AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Emily’s stomach burned. What was true…and what wasn’t? She stared across the playground. A group of students were marching down the sidewalk into the sixth-grade wing. More students passed in front of the long line of classroom windows, walking to the coat closet. Emily had forgotten that sixth graders didn’t have proper lockers; they had to put their stuff in cubbies in that tiny coatroom. The coatroom used to get so stinky by midmorning, smelling like everyone’s bagged lunches.
“When Ian talked to me on my back porch, he told me that we had it wrong—he didn’t kill Ali,” Spencer went on. “He wouldn’t have hurt a hair on Ali’s head. He and Ali always flirted, but she was the one who escalated it to the next level. Ian thought for a while that she was doing it to make someone angry. At first I thought she meant me—because I kind of liked him. But Ian didn’t seem to buy that theory. And the night she died, he saw two blondes in the woods—one was Ali, one was someone else. At the time, I thought he meant me. But he said maybe it was someone else.”
Emily sighed, frustrated. “We’re going by Ian’s word again.”
“Yeah, Spence.” Hanna wrinkled her nose. “Ian killed Ali. Then he tricked us. We should go to Wilden with the IMs. Let him deal with it.”
Spencer snorted. “Wilden? He’s done a good job convincing all of Rosewood that we’re crazy. Even if by some miracle he does believe us, no one else on the police force would.”
“What about Ian’s parents?” Emily suggested. “They got a note from him too. They’d believe us.”
Spencer pointed to another line on the IM exchange. “Yeah, but what would that do? His parents would have yet more proof that Ian’s alive, but they might tell the cops that his IMs came from a computer in Rosewood. And then the cops would track him down and rearrest him.”
“Which would be a good thing,” Emily reminded her.
Spencer gave her a helpless look. “What if this is a test? Suppose we do tell the cops or his parents…and something happens to one of us? Or what if something happens to Melissa? Ian thought he was IMing her, after all.” Spencer rubbed her gloved hands together. “Melissa and I don’t get along, but I don’t want to put her in danger.”
Aria stepped off the swing, grabbed Spencer’s phone, and looked at A’s text. “This note says now it’s up to us to figure it out…or we’ll be next.”
“Meaning?” Emily stuck her boot into a patch of snow.
“We have to prove who Ali’s real killer is,” Aria answered matter-of-factly. “Or else.”
“Do you think the killer is the person—or people—in Ian’s IMs?” Spencer asked. “The people who hated him? The ones who found out he knew?”
“Who hated Ian?” Emily scratched her head. “Everyone at Rosewood adored him.”
Hanna snorted. “Guys, this is retarded. I don’t really feel like playing Veronica Mars.” She unzipped her bag, pulled out an iPhone from the inside pocket, and turned it on. “The best way to stay away from A is to do what I did: get a new phone and an unlisted number. Voilà, A can’t find us.” She started jabbing at the phone’s screen.
Emily exchanged a wary look with the others. “A has gotten in touch with us in other ways, Hanna.”
Hanna pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, still texting. “This A hasn’t.”
“It doesn’t mean that this A won’t,” Spencer said firmly.
Hanna clamped her lips together, looking annoyed. “Well, if Ian is A, I guess we won’t have to worry. Because Ian has no way of getting my new phone number.”
Emily gazed at Hanna, not quite sure how Hanna could be so certain…especially if Ian really was still here in Rosewood.
“So do we search, or not?” Aria said after a moment.
The girls stared at each other. Emily had no idea how they could even attempt to search for Ali’s real killer. They weren’t cops. They didn’t have forensic experience. But she understood why they couldn’t turn to the cops—after the Dead Ian Scandal, the cops would just laugh at them and tell them to stop wasting their time.
She stared across the courtyard. More sixth graders paraded toward the classrooms. A few gathered around a sign hanging outside the door, talking giddily. “I’m going to find a piece,” said a brunette girl with sparkly clips in her hair. “Yeah, right,” said her friend, a petite Asian girl with a high ponytail. “You’ll never figure out those clues.”
Emily squinted at the sign’s block letters. TIME CAPSULE IS HERE! HAVE YOU STARTED SEARCHING YET?
“Remember how excited everyone was for Time Capsule the first year we were able to play?” Hanna murmured, watching the girls too.
Aria pointed to the bike racks near the sixth-grade entrance. “That was where Ali announced that she knew where one of the pieces was.”
“That was so annoying.” Spencer groaned, making a face. “She cheated—Jason told her where it was. She didn’t even have to solve the clues. That’s why I wanted to steal Ali’s piece—I didn’t think she deserved it.”
“Except you didn’t get to steal it,” Hanna singsonged. “Because someone stole it first. And we’ll never find out who.”
Aria coughed loudly. Bottled water spewed out of her mouth. Everyone turned to look at her. “I’m fine,” she assured them, wheezing.
The high school bell rang, and the girls broke apart. Spencer walked off quickly, barely saying good-bye. Hanna lingered, tapping her iPhone. Emily fell in step with Aria. For a while, the only sound was their shoes crunching through the icy crust of snow on the commons. Emily wondered if Aria was thinking about the same thing she was—could Ian be telling the truth? Was someone else behind Ali’s murder?
