Sara Shepard: Ruthless

He exited the cell. Spencer looked around the tiny room. The cinder-block walls had been painted puke-green. Suspicious yellowish-brown stains marred the beige carpet, and the overhead lights gave off a high-pitched hum that made her teeth hurt. Footsteps sounded outside the door, and she sat very still, listening. Was the cop taking Kelsey’s statement right now? And what exactly was Kelsey saying about Spencer? It wasn’t like they’d rehearsed what they’d say if they got caught. They never thought they would get caught. That police car had come out of nowhere. . . .

Spencer shut her eyes, thinking about what had happened in the last hour. Picking up the pills from South Philly. Peeling out of that scary neighborhood. Hearing the sirens scream behind them. She dreaded what the next hours would bring. The calls to her parents. The disappointed looks and quiet tears. Rosewood Day would probably expel her, and Spencer would have to finish high school at Rosewood Public. Or else she’d go to juvie. After that, it would be a one-way trip to community college—or worse, working as a hoagie-maker at the local Wawa or as a sandwich board–wearer at the Rosewood Federal Credit Union, advertising the new mortgage rates to all the drivers on Lancaster Avenue.

Spencer touched the laminated ID card for the University of Pennsylvania Summer Program in her pocket. She thought of the graded papers and tests she’d received this week, the bright 98 s and 100 s at the top of each and every one. Things were going so well. She just needed to get through the rest of this summer program, ace the four APs she was taking, and she’d be at the top of the Rosewood Day pyramid again. She deserved a reprieve after her horrible ordeal with Real Ali. How much torment and bad luck did one girl have to endure?

Feeling for her iPhone in the pocket of her denim shorts, she pressed the PHONE button and dialed Aria’s number. It rang once, twice . . .

Aria’s own iPhone bleated in the peaceful Rosewood darkness. When she saw Spencer’s name on the Caller ID, she flinched. “Hey,” she answered cautiously. Aria hadn’t heard from Spencer in a while, not since their fight at Noel Kahn’s party.

“Aria.” Spencer’s voice was tremulous, like a violin string stretched taut. “I need your help. I’m in trouble. It’s serious.”

Aria quickly slipped through the sliding glass door and padded up to her bedroom. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Spencer swallowed hard. “It’s me and Kelsey. We got caught.”

Aria paused on the stairs. “Because of the pills?”

Spencer whimpered.

Aria didn’t say anything. I warned you , she thought. And you lashed out at me.

Spencer sighed, sensing the reason for Aria’s silence. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said to you at Noel’s party, okay? I . . . I wasn’t in my right mind, and I didn’t mean it.” She glanced at the window in the door again. “But this is serious, Aria. My whole future could be ruined. My whole life .”

Aria pinched the skin between her eyes. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m not messing with the police—especially not after Jamaica. I’m sorry. I can’t help.” With a heavy heart, she hung up.

“Aria!” Spencer cried into the receiver, but the CALL ENDED message was already flashing.

Unbelievable. How could Aria do this to her, after all they’d been through?

Someone coughed outside Spencer’s holding room. Spencer turned to her phone again and quickly dialed Emily’s number. She pressed her ear to the receiver, listening to the brrt-brrt-brrt of the ringing line. “Pick up, pick up ,” she pleaded.

The lights in Carolyn’s room were already off when Emily’s phone started to beep. Emily glanced at Spencer’s name on the screen and felt a wave of dread. Spencer probably wanted to invite her to a get-together at Penn. Emily always said she was too tired, but really it was because she hadn’t told Spencer or any of her other friends that she was pregnant. The idea of explaining it to them terrified her.

But as the screen flashed, she felt an eerie premonition. What if Spencer was in trouble? The last time she’d seen Spencer, she’d seemed so scared and desperate. Maybe she needed Emily’s help. Maybe they could help each other.

Emily’s fingers inched toward the phone, but then Carolyn rolled over in bed and groaned. “You’re not going to get that, are you? Some of us have class in the morning.”

Emily pressed IGNORE and flopped back down to the mattress, biting back tears. She knew it was a burden for Carolyn to let her stay here—the futon took up nearly all the floor space, Emily constantly interrupted her sister’s studying schedule, and she was asking Carolyn to keep a huge secret from their parents. But did she have to be so mean about it?

Spencer hung up without leaving Emily a message. There was one person left to call. Spencer pressed Hanna’s name in her contacts list.

Hanna was zipping her suitcase closed when the phone rang. “Mike?” she answered without looking at the screen. All day, her boyfriend had been calling her with random trivia about Iceland— Did you know there’s a museum about sex there? I am so taking you.

“Hanna,” Spencer blurted on the other end. “I need you.”

Hanna sat back. “Are you okay?” She’d barely heard from Spencer all summer, not since she began an intensive summer program at Penn. The last time she’d seen her was at Noel Kahn’s party, when Spencer’s friend Kelsey came along, too. What a weird night that had been.

Spencer burst into tears. Her words came out in choppy bursts, and Hanna only caught bits of sentences: “The police . . . pills . . . I tried to get rid of them . . . I am so dead unless you . . .”

Hanna rose and paced around the room. “Slow down. Let me get this straight. So . . . you’re in trouble? Because of the drugs?”

“Yes, and I need you to do something for me.” Spencer clutched the phone with both hands.

“How can I help?” Hanna whispered. She thought about the times she’d been dragged to the police station—for stealing a bracelet from Tiffany, and later for wrecking her then-boyfriend Sean’s car. Surely Spencer wasn’t asking Hanna to cozy up to the cop that arrested her, as Hanna’s mother had done.

“Do you still have those pills I gave you at Noel’s party?” Spencer said.

“Uh, yeah.” Hanna shifted uncomfortably.

“I need you to get them and drive them to Penn’s campus. Go to the Friedman dorm. There’s a door around the back that’s always propped open—you can get in that way. Go to the fourth floor, room four-thirteen. There’s a keypad combination to get into the room—five-nine-two-oh. When you get in, put the pills under the pillow. Or in the drawer. Somewhere kind of hidden but also kind of obvious.”

“Wait, whose room is this?”

Spencer curled her toes. She was hoping Hanna wouldn’t ask that. “It’s . . . Kelsey’s,” she admitted. “ Please don’t judge me right now, Hanna. I don’t think I can take it. She’s going to ruin me, okay? I need you to put those pills in Kelsey’s room and then call the cops and say that she’s a known dealer at Penn. You also need to say she has a sketchy past—she’s trouble. That will make the cops search her room.”

“ Is Kelsey really a dealer?” Hanna asked.

“Well, no. I don’t think so.”

“So basically you’re asking me to frame Kelsey for something you both did?”

Spencer shut her eyes. “I guarantee you Kelsey’s in the interrogation room right now, blaming me. I have to try to save myself.”

“But I’m going to Iceland in two days!” Hanna protested. “I’d rather not go through customs with a warrant out for my arrest.”