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She thought about what her parents had told her in the hospital: that although Olivia had carried Spencer, she was the product of her dad and her mom. If what Ian suggested was true, it would mean that Spencer and Ali were . . . related. Sisters.
And then Spencer remembered something else.
She jumped to her feet and wheeled around, gazing unfocusedly into her room. Then she ran down to her dad’s office. Thankfully, it was empty. She pulled the Yale yearbook off the wall and held it upside down. The blurry Polaroid photo fell to the Oriental rug. Spencer picked it up and stared at it.
The lines were blurry, but the heart-shaped face and corn-silk blond hair were unmistakable. Spencer should have known immediately. The picture wasn’t of Olivia. It was of Jessica DiLaurentis—a very pregnant Jessica DiLaurentis.
Shaking, Spencer turned it over and looked at the date that was written on the back. June 2, almost seventeen years ago. It was a few weeks before Ali was born.
She clutched her stomach, holding in a nauseated heave. If her mother had known about the affair, it explained why she hated Ali. It had probably driven her crazy, knowing that the physical embodiment of her failed marriage was living next door to them—and worse, that she was the girl who everyone loved. The girl who got whoever and whatever she wanted.
In fact, if Spencer’s mother’s suspicions were confirmed on that spooky night that seventh grade ended, she might have been pushed right over the edge. It could have made her do something unthinkable and unplanned, something she needed to desperately cover up.
Let’s never talk about that night again, her mother had said. And the day after the seventh-grade sleepover, just after Mrs. DiLaurentis got done questioning the girls, Spencer came upon her mother sitting at the kitchen table, so distracted she didn’t even hear Spencer call her name. Because she was so guilt-addled, maybe. So horrified at what she’d just done to her daughters’ half sister.
“Oh my God,” Spencer croaked. “No.” “No what?”
Spencer spun around fast. Her mother stood in the doorway of the office, dressed in a black silk dress and silver Givenchy heels.
A thin squeak escaped from the back of Spencer’s throat. Then her mother’s eyes moved from the Yale yearbook that was sitting open on the desk to the Polaroid photo in Spencer’s hand. Spencer immediately shoved it in her pocket, but a cloudy look came over her mother’s face. Swiftly, she crossed the room and touched Spencer’s arm. Her hands were ice-cold. When Spencer looked into her mother’s narrowed eyes, she felt a flicker of fear.
“Get your coat, Spence,” Mrs. Hastings said, her voice eerily calm. “We’re going for a ride.”
Chapter 24
Another Breakthrough at the Preserve
Hanna opened her eyes and found herself in a small hospital room. The walls were pea green. Next to her was a big bouquet of flowers and near the door was a smiley-faced GET WELL SOON balloon with accordion arms and legs. Oddly, it was the same balloon her father had given her after Mona hit Hanna with her SUV. And come to think of it, the walls of that room had been this same greenish color, too. When she tilted her neck to the right, she saw a pale silver clutch sitting on the pillow next to her. When had she last used that? And then she remembered: the night of Mona’s Sweet Seventeen party. The night of her accident.
She gasped and jolted up, noticing for the first time the clunky cast on her arm. Had she traveled back in time? Or had she never left the room in the first place? Had the past few months been nothing but a horrible nightmare? Then a familiar figure loomed over her.
“Hi, Hanna,” Ali lilted. She looked taller and older, her face more angular, her hair a slightly darker blond. There was a smudge of soot on her cheek, as if she’d just emerged from the fiery woods.
Hanna blinked. “Am I dead?”
Ali giggled. “No, silly.” Then she cocked her head, listening for something in the distance. “I have to go soon. But listen, okay? She knows more than you think.”
“What?” Hanna cried, struggling to sit up.
An entranced look came over Ali’s face. “We were best friends once,” she said. “But you can’t trust her.”
“Who? Tara?” she blurted, perplexed.
Ali sighed. “She wants to hurt you.”
Hanna struggled to pull her arms out from under the sheets. “What do you mean? Who wants to hurt me?”
“She wants to hurt you like she already hurt me.” Tears rolled down Ali’s cheeks, first salty and clear, then thick and bloody. One plopped square in the middle of Hanna’s cheek. It felt hot and sizzling, like acid seeping through her skin.
Hanna shot up, breathing hard. She felt her cheek, but it no longer stung. The walls around her were pale blue. Moonlight streamed through the big picture window. There were no flowers on her nightstand or balloons in the corner. The bed next to her was empty, the sheets pulled tight. The little shoe-a-day calendar on Iris’s side of the room was still turned to Friday. Hanna must have fallen asleep.
Iris hadn’t yet returned to their shared bedroom after the dreadful GT incident. Hanna wondered if she was still in another part of the facility, enduring her punishment for sneaking magazines in. Hanna had been too ashamed to go to the cafe for lunch, not wanting to give Tara the satisfaction that she’d taken away Hanna’s only friend. The only people she’d seen were Betsy, the nurse who administered meds; Dr. Foster, who apologized to Hanna for her peers’ behavior; and George, one of the janitors who had come to clean out Iris’s People magazines, tossing them into a big gray Dumpster.
