Sara Shepard - Burned

Emily’s mouth dropped open. The night of Hanna’s accident felt so far removed—it had happened at the beginning of the summer, before anything else. She’d found out she was pregnant just after spring break in Jamaica, and though she’d still been living at home when Hanna had called, she was moving in with Carolyn the following week, much to her sister’s chagrin. When Hanna called Emily, she had almost declined—she had a little belly bulge at the time, and what if the other girls guessed what was going on? It was hard enough to hide it from her parents. Her mother had even commented on Emily’s new billowy-shirt style.

But a split second later, she’d felt terrible. Hanna needed her. And then Aria had called, saying she’d swing by and pick her up, and Emily didn’t know how to say no. In the end, if any of them noticed her belly, no one said anything. They were all too preoccupied with the car crash.

Emily leaned against the bar. “How does A know about that?” she asked, looking at Hanna. They’d been on such a desolate stretch of road, and they’d driven away before the ambulance had arrived. But then more of the night came back to her. They’d possibly hurt the girl. And then they’d run, like it was a prank.

Hanna fiddled with a large, carved tiki-head candle on top of one of the tables. “I’m not sure. But you know that girl in the car, Madison? It turns out she’s Naomi Zeigler’s cousin. Naomi and I have been getting along, and at first I thought it seemed suspicious, but then I figured she’d turned over a new leaf. Until I saw her fake ID—it’s Madison’s picture.”

Aria’s brow furrowed. “So you think Naomi was being nice to you because she’s A?”

“I’m not sure,” Hanna said. “But if she’s not, A is going to tell her about the crash. Naomi will turn us in for sure.”

“Yeah, if A doesn’t turn us in first.” Spencer pointed at Hanna’s phone. “A called you jailbird .”

“Hanna, did Naomi say anything about the accident?” Aria asked.

“Sort of,” Hanna admitted, looking at Spencer. “She mentioned going through some terrible stuff last summer. And she got this weird look on her face when someone asked her who it was on her fake ID. She was like, My cousin doesn’t need her ID anymore.”

“Like she was dead?” Spencer gasped.

Emily’s eyes widened. “In the crash?”

“She couldn’t have died in the crash.” Hanna’s eyes darted back and forth. “She was still breathing when you guys got to the scene.”

“ Was she?” Aria squinted. “Did anyone actually check?”

Emily looked around at the others. “I don’t remember if we did or not.”

“I don’t, either,” Aria said.

Spencer’s face was green. “What if we killed her when we moved her?” She slumped against one of the metal posts that propped up the awning. “I dropped her.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions yet, Spence,” Aria said quickly, though she looked just as sick.

“How do you think A knows about that?” Emily asked.

Hanna shrugged. “If A is Naomi, she could have seen the accident from her house. It is just over the hill from the crash, not that I’d ever made that connection.”

“Or maybe Madison lived, and she saw the girl playing you in Pretty Little Killer and figured it out,” Aria piped up.

“No, Madison would’ve had to figure it out before that,” Hanna insisted. “If Naomi is A, she must have known almost immediately—and decided to stalk all of us. That could be how she found out about Gayle and Kelsey.”

Emily nodded, considering this. She had spent time at Gayle’s house that summer, and Gayle had offered to buy Emily’s baby in a café. If Naomi had been following her, it would have been easy for her to figure out what was going on.

Aria ran her hands down the length of her face. “I’m not sure Naomi makes sense as A, though. How could she know about all the other secrets A knows? Like Jamaica—that happened before the thing with Madison.”

“Well, it’s easy to explain how she knew about what happened to us in the summer—Naomi lives in Rosewood.” Hanna’s eyes were wide. “She’s friends with Kate—she’s been at my house hundreds of times. She definitely could have dug up tons of dirt on me like that .” She snapped her fingers.

Spencer bit her lip. “Actually, Naomi was around a lot when A was threatening me about Kelsey, too. She was one of the witches in Macbeth .”

“And she latched onto Klaudia—a lot of my A notes were about her for a while,” Aria added thoughtfully. “And she was at Noel’s when I got a message from A about his family.”

Everyone looked at Emily, waiting for her to contribute her own Naomi story. She just shrugged. “I haven’t had any interaction with her.”

“She was at Gayle’s funeral, remember?” Hanna pointed out. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

Emily stared at the flag flapping on the pole overhead. She wasn’t sure if it was weird or not. “A lot of people live in Rosewood, though—someone else could have been watching us. And Jamaica still doesn’t make sense,” she whispered. “Naomi wasn’t there—we would have seen her. How could she know about that?”

“There’s got to be a connection,” Hanna said. “Maybe she was there and we didn’t know it.”

Spencer’s fingers flew on her phone. “Nope, Naomi was in St. Bart’s for spring break—it says so on her Facebook page.”

“Okay, maybe there are two As—one who saw what happened in Jamaica, and then Naomi, who’s carrying out all the evil deeds,” Hanna suggested.

Spencer squeezed her eyes shut. “God. My head is going to explode. Now we have to think about who a second A could be?”

Emily breathed in. “I think I have an idea.”

Hanna looked at her sharply. “Let me guess. Real Ali?”

“Yeah, Ali,” Emily said in a small voice. If Jordan had snuck aboard so easily and effortlessly, who was to say Real Ali couldn’t have done the same thing?

She glanced over her shoulder, terrified that Real Ali was watching them. A bolt of lightning flickered at sea. Puddles glistened under the lights. The idea of coming face-to-face with Real Ali on a boat terrified her. There were only so many places she could hide.

“Real Ali is dead,” Spencer said dismissively. “It’s got to be someone else.”

Aria cleared her throat. “Something weird happened to me today, too.” She took a deep breath. “You know how I signed up for that scavenger hunt? I got partnered with this guy who’d recently transferred from a school in New Jersey. We talked for a while, and I found out he knew Tabitha.”

“You’re kidding,” Hanna said worriedly.

Aria nodded. “It gets worse, though. He used to be Tabitha’s boyfriend .”

“What?” Hanna shrieked.

“Are you serious?” Spencer gasped.

“I know.” Aria looked tormented. “I think the universe is out to get us.”

“Or A is out to get us,” Spencer said. “Couldn’t he be A? He has a better motive than Naomi— or Real Ali. Maybe more of a connection, too—he could have been in Jamaica with Tabitha.”

Aria rocked from foot to foot. “I don’t know about Jamaica, but I doubt it. And Graham said he was in Chile last summer—how could he have witnessed our secrets, or stolen that money from Gayle’s mailbox? I could probably get him to prove it somehow the next time I see him.”

Spencer’s eyes boggled. “You can’t see him again! What if you slip and say something?” Then she blinked hard. “And does this mean that more people who knew Tabitha are on the boat, too? She could have tons of friends here—they could all be A, together!”