Sara Shepard - Stunning

Emily didn’t dare tell Carolyn about the struggle to choose adoptive parents. Nor did she tell her that Gayle had offered her fifty thousand dollars, or about the day she’d gone to Gayle’s enormous house in New Jersey to collect the check. Gayle had looked at her like she was a specimen in a jar. And when Emily pocketed the check Gayle gave her, she felt dirty and awful.

Carolyn wasn’t there for her, but maybe Isaac would have been, if only she’d given him the chance.

She took a breath. “Isaac, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you said that in your text. What’s up?”

Emily pushed her fork around her plate, her heart hammering. Here goes. “Well . . .”

“What are you doing here?”

Emily’s head snapped up. Standing over them, dressed in a powder-blue suit from sometime in the eighties—and not the cool eighties, either—was Isaac’s mom. As Mrs. Colbert’s gaze bounced from Isaac to Emily and back to Isaac again, her expression shifted from annoyance to rage.

“You told me you were going out to dinner with your bandmates,” Mrs. Colbert hissed, her eyebrows drawn together. “Not . . . her .”

“Mom, stop,” Isaac warned. “I knew you’d get crazy and irrational if I told you I was meeting Emily. She’s a good person—I don’t know why you can’t see that. We’re having a really nice dinner, catching up.”

Emily’s cheeks flushed as she felt a mix of pleasure and guilt. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had stood up for her like that.

Mrs. Colbert let out an unflattering snort. “I hardly think she’s a good person, Isaac.”

“What would make you say that?” Isaac asked.

Mrs. Colbert didn’t answer. Instead she stared at Emily with a pointed look on her face. It was almost like she knew what Emily had done. Emily drew in a breath. Had A contacted her?

Finally, Mrs. Colbert wrenched her gaze away and turned to Isaac. “Your father is looking for you. One of the caterers for the event tonight dropped out, and he needs you to fill in.”

“Now?” Isaac asked. He gestured to his plate. “I’m in the middle of dinner.”

“Have them wrap it up.” Mrs. Colbert turned on her heel and stormed toward the bar, clearly expecting Isaac to follow.

Isaac looked at Emily, his eyes big and sad. “I’m so sorry. Can we take a rain check? Do something later in the week?”

“Uh, sure,” Emily said dazedly, staring at Mrs. Colbert as she typed something on her cell phone.

They flagged down the waitress, who brought them the check and a Styrofoam carryout container. Then Isaac pushed cash into the bill envelope and handed it back to the waitress.

“You were saying something before we got interrupted.” He touched Emily’s hand lightly. “Is it important?”

Emily’s mouth went dry. “It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly.

“Are you sure ?” Isaac looked worried.

Emily nodded. “Absolutely. I promise.”

Isaac gave Emily a hug. As he squeezed her tight, so many emotions flooded her. She’d forgotten how soft his hair was, the feel of his slightly scratchy face against her neck, and how he smelled like freshly squeezed oranges. Long-repressed feelings awoke inside her, those tingles growing stronger.

He pulled away too soon. “Let me make it up to you. I’m off Saturday—we could go to the ice cream shop in Hollis.” His soft blue eyes beseeched her.

After a moment, Emily nodded, and Isaac left her to join his mother at the counter. Mrs. Colbert shot Emily one last nasty look, then flounced out of the restaurant.

Emily sank back into the booth, relief settling over her. All at once she was glad Mrs. Colbert had interrupted them—and that she hadn’t told Isaac her secret. If Mrs. Colbert ever found out, she’d call Emily’s parents immediately, and probably tell the entire church that Emily was a slut.

And Isaac might not want to go to ice cream with you if he knew what you did, a tiny, selfish voice whispered in her ear. But Emily couldn’t change the past. What was done was done, and what Isaac didn’t know would hurt him.

Right?

Late Friday afternoon, Spencer got out of a cab at the Princeton University gates, zipped up her leather jacket, and looked around. Students in stadium-cloth coats and Burberry-plaid scarves bustled to and fro. Professors wearing wire-rimmed glasses and blazers with corduroy patches on the elbows strolled together, no doubt having Nobel prize–quality conversations. The bells in the clock tower struck six, the sound bouncing off the cobblestones.

A thrill went through Spencer. She’d been to Princeton plenty of times for debate competitions, field trips, summer camps, and college tours, but the campus felt very, very different today. She was going to be a student here next year. It was going to be such a dream to get the hell out of Rosewood and have a whole new start. Even this weekend felt like a fresh start. As soon as the train had pulled out of Rosewood, her shoulders had fallen from her ears. A wasn’t here. Spencer was safe . . . at least for a little while.

She looked at the directions Harper had sent her to the Ivy Eating Club. It was on Prospect Avenue, which everyone at Princeton simply called “The Street.” As she turned left and walked up the tree-lined boulevard, her phone chimed. Have you done any research on you-know-who? Hanna wrote.

That was code for Gayle. Nothing that’s led anywhere , Spencer wrote back. She’d scoured the Internet for details on Gayle, seeing if there was any possible way she could be A. The first order of business was to figure out if Gayle could have been in Jamaica last year at the same time the girls were—maybe, like they’d hypothesized about Kelsey, Gayle had seen what they’d done and then, later, after Emily screwed her over, she connected the dots and used it against them.

The Cliffs wasn’t the kind of place a classy, middle-aged woman would have stayed, but Spencer phoned a few resorts near The Cliffs, identifying herself as Gayle’s personal assistant and asking when Gayle had vacationed there. None of the reservations associates had any record of Gayle staying with them— ever . She’d fanned out her search, calling resorts ten, fifteen, even fifty miles away, but as far as Spencer could tell, Gayle had never even been to Jamaica.

So how could Gayle know about what they’d done to Tabitha? How would she have gotten that photo of Emily and Tabitha or of Tabitha lying twisted and broken on the sand? Had Gayle gone to Jamaica under a fake name? Was she working with someone else? Had she hired a PI, like Aria had suggested?

Furthermore, even if Gayle was A, the issue of Tabitha was still puzzling. Why had she acted so Ali-like at The Cliffs? Had she and Ali been friends when they were at The Preserve, and had she been trying to get revenge for Ali’s death? Or was it all an awful coincidence?

Before she knew it, she’d arrived at the address Harper had given her. It was a large, Gothic-style brick house with gorgeous leaded-glass windows, manicured bushes, and an American flag protruding from the front porch. Spencer walked up the stone path and rang the front doorbell, which let out a few impressive bongs to the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. There were footsteps, and then the door flung open. Harper appeared, looking fresh-faced in a purple top with dolman sleeves, skinny jeans, and leather ankle boots. A navy cashmere blanket was draped around her shoulders.

“Welcome!” she cried. “You made it!”

She ushered Spencer inside. The foyer was drafty and smelled like a mixture of leather and jasmine perfume. Blond-wood beams crisscrossed the ceiling, and stained-glass windows decorated the walls. Spencer could just picture past Pulitzer Prize winners standing by the roaring fire or sitting in the wing chairs, having important discussions.