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She gave Spencer a meaningful glance. “Alison. Stop it. Now.”
But Ali couldn’t stop.
“Spencer?” Aria asked. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Spencer said quickly.
Ali watched as the other girls exchanged an uncertain look. But none of them said anything. Then, Melissa adjusted the mantle around her neck and strode toward the barn. She glanced long and hard at the hole in Ali’s yard but said nothing.
Spencer glared at Ali after Melissa was gone, but Ali didn’t reply. She barely got through the rest of the visit, and when the girls left, she sprinted back into the house and made a beeline for her bedroom. Everything was in its place. Next she found her mother, who was standing at the sink, washing a few glasses.
“Did you let my friends in when I wasn’t here?” she demanded.
Mrs. DiLaurentis wheeled around, looking guilty. “Honey, I thought you were home. But then I saw you pull up with your field hockey friend and realized my mistake.”
Ali’s body started to shake. “So they talked to her?”
“Well, yes. But then I grabbed her.”
“Were they in my room?”
Mrs. DiLaurentis’s gaze fell to her feet. “She’s just curious. The therapist explained everything to us: She hasn’t lived a normal life. We’ve deprived her of that. Think of yourself as a role model.”
The words hurt: It was her they were really talking about, her they thought was still in the hospital, rotting away, becoming weirder and more feral by the day. “Where is she?” Ali said, her voice low and tense.
Mrs. DiLaurentis placed a warning hand on Ali’s arm. “Honey, don’t start a scene. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Where. Is. She?” Ali’s emotions felt like a kite whose string had gotten away from her. It was the same way she used to feel when her sister would push and push and push until she snapped. It was amazing how, after all this time, the feeling could just come back as urgent and fresh as the day she’d first felt it.
The dish towel went limp in Mrs. DiLaurentis’s hands. “Look, we’ll be more careful, okay? We’ll keep her inside from now on, just until we’re sure she’s not backsliding. She’ll be inside for graduation, your sleepover. Okay?”
“Do you promise?” Ali demanded. Mrs. DiLaurentis nodded almost fearfully.
But it wasn’t enough. Ali turned and stormed up the steps, passing her bedroom once more. The guest room door was closed. She banged on it so hard that her knuckles ached. “Courtney?” she bellowed.
But the door didn’t open. “Courtney!” Ali screeched.
“Alison, please,” Mrs. DiLaurentis said, standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Open the door!” Ali screamed. The bedsprings inside the room squeaked. A drawer slid open, then closed. And then, distinctly, she heard a high-pitched giggle. It kind of sounded like a witch’s cackle and sent a shiver down her spine.
“I know what you’re doing!” Ali said, pressing her cheek against the door. “You can’t get away with this!”
She heard footsteps, and the door flung open. Her sister was wearing the striped halter again, just as Ali feared. Her hair was in a high ponytail, her new Polaroid was on a strap around her neck, and she had a big smile on her face. She held Ali’s gaze for so long that Ali began to feel nervous.
“Why not?” Courtney finally asked, her voice full of mirth. “You did.”
31
THE ULTIMATE POWER
Thursday evening after graduation, a battered Subaru pulled up to Ali’s front curb. Ali watched through the window as Aria spilled out from the backseat, pirouetted onto the lawn, and buried her face in the grass. “Delicious,” Ali heard her murmur.
Mrs. DiLaurentis touched Ali’s arm. “Aren’t you going to go out there?”
Ali whipped around and looked at her mother. Her heart was pounding as though she’d run a zillion laps around the hockey field. Every sound from upstairs, where her sister had been kept during graduation, made her tense up. “Are you sure you’ll keep her inside?” she asked, glancing toward the stairs.
A guilty look crossed her mother’s face. It was clear she felt terrible for letting Ali’s sister into her room to fool her friends, and she’d been trying for the past forty-eight hours to make it up to Ali. They’d ordered takeout from Ali’s favorite sushi place as a graduation dinner. She’d slipped Ali a pair of diamond stud earrings before the ceremony that afternoon, a graduation gift. But it didn’t fix what had happened. Courtney had fooled her friends. Courtney had been seen.
What if there had been something different about Courtney, something telling that her friends had noticed? She imagined them going home Tuesday night and discussing it on a four-way phone call. Her eyes looked a little different on the patio, don’t you think? Aria might have said. And then Hanna would have piped up with, And Ali wouldn’t wear a halter top like that. And then Spencer: You know, I’ve seen a light on in the guest room. And I’ve heard rumors over the years.
But no. There hadn’t been any rumors, had there? This had been a contained secret. Then, Ali thought of Jenna. What if she’d said something? Maybe just an innocent comment to Spencer once, something Spencer refused to believe. Or what about the man her mother had told? Maybe he’d said something. Her friends could have had an inkling all along.
What if they were slowly figuring it out? Everything, even the switch?
“You have nothing to worry about,” Mrs. DiLaurentis said softly, breaking Ali from her thoughts. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. “Although honestly, honey, I wish you’d just tell them.”
