John Carruthers.”

“Wait, the John Carruthers?” Aria asked. There’d been a profile of him in Art Now magazine—he’d recently bought two Picassos at auction because his wife wanted one for each of their kids’ rooms. He was the collector every artist and gallery owner wanted to woo.

“Yep,” Ella chirped. “His assistant called and had me describe the paintings we had. I almost fell out of my chair. Then he asked me to send a few pictures. He hung up, but he called back a little while later saying Mr. Carruthers was interested in purchasing one. And guess what? It’s one of yours .”

“W-what?” Aria shot to her feet. “You’re kidding!”

“Nope!” Ella screamed. “Honey, you’ve been discovered!”