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Spencer arched a brow. “I think your dad can handle it.”
“Try on more!” Zach cried, shoving her back into the tiny booth.
One by one, Amelia tried on new outfits, her hard, bitchy exterior slowly melting away. She even did a tiny twirl in one of the Diane von Furstenberg dresses. By the sixth outfit, she wasn’t even wobbling in the heels. And by the twelfth, Spencer felt so comfortable that Amelia wouldn’t run away screaming that she tried on a fitted Alexander Wang cocktail dress she’d picked out for herself.
Sliding it over her head, she reached around to fasten the back but couldn’t quite grab the zipper. “Zach?” She poked her head out of the dressing room. “Can you help?”
Zach opened the door farther and stood behind her. Spencer’s whole back, including the edge of her red lacy thong, were in full view. Their eyes met in the mirror.
“Thanks for paying attention to my sister,” Zach said. “I know she’s kind of prissy. But you’ve really brought her out of her shell.”
“I’m happy to help.” Spencer smiled. “Makeovers always work wonders.”
Zach’s eyes remained on hers in the mirror. He still didn’t pull up the zipper. Then, slowly, he touched the small of her back with his palm. His warm, smooth hand sent tingles up Spencer’s spine. She turned to face him. He moved his arms up and wrapped them around her waist. They stood just inches from one another, so close that Spencer could smell Zach’s breath mints. In just seconds, their lips would touch. Thousands of questions swarmed in Spencer’s head. But you said you were . . . Are you?. . . What is this . . . ?
“Guys?”
They shot apart. A pair of snakeskin heels peeked under the curtain. “What are you doing in there?” Amelia asked.
“Uh, nothing.” Spencer fumbled away from Zach, knocking into a few garments hanging on the wall. She pulled her jeans back on underneath the dress.
At the same time, Zach smoothed down his shirt and exited the room. “I was just helping Spencer zip something up,” he murmured to his sister.
Amelia’s snakeskin-clad feet turned this way and that. “Is that all you were doing?”
A long pause followed. Zach was saved by his ringing phone, and he padded out of the dressing room hallway to take the call. Spencer slumped down on the little bench inside her alcove and stared at her flustered face in the mirror. If only Zach had answered his sister. Spencer would have loved to know if that was all they’d been doing, too.
Chapter 22
The Bridges of Rosewood County
A few hours later that same Friday, just after the sun was sinking past the tree line, Emily pulled into the parking lot of the Rosewood covered bridge. It was about a mile away from Rosewood Day, constructed from Revolutionary War–era stone, and spanned a small creek filled with fish—in the summer, anyway. Now, in dreary February, the frozen creek was silent and deathly still. The pine trees whispered in the wind, sounding like gossiping ghosts. Every so often, Emily heard a crack or a snap far off in the woods. It wasn’t exactly somewhere she wanted to be right now. The only reason she’d come was because Chloe wanted to meet her here to talk.
She got out and walked under the bridge, inhaling the scent of wet wood. Just like everything else in Rosewood, the bridge held a sad memory. Emily and Ali visited it once in the late spring of seventh grade, sitting under its shady cover and listening to the creek rushing beneath them. “You know that guy I told you about, Em?” Ali sing-songed happily. She’d often teased Emily about an older guy she was in love with. Later, Emily found out it was Ian Thomas. “I think I’m going to bring him here tonight so we can make out.” Ali twisted the string friendship bracelet she’d made for all of them around her wrist and gave Emily a sly, I-know-just-how-badly-I’m-breaking-your-heart smile.
Emily’s memory shifted to the friendship bracelet she’d seen on Tabitha’s wrist. As soon as she’d spotted it, she’d backed away from her fast. Something was really, really wrong.
The crowd on the dance floor and at the bar was thick, making it almost impossible for Emily to find her friends. She finally located Spencer sitting on top of a remote patio table, staring dazedly at the dark, raging ocean. “I know you’re going to tell me I’m crazy,” Emily blurted out, “but you have to believe me.”
Spencer turned and stared, her blue eyes huge. “She’s Ali,” Emily persisted. “She is. I know she doesn’t look like her, but she’s wearing Ali’s old string bracelet—the one she made for us after the Jenna Thing. It’s exactly the same.”
Spencer shut her eyes for a good ten seconds. Then she told Emily how Tabitha insinuated that they looked like long-lost sisters. “It was like she knew me,” she whispered. “It was like . . . she was Ali.”
Emily felt a hot sizzle of fear. Just hearing Spencer say it made it all feel even more real and dangerous. She looked around to make sure no one was listening. “What are we going to do? Call the police?”
“How could we prove it?” Spencer chewed on her bottom lip. “She hasn’t done anything to us.”
“Yet,” Emily said.
“Besides, everyone thinks Ali’s dead,” Spencer continued. “If we tell them a dead girl has come back to life, they’ll have us committed.”
“We have to do something.” The idea of Ali roaming the same resort they were staying at chilled Emily to the bone.
A car door slammed, and footsteps rang out behind her, breaking Emily from her memory. Chloe appeared in the archway of the bridge. “Hey,” Emily called.
