Sara Shepard - Twisted

Spencer’s eyes blazed. “Just let it go, okay? She washed out to sea. She’s dead .”

Now, Hanna noticed something across the gym. Jeremiah stood in the doorway near the check-in desk, glaring right at her.

Hanna jumped off the elliptical and toweled off her face. She could feel her racing pulse even in her lips. As Jeremiah approached, she gave him a big, innocent smile. “Uh, do you go to this gym?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Jeremiah snapped. His face was purple with fury. “Or I should say I did . Your father got me a complimentary membership. But now that’s been revoked.”

“Oh,” Hanna said quietly.

“Oh? That’s all you can say? Oh? ” Jeremiah was so angry he was shaking. “I hope you’re happy, Hanna. This is all because of you .”

A shockwave rippled through Hanna’s skin, but she stood her ground. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just told my dad that I saw you go upstairs.”

“You didn’t see anything, and you know it.” He leaned closer to her, his breath smelling sour and unclean. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

Hanna turned her head away. The girl who’d wanted her elliptical glanced over at them, her brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jeremiah pointed a finger at her. “You’ve ruined my career. And I have a feeling you’re going to find a way to ruin your father’s campaign. Remember that anonymous note I got, saying you were hiding something? I’m going to look into it, Hanna. And you’re going down.”

Hanna let out a terrified squeak. Jeremiah remained in Hanna’s face for a moment longer, then wheeled around and marched back through the room.

“Are you okay?” the elliptical girl asked, pausing on the treadmill. “He seemed pretty . . . intense.”

Hanna ran her hand over her sweaty hair and murmured a noncommittal reply. She definitely wasn’t okay. How serious was Jeremiah? What had she gotten herself into?

And then, out of nowhere, a high-pitched, lilting giggle, floated out from the vents. She stared around the room. Ali?

The laugh persisted. Hanna shut her eyes, thinking about that empty beach again. For so long, Hanna had suppressed the thought that Ali had survived, but now she knew Emily was right.

Ali was here. Maybe not here at this gym right now, but she was here in Rosewood, following them, watching them, ready to ruin their lives for the third and final time. Ali was like a cat with nine lives: She’d survived the fire in Spencer’s woods, then she’d survived the fire in the Poconos, and now she’d survived that impossible fall off the crow’s nest. She’d crawled away, nursed her wounds, got healthy again, and was back . Maybe she wouldn’t die until she got exactly what she wanted: to get rid of them, once and for all.

There was only one thing Hanna could do: go to the police. Ali had to be stopped. If it meant admitting what happened in Jamaica, then so be it. It had been in self-defense, after all. They’d done it to stop Ali’s evil cycle of murders—who knew who else she’d killed after she survived the fire. Besides, it wasn’t as if they’d actually killed Ali—she was still alive. Hanna would even take the blame for her friends, even if it meant falling out of favor with her dad. There was no way she could let Ali do this to them again.

When Hanna’s phone buzzed against her hip, she jumped. Mike , she hoped—he could only freeze her out for so long. She reached into her pocket, pulled it out, and stared at the screen. TEXT FROM ANONYMOUS. With a shudder, she opened it and read the message.

Turn on the news, sweetie. I have a surprise for you. Kisses!

–A

The Acela bullet train back to Rosewood shuddered into Penn Station, and Spencer, her mother, and the Pennythistles boarded silently. Mr. Pennythistle sank rigidly into his seat, looking like he was about to burst a blood vessel in his brain. Mrs. Hastings was next to him, shooting him overwrought glances, staring anxiously out the window, or glaring at Spencer and shaking her head. Spencer wondered what he’d told her about this morning. Had he included the part about shoving Zach around? Had he included the part about how he was a homophobe?

Amelia kept twisting around and eyeing everyone, certain that something was up but not privy to what it was. Zach hunched by the window, iPod headphones in his ears. He threw his coat and bag on the adjacent seat so Spencer wouldn’t be able to sit there. She’d tried to apologize to him again and again, but it did no good—he wouldn’t even look at her.

They passed Newark, then Trenton. Spencer’s phone rang—CALL FROM HANNA MARIN. But she didn’t want to talk to Hanna right now. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Spencer pressed her forehead against the cool glass windowpane and stared at the trees and houses rushing past. The sky was a perfect blue today and nearly cloudless. It reminded her, suddenly, of the plane ride home from Jamaica a year ago. When they’d lifted off from the runway and circled the airport, she’d spied the endless, empty beach and crashing blue ocean below. From the high vantage, she was sure she’d see Ali’s body bobbing in the waves, a speck of yellow fabric among so much blue, but she didn’t see anything.

The days following Ali’s death had been awful: They’d kept up the guise of happy, vacationing teenagers, especially because Noel and Mike were there. They snorkeled and swam, ocean kayaked and jumped off the cliffs a dozen more times. Hanna got a massage, and Aria took a couple of yoga classes. But the secret weighed on each of them. They barely ate. They were slow to smile. They drank a lot, but the drinks made them tense and combative instead of happy or relaxed. Sometimes Spencer heard Hanna, with whom she was sharing a room, rise from her bed in the middle of the night, shut the bathroom door, and spend hours in there. What was she doing? Asking her reflection what she’d helped do? Reliving the whole horrible thing?

Spencer always pretended she was asleep when Hanna emerged from the bathroom, never wanting to talk about it. The distance between them had already begun to grow. They didn’t want to look at each other for fear someone would burst out crying.

Every morning, Spencer woke up, padded to her balcony, and looked out to the shoreline; sure Ali’s body would be lying there, bloated and blue. But it never was. It was like it never happened. No Jamaican policemen knocked on the doors to their rooms, asking questions. No members of the hotel staff stood in a tight huddle, discussing a missing guest. It seemed no one even noticed she was missing. And it appeared that no one, no one at all, had seen what Spencer and the others had done that awful night.

On the plane ride home, Emily touched Spencer’s hand. Her skin was waxy, and her hair looked greasy and unwashed. “I can’t stop thinking. What if the ocean didn’t wash her away? What if she didn’t die on impact? What if she’s suffering somewhere?”

“That’s crazy,” Spencer snapped, hardly believing Emily was bringing this up in such a public place. “We scoured every inch of that beach. She couldn’t have crawled anywhere that fast.”

“But . . .” Emily fiddled with the plastic cup she’d received from the refreshment cart. “It just seems strange the tide didn’t bring her in.”

“It’s good the tide didn’t bring her in,” Spencer whispered, tearing her cocktail napkin into tiny pieces. “The universe is looking out for us—and everyone else she would have murdered. She was crazy, Emily. We did the best thing possible. The only thing.”