Sara Shepard - Crushed

The woman extended her hand. “I’m Jasmine Fuji.” She looked at the others with wide gray eyes. “Let me guess. Hanna, Aria, and Emily,” she said, pointing at each girl in turn. Then again, it wasn’t hard—the four of them had been plastered all over People magazine last year after Real Ali allegedly died. Even a made-for-TV movie called Pretty Little Killer had been filmed, documenting Real Ali’s torment and near killing of the girls.

When no one said anything, she cleared her throat. “How about we go inside and talk?”

Spencer led the way through the kitchen, nervously trying not to trip over anything. Then they lined up on the living room couch, squeezed together tightly. Aria flicked a tassel on a pillow. Emily crossed and uncrossed her legs. Everyone’s hair was a windswept rat’s nest from the leaf blower.

Fuji sat across from them on a striped ottoman, pulled out a yellow notepad, and flipped to a clean page. Her nails were impeccably groomed and painted pink. “Well. Okay. Thanks for meeting me, for one thing. This is just a formality, but I appreciate your cooperation.”

“Of course,” Spencer said in her most mature, professional tone. She wished she had something to do with her hands.

“Your names were on a list of guests who were staying at The Cliffs resort in Jamaica the same time Tabitha Clark was murdered,” Fuji said, looking at a separate sheet of paper. “March twenty-third to March thirtieth. Can you confirm that?”

“Yes.” Spencer’s voice cracked, and she started again. “Yes. We were there. We were on vacation for spring break with a lot of our classmates.”

Fuji gave them a tight smile. “Must be nice.”

Spencer twitched. That sounded kind of bitter. Must be nice for you spoiled rich girls , maybe. You think you can get away with anything, huh? But then Fuji pointed to a watercolor of a pastoral farm scene above the piano. “My grandmother has one a lot like that, except a little bigger.”

“Oh, neat. I’ve always loved that painting,” Spencer said quickly. Calm down , she scolded herself.

“So.” Fuji took out a pair of glasses from her purse and perched them on her nose, then studied her notes again. “Did you meet Miss Clark while you were staying there?”

Spencer exchanged a look with the others. They’d briefly talked through what they’d say on the phone last night, but her mind suddenly was blank. “Sort of,” she said after a moment. “I had a passing conversation with her, nothing big.”

Fuji removed her glasses and put one of the stems in her mouth. “Can you tell me what it was about?”

Spencer’s insides fizzed. “She thought we looked familiar. Like long-lost sisters.”

Fuji cocked her head. Her teardrop earrings fluttered. “ That’s a strange thing to say.”

Spencer shrugged. “She’d had a lot to drink.”

Fuji wrote something down and turned to the other girls. “Do you remember Tabitha as well?”

Emily nodded. “We danced near each other.” She swallowed hard.

Fuji turned to Hanna and Aria, and both of them said they’d met Tabitha in passing but didn’t have a long conversation. Fuji didn’t ask them to elaborate, so Emily didn’t mention Tabitha’s eerily similar Jenna Thing bracelet, Aria didn’t talk about how Tabitha had hinted that she knew her dad was a cheater, and Hanna didn’t tell her that Tabitha had known Hanna used to be a loser.

Everyone answered articulately. If Spencer were a bystander to the conversation, the girls would have seemed truthful enough. Distraught and quiet, maybe, but that was okay: A girl they’d met had been murdered a few feet from where they’d been sleeping.

Fuji capped her pen. “It seems like a lot of people are telling me the same thing—Tabitha must have gotten around that night, chatted everyone up. Everyone remembers her, but no one can connect her to anyone in particular.” She put down her notebook and met their gazes. “I heard you girls were on the cruise ship that exploded, too.”

“That’s right,” Spencer croaked.

“ And I heard you were on Gayle Riggs’s property when she was murdered.” She stared unblinkingly at the four girls.

Hanna nodded faintly. Emily coughed. “We’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Spencer said.

“Sounds like you guys have had a rough couple of years.” A sad smile spread across Fuji’s face. “Conspiracy-theory crackpots would probably have a field day with you girls, huh? They might say you’re cursed.”

Each girl laughed, though their chuckles were mirthless and forced. When Fuji gave them a strange, knowing glance, the moment felt spiky and electric. What if A had already told Fuji everything? What if she was just toying with them, waiting for them to slip up?

But then Fuji pressed her palms flat on the top of her notebook and stood. “Thanks for your time, girls. If you think of anything else, please let me know.”

Spencer jumped up, too. “I’ll walk you out.”

Fuji bid her another good-bye at the door, walked down the path, and climbed into her car. When she backed out of the drive and turned off the cul-de-sac, Spencer whirled around to face her friends, who were sitting stock-still on the couch.

Hanna broke the silence. “I thought she was going to nail us.”

“I know.” Aria collapsed into the back cushions. “I was convinced she knew more than she was saying.”

Beep.

It was Spencer’s phone. All of the girls’ spines went ramrod straight. A bleep soon followed from Emily’s phone. Then Hanna’s buzzed. Aria’s phone made a slide-whistle sound. Their screens all flashed with an alert that a new text message had come in.

Taking a huge breath, Spencer looked at the screen.

I do love some freshly planted lies on a lovely spring afternoon. I wonder if Agent Fuji feels the same . . .

—A

Spencer squeezed her eyes shut. Letting out a wail, she hurled the phone across the room, where it crashed against a small side table. The battery flew out and skidded across the floor. Then she eyed the others. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Aria growled. Emily and Hanna nodded, too.

It was their only hope. They were going to solve this, once and for all.

On Thursday, after the last bell rang, Hanna scuttled toward the parking lot, her leather tote bumping against her back. When she heard someone call her name, she turned. Chassey Bledsoe stood at the curb, smiling eagerly, every inch of her formerly pockmarked skin eerily blemish-free.

“We’re shooting campaign videos,” Chassey chirped. “Aren’t you coming?”

Hanna glanced toward the lot, then back at Chassey. “Um, I can’t.”

Chassey looked disappointed. “Do you want me to tell them to reschedule?”

Hanna chewed on her lip. All she wanted was to make a video that was a zillion times better than anything Chassey could do. But then she thought of A’s note about campaigning. It was painful to see all the VOTE CHASSEY posters on the wall when she couldn’t put up a single HANNA FOR MAY DAY QUEEN one. What if Chassey won by a landslide? Hanna would be humiliated.

“That’s okay. I have an appointment I can’t miss,” she said. “It’s sort of hard to explain. Good luck, though!”

“But . . . ,” Chassey started, but Hanna just waved, turned, and jogged up the hill to her car. Before she got in, she pulled a black knit cap over her head and shrugged into a black peacoat she’d stashed in the back of the Prius. Time to get into secret-mission mode.

She climbed into the car, gunned out of the lot—well, as fast as a Prius could gun—and pulled onto the highway. She threw the new burner cell she’d picked up at Radio Shack in the console, then glanced at the car’s GPS. The next turn wasn’t for a few miles yet, but what was with that black SUV on her tail? She squinted in the rearview mirror, trying to get a glimpse of the driver. The windows were tinted. Her heart began to bang. Black SUVs were a dime a dozen here in Rosewood—it could be anyone in there.