Sara Shepard - Unbelievable

I’LL GET YOU, MY PRETTIES…

It had taken Spencer and Mona almost ten minutes to cross the country club lawn to the parking lot, climb into Mona’s enormous taxicab-yellow Hummer, and roar out of the parking lot. Spencer glanced at Hanna’s receding party tent. It was lit up like a birthday cake, and the vibrations from the music were almost visible.

“That was a really awesome thing you did, setting up Justin Timberlake for Hanna,” Spencer murmured.

“Hanna’s my best friend,” Mona answered. “She’s been through a lot. I wanted to make it really special.”

“She used to talk about Justin all the time when we were younger,” Spencer went on, gazing out the window as an old farmhouse, which used to belong to one of the DuPonts but was now a restaurant, flew past. A few people who had finished dinner were standing out on the porch, happily chatting. “I didn’t know she still liked him so much.”

Mona smiled halfway. “I know lots of things about Hanna. Sometimes I think I know Hanna better than Hanna knows herself.” She glanced at Spencer briefly. “You have to do good things for people you care about, you know?”

Spencer nodded faintly, biting at her cuticles. Mona slowed for a stop sign and rooted around in her purse, pulling out a pack of gum. The car immediately smelled like artificial bananas. “Want a piece?” she asked Spencer, unwrapping a stick and pushing it into her mouth. “I’m obsessed with this stuff. Apparently you can only get it in Europe, but this girl in my history class gave me a whole pack.” She chewed thoughtfully. Spencer waved the open pack away. She wasn’t much in a gum-chewing mood right now.

As Mona passed the Fairview Riding Academy, Spencer smacked her thighs hard. “I can’t do this,” she wailed. “We should turn around, Mona. I can’t turn Melissa in.”

Mona glanced at her, then turned into the riding academy’s parking lot. They pulled into the handicapped space and Mona shifted the Hummer into park. “Okay…”

“She’s my sister .” Spencer stared blankly forward. It was pitch-black out, and the air smelled like hay. She heard a whinnying in the distance. “If Melissa did it, shouldn’t I be trying to protect her?”

Mona reached into her clutch and pulled out a Marlboro Light. She offered one to Spencer, but Spencer shook her head. As Mona lit up, Spencer watched the orange butt glow and the smoke curl, first around the Hummer’s cabin, then out the slight crack at the top of the driver’s side window.

“What did Melissa mean in the bathroom?” Mona asked quietly. “She said, after what you told her at the beach, she thought you guys had an understanding. What did you tell her?”

Spencer dug her nails into the heels of her hands. “This memory had come back to me about the night Ali went missing,” she admitted. “Ali and I had this fight…and I shoved her. Her head smacked against the stone wall. But I’d blocked it out for years.” She glanced at Mona, gauging her reaction, but Mona’s face was blank. “I blurted it out to Melissa the other day. I had to tell someone .”

“Whoa,” Mona whispered, glancing at Spencer carefully. “You think you did it?”

Spencer pressed her palms into her forehead. “I was definitely mad at her.”

Mona twisted in her seat, breathing smoke out her nose. “A put that photo of Ali and Ian in your purse, right? What if A fed Melissa some sort of clue, too, convincing her to tell on you ? Melissa could be going to the cops right now.”

Spencer’s eyes widened. She remembered what Melissa said about them no longer having an “understanding.” “Shit,” she whispered. “Do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Mona grabbed Spencer’s hand. “I think you’re doing the right thing. But if you want me to turn around and go back to the party, I will.”

Spencer ran her fingers against the rough beads on her clutch. Was it the right thing? She wished she hadn’t been the one to discover Melissa was the killer. She wished someone else could’ve found out instead. Then, she thought about how she’d torn around the country club tent, looking frantically for Melissa. Where had she gone? What was she doing right now?

“You’re right,” she whispered in a dry voice. “This is the right thing.”

Mona nodded, then shifted gears again and backed out of the riding school lot. She tossed her cigarette butt out the window, and Spencer watched it as they drove away, a tiny flicker of light among the dry blades of grass.

When they were farther down the road, Spencer’s Sidekick beeped. Spencer unzipped her bag. “Maybe that’s Wilden,” she murmured. Only, it was a text from Emily.

Hanna remembered. Mona is A! Reply if you get this.

Spencer’s phone slipped from her hands to her lap. She read the text again. And again. The words might as well have been written in Arabic—Spencer couldn’t process them at all. R U sure? she texted back. Yes, Emily wrote. Get out of there. NOW.

Spencer stared at a billboard for Wawa coffee, a stone sign for a housing development, then an enormous, triangular-shaped church. She tried to breathe as steadily as possible, counting from one to one hundred by fives, hoping it would calm her down. Mona was watching the road carefully and dutifully. Her halter dress didn’t quite fit her in the chest. She had a scar on her right shoulder, probably from the chicken pox. It didn’t seem possible that she could have done this.

“So was it Wilden?” Mona chirped.

“Um, no.” Spencer’s voice came out squawky and muffled, like she was talking through a can. “It was…it was my mom.”

Mona nodded slightly, keeping the same speed. Spencer’s phone lit up again. Another text had come in. Then another, then another, then another. Spencer, what’s going on? Spencer, pls txt us back. Spencer, yr in DANGER. Pls tell us if yr okay.

Mona smiled, her canine teeth glowing in the dim light shining off the Hummer’s dashboard console. “You’re certainly popular. What’s going on?”

Spencer tried to laugh. “Um, nothing.”

Mona glanced at Spencer’s main text message window. “Emily, huh? Did Justin show up?”

“Um…” Spencer swallowed audibly, her throat catching.

Mona’s smile evaporated. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“N-nothing’s going on,” Spencer stammered.

Mona scoffed, tossing a lock of hair behind her shoulders. Her pale skin glowed in the darkness. “What, is it a secret? Am I not good enough to know or something?”

“Of course not,” Spencer squeaked. “It’s just…I…”

They rolled to a red light. Spencer looked back and forth, then slowly pressed the Hummer’s UNLOCK button. As she curled her fingers around the door handle, Mona grabbed her other wrist.

“What are you doing ?” Mona’s eyes glowed in the traffic light’s red glare. Her head swiveled from Spencer’s phone back to Spencer’s panicked face. Spencer could see the realization flooding over Mona—it was like watching black and white turn to color in The Wizard of Oz . Mona’s expression went from confusion to shock to…glee. She pressed the car door’s LOCK button again. When the light turned green, she gunned the engine and made a stomach-churning left through the intersection and veered off onto a bumpy, two-lane country road.

Spencer watched as the odometer climbed from fifty to sixty to seventy. She clutched her door handle tightly. “Where are we going?” she asked in a small, terrified voice.

Mona glanced at Spencer sideways, a sinister smile pasted on her face. “You were never one for patience.” She winked and blew Spencer a kiss. “But this time you’ll just have to wait and see.”