Sara Shepard - Ruthless

“Maybe Spencer’s right.” Emily broke the silence. “Maybe we should go see Kelsey at the Preserve. Try to figure things out.”

Hanna chewed on her pinkie. “Guys, I’m not super comfortable about going back there. It’s an awful place.”

“We’ll be with you,” Aria said. “And if it gets too hard, I’ll take you home.” Then she looked at Spencer. “I think we should go, too. Together.”

“I’ll set up an appointment for us tomorrow when we go back inside,” Spencer said.

Fat raindrops began to fall on the hot tub, first slowly, and then fast and steady. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Spencer eyed the steel-colored sky. “So much for our big hot tub idea.”

She climbed out of the tub, wrapped herself in an orange towel, and handed three towels to her old friends. Everyone was silent as they padded back toward the kitchen. Hanna and Aria slipped inside, but as Emily passed by, Spencer caught her arm. “Are you okay?”

Emily nodded faintly, her eyes trained on the wood slats on the deck. “I’m so sorry again,” she sighed. “It was wrong of me to tell Kelsey what you did. I never should have trusted her over you.”

“I should have never said what I said to you, either. I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Maybe I deserved it,” Emily said sadly.

“You didn’t.” Poor Emily, always thinking she deserved the worst. Spencer leaned into her. “We’ve been terrible to each other ever since Jamaica. We should know by now that we should stick together, not fight.”

“I know.” A tiny smile wobbled across Emily’s lips. Then, awkwardly, she stepped forward and circled her arms around Spencer’s shoulders. Spencer hugged back, feeling tears come to her eyes. In moments, Aria and Hanna returned from inside and looked at them. Spencer wasn’t sure if they’d heard the conversation or not, but both girls stepped forward and wrapped their arms around Spencer and Emily, too, becoming a four-girl sandwich, just like they’d hugged in sixth and seventh grade. They were one girl short, but Spencer didn’t miss her at all.

An hour later, after Spencer’s friends had gone home, she made the call setting up the appointment to visit Kelsey the following day. Then she sat on the living room couch, absently stroking Beatrice’s matted fur. For once, the house was dead quiet. Amelia’s orchestra group wasn’t rehearsing today. Spencer wondered what the songs would sound like with one violinist missing.

When the home phone rang, Spencer started so hugely her whole body twitched. Princeton Admissions Board , the Caller ID said. She stared at it for a moment, afraid to pick it up. This was it. The big decision of the Spencers had been made.

“Miss Hastings?” said a brisk voice when Spencer answered. “We haven’t met, but my name is Georgia Price. I’m on the admissions board at Princeton University.”

“Uh huh.” Spencer’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the phone. She could just imagine the next sentence. We regret to inform you, but Spencer F. was a much stronger candidate. . . .

“I was wondering if you were still planning on joining us for the early admission mixer next week,” Georgia’s chipper voice broke through.

Spencer frowned. “Pardon?”

Georgia repeated herself. Spencer laughed confusedly. “I-I thought you were still reviewing my application.”

There was the sound of papers flipping. “Uh . . . no. I don’t think so. It says here we accepted you six weeks ago. Congratulations again. This was a tough admissions year.”

“What about the other Spencer Hastings?” Spencer said. “The boy with my same name who also applied? I got a letter that some of the admissions committee reviewed our applications thinking we were the same person, and . . .”

“You got a letter from us ?” Georgia sounded appalled. “Miss Hastings, we would never do something like that. Your application is reviewed by five different rounds of readers. Discussed in committees. Approved by the dean himself. I assure you that we don’t make mistakes with whom we admit. We are very, very careful.”

Spencer stared at her reflection in the large mirror in the hall. Her hair was wild around her face. There was a wrinkle in the middle of her forehead she always got when she was utterly confused.

Georgia told Spencer the details about the mixer, then hung up. Afterward, Spencer sat back on the couch, blinking hard. What the hell had just happened?

And then, it came to her. She rose and padded across the hall to her dad’s old office, which still contained a bunch of computer and office equipment. It took her five seconds to log onto the Internet, and another five to call up Facebook. With shaking hands, she typed in Spencer F.’s name into the search window. Several Spencer Hastings profiles appeared, but none were for the golden boy from Darien, Connecticut, Spencer had stalked days before.

She pictured the letter from Princeton in her hands. Come to think of it, the seal had looked crooked. And it was suspicious that Kelsey had known Spencer had gotten into Princeton . . .

Of course. Kelsey had written the letter. She’d created Spencer F.’s profile, too, to mess with her head. Spencer F. didn’t exist. It was all a mind game.

Spencer shut her eyes, embarrassed that she’d been so naïve. “Good one, Kelsey,” she said into the silent room. She had to hand it to her old friend: It was classic A, through and through.

Dread filled Hanna as she walked into the sleek lobby of the Preserve at Addison-Stevens Mental Wellness and Rehab facility on Monday after school. All of a sudden, she was reliving the events of last year: how her dad had shoved her through the revolving doors, certain she needed help for her panic attacks. How Mike had walked with her through the lobby, saying, “Well, this doesn’t look so bad!” Yeah, the lobby wasn’t bad at all. It was the rest of the place that was a nightmare.

Next to her, Aria squinted at a tall potted cactus in the corner. Someone had affixed two eyes, a nose, and a mouth to its long green body. “Where have I seen that before?”

Spencer glanced at it and shook her head. Hanna shrugged. So did Emily, who had dressed up for the occasion in a rumpled gray skirt and a slightly too-small white sweater. She turned and nervously watched a worried-looking couple with a thin, hollow-eyed boy lean their elbows on the check-in desk. “It’s so weird to think Ali was here ,” she whispered.

“Seriously,” Hanna said. Ali’s family had left her in here for years, too, barely even checking on her. They’d assumed she was the crazy twin, ignoring her pleas that she really was the Real Ali. That was probably enough to make anyone lose her mind.

Spencer approached the check-in desk and told an attendant that they were here to visit Kelsey Pierce. “Right this way,” the attendant said briskly, giving the girls a circumspect look. “Why do I know you?”

Everyone exchanged a glance. Because a patient here tried to kill us , Hanna wanted to say. Really, it was a wonder the Preserve hadn’t been shut down by a medical review board—they’d let the Real Ali out, thinking she was well, and she’d gone on to murder a bunch of innocent people.

They entered an airy room with round tables. There was a water dispenser in the corner, a coffee machine on the shelf. There were upbeat, self-esteem-affirming sayings written on yellow oaktag on the walls: YOU ARE UNIQUE! REACH FOR THE STARS! Gag.

Hanna recognized the black-and-white photo of the spiral staircase; apparently, some Preserve alum had taken it once he’d recovered. The room had a view to the facility hallway, and she couldn’t help but glance at some of the patients walking past, half expecting to recognize some of them. Like Alexis, who never ate anything. Or Tara, who had those huge boobs. Or Iris, who Hanna had thought was A—and who’d also roomed with Real Ali. But even the nurses looked unfamiliar. Betsy, the nurse who administered the meds, was gone. And there was no sign of Dr. Felicia, who’d led the torturous group therapy sessions.