Sara Shepard - Perfect

“She seemed okay,” Spencer said slowly.

Wilden looked at Spencer dead-on. “You know, my older sister was a lot like Alison. She was the leader of her clique, too. Whatever my sister said, her friends did. Anything . And they kept all kinds of secrets for her. Is that how it worked for you guys?”

Hanna curled up her toes, suddenly irritated at where this conversation was going.

“I don’t know,” Emily mumbled. “Maybe.”

Wilden glanced down at the vibrating cell phone clipped to his holster. “Excuse me.” He ducked toward the garage, pulling his phone from his belt.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Emily let out a pent-up breath. “Guys, we have to tell him.”

Hanna narrowed her eyes. “Tell him what ?”

Emily held up her hands. “Jenna is blind. We did that.”

Hanna shook her head. “Count me out. And anyway, Jenna’s fine. Seriously. Have you noticed those Gucci sunglasses she wears? You have to get on, like, a year-long waiting list for a pair of those—they’re harder to score than a Birkin bag.”

Aria gaped at Hanna. “What solar system are you from? Who cares about Gucci sunglasses?”

“Well, obviously not someone like you ,” Hanna spat.

Aria tensed her jaw and leaned back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know,” Hanna snarled.

“Guys,” Spencer warned.

Aria sighed and turned to face the side yard. Hanna glared at her pointy chin and ski-slope nose. Even Aria’s profile wasn’t as pretty as hers.

“We should tell him about Jenna,” Emily goaded.

“And A. The police should handle this. We’re in over our heads.”

“We’re not telling him anything, and that’s final,” Hanna hissed.

“Yeah, I don’t know, Emily,” Spencer said slowly, poking her car keys through one of the tabletop’s wide slats.

“That’s a big decision. It affects all our lives.”

“We’ve talked about this before,” Aria agreed.

“Besides, A is gone, right?”

“I’ll leave you all out of it,” Emily protested, crossing her arms over her chest. “But I’m telling him. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Aria’s cell phone chirped and everyone jumped. Then Spencer’s Sidekick vibrated, wriggling toward the edge of the table. Hanna’s BlackBerry, which she’d shoved back into her purse, let out a muffled chime. And Emily’s little Nokia made that old-school telephone ring sound.

The last time the girls’ phones all rang at once had been outside Ali’s memorial service. Hanna had the same feeling she’d had the first time her father had taken her on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Rosewood County Fair when she was five—that of dizzying nausea. Aria opened her phone. Then Emily, then Spencer. “Oh God,” Emily whispered.

Hanna didn’t even bother reaching for her BlackBerry; instead, she leaned over Spencer’s Sidekick.

You really thought I was gone? Puh-lease. I’ve been watching you this whole time. In fact, I might be watching you right now. And girls—if you tell ANYONE about me, you’ll be sorry.

—A

Hanna’s heart throbbed. She heard footsteps and turned around. Wilden was back.

He shoved his cell phone into his holster. Then he looked at the girls and raised an eyebrow. “Did I miss something?”

Had. He. Ever.

About a half hour later, Aria pulled up to her fifties-modern brown box of a house. She cradled her Treo to her chin, waiting for Emily’s voice-mail message to finish. At the beep, she said, “Em, it’s Aria. If you’re really considering telling Wilden, please call me. A’s capable of…of more than you think.”

She hit END, feeling anxious. She couldn’t imagine what dark secret of Emily’s A might out if she talked to the police, but Aria knew from experience that A would do it.

Sighing, she unlocked her front door and clomped up the stairs, passing her parents’ bedroom. The door was ajar. Inside, her parents’ bed was neatly made—or was it only Ella’s bed now? Ella had draped it with the bright salmon batik-print quilt that she loved and Byron despised. She’d piled all the pillows up on her side. The bed felt like a metaphor for divorce.

Aria dropped her books and aimlessly wandered back downstairs into the den, A’s threat spinning around in her head like the centrifuge they’d used in today’s biology lab. A was still here . And, according to Wilden, so was Ali’s killer. A could be Ali’s killer, worming her way into all of their lives. What if Wilden was right—what if Ali’s killer wanted to hurt someone else? What if Ali’s killer wasn’t only Ali’s enemy, but Aria’s, Hanna’s, Emily’s, and Spencer’s, too? Did that mean one of them was…next?

The den was dark except for the flickering TV. When Aria saw a hand curled over the edge of the tweedy love seat, she jumped. Then Mike’s familiar face appeared.

“You’re just in time.” Mike pointed to the TV screen.

“Coming up, a never-before-seen home video of Alison DiLaurentis shot the week before she was murdered,” he said in his best Moviefone-announcer impersonation.

Aria’s stomach tightened. This was the leaked video Wilden had been talking about. Years ago, Aria had thrown herself into filmmaking, documenting everything she could, from snails in the backyard to her best friends. The movies were generally short, and Aria often tried to make them arty and poignant, focusing on Hanna’s nostril, or the zipper on Ali’s hoodie, or Spencer’s fidgety fingers. When Ali went missing, Aria turned her video collection over to the police. The cops combed through them but had found no clues about where Ali could have gone. Aria still had the originals on her laptop, although she hadn’t looked through them in a long, long time.

Aria flopped down on the love seat. When a Mercedes commercial ended and the news came back on, Aria and Mike sat up straighter. “Yesterday, an anonymous source sent us this clip of Alison DiLaurentis,” the anchorman announced. “It offers a look at how chillingly innocent her life was just days before she was murdered. Let’s watch.”

The clip opened with a fumbling shot of Spencer’s leather living room couch. “And because she wears a size zero,” Hanna said offscreen. The camera panned to a younger-looking Spencer, who had on a pink polo and capri-length pajama pants. Her blond hair cascaded around her shoulders, and she wore a sparkly rhinestone crown on her head.

“She looks hot in that crown,” Mike said enthusiastically, tearing open a large bag of Doritos.

“Shhh,” Aria hissed.

Spencer pointed at Ali’s LG phone on the couch.

“Want to read her texts?”

“I do!” Hanna whispered, ducking out of the shot. Then the camera swung to Emily, who looked nearly the same as she did today—same reddish-blond hair, same oversize swimming T-shirt, same pleasant-but-worried expression. Aria suddenly remembered this night—before they’d turned on the camera, Ali had gotten a text message and hadn’t told them whom it was from. Everyone had been annoyed.

The camera showed Spencer holding Ali’s phone. “It’s locked.” There was a blurry shot of the phone’s screen.

“Do you know her password?” Aria heard her own voice ask.

“Damn! That’s you!” Mike whooped.

“Try her birthday,” Hanna suggested.

The camera showed Hanna’s chubby hands reaching in and taking the phone from Spencer.

Mike wrinkled his nose and turned to Aria. “Is this what girls do when they’re alone? I thought I was going to see pillow fights. Girls in panties. Kissing .”