Sara Shepard: Toxic

It was clear who was behind it: Alison DiLaurentis, their old best friend’s twin sister. Two weeks ago, the girls traced Ali to an old, abandoned house in Rosewood. But Ali and her boyfriend, Nick Maxwell, had trapped the girls in the basement and pumped in noxious, suffocating gas. The police had saved everyone just in time, and Nick had been arrested.

But Ali? She’d slipped away, unseen. Without a trace.

Aria looked at Spencer. “Did you have a good vacation?”

Spencer shrugged. Her family had gone to their house in Longboat Key, Florida, for two weeks, and she’d just gotten back. “I beat Amelia at tennis.” She looked at Hanna. “How was Cabo with your mom?”

“Not too bad,” Hanna murmured. Unexpectedly, her mom had swooped in after Hanna was released from the hospital and announced that the two of them were going to Mexico. “And I’m not bringing work,” Ashley Marin had even added—a huge shocker, as her mom practically conducted conference calls in the shower. They’d spent the week tanning, drinking virgin margaritas, and rating hot surfers. It’d been actually kind of . . . fun .

Aria pouted. “I’m jealous you guys got to go somewhere. I was stuck here all this time.”

Emily raised a finger. “I was stuck here, too. Thinking about Ali.” She lowered her eyes.

Hanna shuddered at Ali’s name . . . but it was inevitable. They were bound to get around to her soon enough.

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” Emily admitted. “How was there no trace of her in that house?” Forensic teams had swept the crime scene after pulling the girls and Nick out, and though they had found tons of pictures of Ali—Nick had set it up like an Ali shrine—they didn’t uncover a single fingerprint. The cops were back to thinking Ali had died in the Poconos.

“Well, we know what we saw,” Hanna mumbled, that night still haunting her. Ali had looked so . . . crazed . She’d raised a gun to Emily’s head. The gun had gone off . . . but the next thing Hanna remembered, Hanna and the others were lying in hospital beds. Alive. What had happened in between?

Aria cleared her throat. “Has anyone heard how Iris is doing?”

All the girls shook their heads. Iris Taylor had been Ali’s roommate at The Preserve, though she’d recently spent some time with Emily, giving her clues about what Ali had been like and who she’d been involved with. After helping Emily, Iris had been kidnapped by Nick and Ali, and the FBI had found her half-dead in the woods. Iris was recuperating now at a local hospital.

“What about this?” Emily said, pushing that day’s edition of the Philadelphia Sentinel to the middle of the table. Nick, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, stared out from the front page. MAXWELL CLAIMS HE WORKED ALONE, read the headline.

“He’s on trial for killing Tabitha,” Emily paraphrased. “And get this: Police found a late-model Acura sedan parked in the woods behind that shack. Nick’s fingerprints were all over it.”

Spencer’s eyes lit up. “There was an Acura keychain at my stepfather’s model home after it was trashed. That explains that , anyway.”

Hanna pulled the paper toward her. “What does Nick say about Ali?”

“He’s insisting that Ali died in the fire in the Poconos,” Emily said. “And he denies that Ali had anything to do with killing Tabitha, or stalking us, or being there that night in that house.”

“So he’s taking the blame for everything?” Hanna made a face. “What crazy person would do that?”

“Well, he was a patient at The Preserve,” Spencer reminded her. “Maybe he’s under Ali’s spell.”

Aria rolled her eyes. “How could anyone be under her spell?”

An uncomfortable look crossed Spencer’s face. She brought out her cell phone and placed it in the center of the table. “Nick’s not the only one.”

Hanna looked at the screen. THE ALI CATS, said a banner at the top. A WEBSITE DEDICATED TO THE SUPPORT OF ALISON DILAURENTIS. ALISON IS A STRONG, DETERMINED, MISUNDERSTOOD YOUNG WOMAN, AND WE HOPE THAT SOMEDAY THE WORLD WILL KNOW THE TRUE HER. HEAR US ROAR, ALI!

Aria’s eyes widened. “What is this?”

“A fan club,” Spencer explained hoarsely. “I found it about a week ago. I was hoping it would go away, though.”

“‘A strong, determined, misunderstood young woman’?” Emily made a face. “And ‘someday the world will know the true her’? Do they think she’s alive?”

Spencer shook her head. “It seems like more of an in-memory-of thing. There are posts about parties where everyone dresses like Ali and—get this— reenacts the Poconos fire scene. Except they have Ali get out alive. Some of them write fan fiction about what Ali did next. They’re actually selling it on Amazon.”

Hanna shuddered. “That’s gross.”

Aria folded her paper napkin into smaller and smaller triangles. “Maybe we should contact one of them. Maybe they do know something.”

Spencer sniffed. “I tried that. But they all go by code names. And anyway, why do you think they’d tell us?”

“These people could be dangerous ,” Emily said worriedly. Aria looked at the newspaper again. “I wish we could get Nick to admit he’s lying.”

“How?” Hanna folded her hands. “It’s not like we can go to the prison and just force it out of him.”

“Maybe there’s a way to trick him into confessing,” Emily suggested. “Or—”

“ Or we could let this go,” Spencer interrupted.

Everyone fell silent. Hanna gawked. “Are you serious?” Spencer had always been at the front of the let’s-find-Ali crusade. She’d suggested they have a situation room to try to figure out who Ali’s helper was. She hadn’t wanted to drop the idea of sniffing Ali out even after the girls were arrested.

Spencer fiddled with her silver Tiffany keychain. “This has ruined almost two years of our lives. I’m just . . . done, you know? And I haven’t received any new A notes. Have you guys?”

Emily muttered no; so did Aria. Hanna reluctantly shook her head, too. She kept expecting a new note to ping into her in-box, though. “That doesn’t mean we should give up,” she said weakly. “Ali’s out there .”

“But how useful is Ali without Nick by her side?” Spencer pressed. “She’s probably hanging by a thread.”

“An Ali Cat might help her,” Emily reminded.

“I suppose that’s true.” Spencer turned her phone over in her hands. “But they sound like crackpots, don’t they?” She balled up her napkin. “It sucks that Ali’s walking free. It sucks that Nick took all the blame, but hey, if he wants to rot in jail, that’s his choice. But we need to live our lives.” She looked at Hanna. “Speaking of which. Doesn’t summer school start today?”

Hanna nodded. Rosewood Day had dropped her and the others after they were charged with murder, but now the girls were allowed to graduate if they completed their course requirements. The Fashion Institute of Technology, the college that had accepted her, even said it would hold a place for her in the fall as long as her final grades were acceptable. The other girls had been given similar offers—except for Aria, who had chosen to take a gap year. “I have history in a half hour.” She looked at the others. “When do you guys start?”

“I have to repeat chemistry, but it starts tomorrow,” Emily answered.

“All I have to do is submit my AP Art portfolio and take my finals,” Aria said. “Most of my classes wound down before we were kicked out of school.”

“Same,” Spencer said. Then she stood. “Well, come on, Han. You shouldn’t be late.”