Sara Shepard - Crushed

Spencer shook her head. “I’m sorry, Aria. I don’t want it to be Noel, either. I just wish we could rule Noel out for good. The article says Olaf was killed at the beginning of January. Do you know where Noel was around then?”

Aria ran her tongue over her teeth. “Switzerland. His family was skiing. He asked me to go, but I wanted to stay home and spend time with Lola.”

“Are you sure they were skiing? Switzerland isn’t that far from Iceland.”

Aria pounded a fist on the arm of the sofa. “He posted a ton of pictures on Facebook! Do you honestly think Noel flew to Iceland, killed a guy, and came home the next day like nothing ever happened? You think he’s that good of a liar?”

“Just see if you can find a lift ticket or something from January fourth, okay? And ask him where he was yesterday when someone snuck that painting into your house. It must have been while we were at school, right? So, basically, Noel will tell you he was in eighth period or whatever, and tons of people will vouch for him.”

A worried look crossed Aria’s face, but then she shook her head. “I’m not interrogating my boyfriend. If he finds out why I’m asking him these questions, he’ll dump me.”

“No one wants you guys to break up,” Emily said quickly.

“Look, the rest of us will see what we can discover,” Spencer said, slumping against the wall. “Until then, don’t do anything with the painting, okay, Aria?”

Aria’s mouth made an O. “I’m supposed to keep it in my closet?”

“Just hide it.” Spencer glanced at Hanna. “What’s going on with the burn clinic?”

Hanna sighed. “I really don’t want to volunteer there. But I’m talking to Sean’s dad about it tomorrow.”

“And how about Iris?” Spencer asked Emily.

Emily chewed her bottom lip. “I haven’t found out anything about Ali yet. But Iris has been at The Preserve for four years without a break, so there’s no way she can be Ali’s helper.”

“Good.” Spencer stood up, uncapped the marker she’d brought, and crossed Iris’s name off their list. “Hopefully she’ll tell you who is .”

Aria placed her hands on her hips. “And how is your investigation going, Spence?” she asked, a bitter tone in her voice. “Why haven’t you tracked down Ali yet?”

Spencer bristled. “Um, I’m working on it.” She could feel Aria’s gaze on her, but she didn’t know what else to say.

They shut off the lights in the panic room. Since Spencer had driven, she offered to take the girls who had come in cabs back home. As they walked out the door of the panic room, Spencer stared at Aria’s straight back and wondered what was going through her mind. She felt kind of . . . betrayed. After all that had happened, after A had tormented them about so many things, how had Aria kept quiet about the painting? And now Olaf, whoever he was, was missing and maybe even dead. Aria was right: They all could go to jail for knowing where a stolen painting was hidden and not coming forward with the information.

Ping.

It was Spencer’s old phone, still connected via WiFi. She cautiously looked at the screen. It was an e-mail on her newly created account. The return sender was PHILADELPHIA CONSPIRACY THEORIES.

She glanced at her friends. Hanna was peeking out the window. Aria was staring into space, lost in her own world. Emily was looking at her own phone with a glazed-over expression. Head lowered, Spencer clicked OPEN and read the two sentences. We should definitely talk. There’s a lot you need to know.

She hit REPLY. I’m available whenever , she wrote back. The sooner, the better.

The sky turned gloomy as Hanna steered the Prius into the parking lot of the William Atlantic Plastic Surgery and Burn Rehabilitation Clinic. She shut off the engine and looked at the squat, übermodern building. Was she seriously doing this? Part of her wanted to call up Spencer and beg for a different mission.

Her old phone bleated a new message from her school e-mail account. It was from Chassey Bledsoe: VOTE CHASSEY FOR QUEEN!

Hanna squeezed the phone between her hands, wishing she could send an alert, too. How else would people know what an awesome queen she’d make? And she’d heard that, as part of the Starry Night theme, the queen’s crown would be even more bejeweled than ever.

The Starry Night. Her insides twisted. It was such an eerie coincidence that the very painting Aria had stolen was this year’s prom theme—if it was a coincidence at all. All A would have to do was tip the cops off that the painting was in Aria’s closet and she’d be done for. And though the police might not ever know that Spencer and Emily knew about the theft, there were Hanna’s phone records from that night in Iceland. She’d be ruined, too. Who knew, maybe A would even figure out a way to blame them for Olaf’s death.

What had Aria seen in Olaf, anyway? His beard was nasty. The cap he wore looked like it was from a Dumpster. But Aria was always into those grungy dudes—Hanna had been surprised, actually, when she started dating Noel. Neither of them were each other’s types—a few boys on the lacrosse team even joked for a while that Noel was dating Aria because her dad, Byron, had access to good pot. Hanna was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but what if Noel did have an ulterior motive to go for Aria? What if someone had put him up to it? Someone like . . . Ali ? Could Noel be Ali’s helper?

Hanna hated to think it, but Ali having a helper made a lot of sense. It also fit that Noel was that person—for a lot of different reasons. At the beginning of sixth grade, when Real Ali was still around and Hanna was still a loserish nothing, her BFF was Scott Chin. Scott was out of the closet even then, and he had a raging crush on Noel and was always jealous of his girlfriends. “What does he see in Alison DiLaurentis?” he whined at lunch one day when he spied Ali and Noel giggling at the cool table. “She’s such a butter face. Everything about her is pretty . . . but her face .”

Hanna rolled her eyes. “She’s not a butter face.” Alison was the most beautiful girl ever. She’d modeled at the King James Mall spring and fall runway shows, and rumor had it she’d even been tapped by a big agency in New York City.

“Oh please, yes, she is.” Scott’s eyebrows, which Hanna suspected he plucked, knitted together. “I wonder if Noel has to close his eyes when he makes out with her.”

Hanna lowered her PB&J. “Do you think they actually make out?” Kissing was still exotic to her. She couldn’t believe kids her age were doing it.

“Oh, yeah.” Scott had nodded. “I saw them doing it in the woods behind the playground.”

Sighing, Hanna returned to the present and pushed through the double doors. Instantly, the familiar odor of gauze, antiseptic, and something that could only be described as burnt skin hit her like a tidal wave. She looked around, taking in the fake flowers on the tables and the patient art on the walls. Everything was the same as the last time she’d been here, down to the peppermints in the dish on the front desk. She remembered, suddenly, running into Mona in this lobby. Mona had acted all weird and cagey about why she was there, not admitting she was getting treatment for the burns from the prank-gone-wrong that Ali, Hanna, and the others had played on Toby Cavanaugh. In all the time they’d been friends, Hanna had never known Mona had been at the Cavanaughs that night, watching Ali shoot that firework into the tree house, witnessing Jenna getting blinded, maybe even hearing the fight Ali and Toby had afterward. Of course, Mona’s silence had been intentional.