Sara Shepard - Crushed

Chase looked pained. “He was under eighteen, so no. And like I said, his parents were loaded. They kept this out of the press, paid off the cops. He left school, but that’s all I know.”

Spencer shook her head. “That is so unfair. So he’s just walking the streets?”

Chase nodded. “I guess so.”

He turned his head away then and made a pained noise that broke Spencer’s heart. She touched his arm, all at once so sad and heartbroken, both for Chase’s experience and her own. How dare someone torment him? How dare someone torment her ?

“I know what it’s like,” she whispered. “I’ve been stalked, too.”

Chase turned around, his brow furrowed. “You have?”

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Spencer removed the Britney wig and took off the sunglasses. “I’m Spencer Hastings,” she said. “One of the girls Ali tried to, uh, kill.”

Chase’s mouth made an O. All sorts of expressions crossed his face in a single second. “I wondered if it was you,” he said after a moment in a voice so tender it made Spencer’s heart break. “But I was afraid to ask. I was afraid to scare you away.”

Spencer pulled the wig back onto her head. “You can’t tell anyone, though, okay? I’m trusting you. If I see this show up on your blog . . .”

“That will never happen!” Chase said, urgently shaking his head. Then he leaned back and blinked at her. “Jesus. Spencer Hastings. Now I feel like an idiot telling you all that stalker stuff. It pales in comparison.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Spencer said firmly. “The same thing happened to both of us. Someone we trusted screwed us over in the worst way possible.” All of a sudden, she felt tears filling her eyes. She’d connected with other people about Ali, confessed what Ali had done to other boys she’d been interested in, but no one had gone through it, too. She’d always laughed at the expression kindred spirits , but now, with Chase, she understood what it meant. If only she could see Chase on occasions other than Ali stakeouts. She had a feeling they could talk all night without ever running out of things to say.

She swallowed hard. “Will you go to prom with me?”

Chase sat back and blinked. “Wait. What?”

“We both need something fun in our lives. Something to take our minds off what happened. We could go just as friends. As whatever. And you probably couldn’t tell my friends that you run an Ali blog, and you’d have to promise not to talk about any of us in it—”

“Spencer,” Chase interrupted. “I already told you, I’d never do that.”

Spencer nodded. “So what do you say?”

Her heart pounded as she watched Chase tilt his head back and peer down his nose at her, as if trying to see her from a different angle. The longer he didn’t say anything, the more ridiculous Spencer felt. It was a horrible idea. Chase was out of high school, too cool to go to proms.

Then Chase grabbed her hand. “I would be honored. Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there with a tux on.”

“Really?” Spencer’s mouth wobbled into a smile.

Chase was about to say something else, but then the door behind them swung open. An old lady with a kerchief over her head and a bunch of bags in her arms struggled out the door. Chase stepped up and held it open for her. The old lady smiled at him. “That’s so sweet of you, dear!”

“No problem at all,” Chase said, giving her a small bow. He and Spencer scrambled through the door before it slammed closed.

The hall was dark and smelled like spicy curry. There were two apartment doors on the ground floor, then a set of stairs. Spencer could see another apartment door up the first flight. There had to be at least four or five more apartments in the building.

She looked at Chase. “So what do we do now?”

“Go to Four-B, I guess,” Chase said, peering up the stairs. Then he turned to the front door again. “You go up. I’ll be right behind you, keeping watch.”

Spencer nodded, then bolted up the stairs, passing three doors painted red, orange, and blue. Another blue door still had a Christmas wreath, despite the fact it was May. Another orange one had a pile of mail on the mat. The railing wobbled when she grabbed it for support. She could hear Chase’s footsteps on the stairs behind her.

On the top floor, light flickered behind 4B. Swallowing hard, Spencer exchanged a look with Chase, who was a few steps down, then crept up to it and pressed her ear to the door. Could Ali’s nurse really be inside? What if Ali was inside, too?

“What should I do?” she whispered to Chase.

He shrugged. Knock? he mouthed.

Trembling, Spencer rapped once, then twice. Then she listened. The television’s volume didn’t change, but she thought she heard a sigh and couch springs squeak. There was a click in the hall, and she whipped around, on alert. “What was that?” she whispered to Chase.

“I don’t know,” he whispered back, eyes wide. Then he walked farther down the hall. He stopped at the second-to-last door on the right and stepped closer to it, inspecting the knob. He pressed his ear to the door, as if listening, but then he lost his balance, falling forward and softly slapping the door with his palm. Spencer covered her eyes. “Shhh!”

“Sorry!” Chase jumped away from the door as if anticipating a ghost was going to spring out.

For a moment, it was eerily silent. Then, a creak sounded above her, and she looked up. And all at once . . . boom. There was a crunch of metal, and a whoosh of air, and then more banging and clanging sounds. Spencer jumped back as an attic door in the ceiling opened and items tumbled down. First an unwieldy coatrack, then a mounted deer head, its antlers sharpened to knifepoints, and then a bowling ball. The ball crashed onto the floor next to her and careened down the steps.

“Spencer?” Chase called through the dust. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

“I-I don’t know,” Spencer said, realizing she’d fallen to the ground. When she touched her face, it was slick. She brought her hand away—it was sweat or tears, not blood. More dust cascaded from the ceiling. The trapdoor hung precariously on one hinge, the screws dangerously loose.

“Come on,” Chase said, catapulting over the rubble, grabbing her hand, and dragging her down the steps. Heads poked out of apartment doors, mouths agape.

“That was weird,” Spencer said shakily as they barreled down more stairs.

“ Weird doesn’t even begin to describe that,” Chase said. He glanced up the stairwell. Another loud thunk sounded. “It’s almost like it was planned.”

Spencer shivered. She’d been thinking the same thing. It was possible, perhaps, that Ali or her helper had planted this address online for Chase to find. And then snuck in here and filled the attic with dangerous things. Rigging the door to fall at just the right moment . . . on just the right person’s head . . .

A’s evil message swirled in her mind: I did it. And guess what? You’re next. Maybe this had all been a trap. And maybe A’s warning was coming true.

Hanna pulled into the Bill Beach parking lot, her burner phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear. Screw the no-technology rule. This was an emergency.

Mike’s voicemail beeped. “It’s me again,” Hanna pleaded. “I can explain. I want you back. I want to go to prom with you. I have a new cell phone—this is my number. Please, please, please call me!”

She hung up and eyed her prom queen crown and scepter—she carried them with her everywhere. Tears pricked her eyes. She was not going to ruin her makeup, though. A future prom queen needed to look good even when she was cleaning up pee.