Flawless

Spencer lit another Parliament and turned out of the Rosewood Abbey parking lot. See? A couldn’t possibly know everything, like the text had said. Unless, that was, A was Toby Cavanaugh…But that didn’t make sense. A’s notes to Spencer were about a secret that only Ali knew: back in seventh grade, Spencer had kissed Ian, her sister Melissa’s boyfriend. Spencer had admitted what she’d done to Ali—but no one else. And A also knew about Wren, her sister’s now-ex, whom Spencer had done more than just kiss last week.



But the Cavanaughs did live on Spencer’s street. With binoculars, Toby might be able to see in her window. And Toby was in Rosewood, even though it was September. Shouldn’t he be at boarding school?



Spencer pulled into the brick-paved driveway of the Rosewood Day School. Her friends were already there, huddling by the elementary school jungle gym. It was a beautiful wooden castle, complete with turrets, flags, and a dragon-shaped slide. The parking lot was deserted, the brick walkways were empty, and the practice fields were silent; the whole school had the day off in Ali’s memory.



“So we all got texts from this A person?” Hanna asked as Spencer approached. Everyone had her cell phone out and was staring at the I know everything note.



“I got two others,” Emily said tentatively. “I thought they were from Ali.”



“I did too!” Hanna gasped, slapping her hand on the climbing dome. Aria and Spencer nodded as well. They all looked at one another with wide, nervous eyes.



“What did yours say?” Spencer looked at Emily.



Emily pushed a lock of blondish-red hair out of her eye. “It’s…personal.”



Spencer was so surprised, she laughed aloud. “You don’t have any secrets, Em!” Emily was the purest, sweetest girl on the planet.



Emily looked offended. “Yeah, well, I do.”



“Oh.” Spencer plopped down on one of the slide’s steps. She breathed in, expecting to smell mulch and sawdust. Instead she caught a whiff of burning hair—just like the night of Jenna’s accident. “How about you, Hanna?”



Hanna wrinkled her pert little nose. “If Emily’s not talking about hers, I don’t want to talk about mine. It was something only Ali knew.”



“Same with mine,” Aria said quickly. She lowered her eyes. “Sorry.”



Spencer felt her stomach clench up. “So everyone has secrets only Ali knew?”



Everyone nodded. Spencer snorted nastily. “I thought we were best friends.”



Aria turned to Spencer and frowned. “So what did yours say, then?”



Spencer didn’t feel like her Ian secret was all that juicy. It was nothing compared to what else she knew about The Jenna Thing. But now she felt too proud to tell. “It’s a secret Ali knew, same as yours.” She pushed her long dirty-blond hair behind her ears. “But A also e-mailed me about something that’s happening now. It felt like someone was spying on me.”



Aria’s ice-blue eyes widened. “Same here.”



“So there’s someone watching all of us,” Emily said. A ladybug landed delicately on her shoulder, and she shook it off as though it were something much scarier.



Spencer stood up. “Do you think it could be…Toby?”



Everyone looked surprised. “Why?” Aria asked.



“He’s part of The Jenna Thing,” Spencer said carefully. “What if he knows?”



Aria pointed to the text on her Treo. “You really think this is about…The Jenna Thing?”



Spencer licked her lips. Tell them. “We still don’t know why Toby took the blame,” she suggested, testing to see what the others would say.



Hanna thought for a moment. “The only way Toby could know what we did is if one of us told.” She looked at the others distrustfully. “I didn’t tell.”



“Me neither,” Aria and Emily quickly piped up.



“What if Toby found out another way?” Spencer asked.



“You mean if someone else saw Ali that night and told him?” Aria asked. “Or if he saw Ali?”



“No…I mean…I don’t know,” Spencer said. “I’m just throwing it out there.”



Tell them, Spencer thought again, but she couldn’t. Everyone seemed wary of one another, sort of like it had been right after Ali went missing, when their friendship disintegrated. If Spencer told them the truth about Toby, they’d hate her for not having told the police when Ali disappeared. Maybe they’d even blame her for Ali’s death. Maybe they should. What if Toby really had…done it? “It was just a thought,” she heard herself saying. “I’m probably wrong.”



“Ali said no one knew except for us.” Emily’s eyes looked wet. “She swore to us. Remember?”



“Besides,” Hanna added, “how could Toby know that much about us? I could see it being one of Ali’s old hockey friends, or her brother, or someone she actually spoke to. But she hated Toby’s guts. We all did.”



Spencer shrugged. “You’re probably right.” As soon as she said it, she relaxed. She was obsessing over nothing.



Everything was quiet. Maybe too quiet. A tree branch snapped close by, and Spencer whirled around sharply. The swings swayed back and forth, as if someone had just jumped off. A brown bird perched atop the Rosewood Day Elementary roof glared at them, as if it knew things, too.



“I think someone’s just trying to mess with us,” Aria whispered.



“Yeah,” Emily agreed, but she sounded just as unconvinced.



“So, what if we get another note?” Hanna tugged her short black dress over her slender thighs. “We should at least figure out who it is.”



“How about, if we get another note, we call each other,” Spencer suggested. “We could try to put the pieces together. But I don’t think we should do anything, like, crazy. We should try not to worry.”



“I’m not worried,” Hanna said quickly.



“Me neither,” Aria and Emily said at the same time. But when a horn honked on the main road, everyone jumped.



“Hanna!” Mona Vanderwaal, Hanna’s best friend, poked her pale blond head out the window of a yellow Hummer H3. She wore large, pink-tinted aviator sunglasses.



Hanna looked at the others unapologetically. “I’ve gotta go,” she murmured, and ran up the hill.



Over the last few years, Hanna had reinvented herself into one of the most popular girls at Rosewood Day. She’d lost weight, dyed her hair a sexy dark auburn, got a whole new designer wardrobe, and now she and Mona Vanderwaal—also a transformed dork—pranced around school, too good for everyone else. Spencer wondered what Hanna’s big secret could be.



“I should go too.” Aria pushed her slouchy purple purse higher on her shoulder. “So…I’ll call you guys.” She headed for her Subaru.



Spencer lingered by the swings. So did Emily, whose normally cheerful face looked drawn and tired. Spencer put a hand on Emily’s freckled arm. “You all right?”



Emily shook her head. “Ali. She’s—”



“I know.”



They awkwardly hugged, then Emily broke away for the woods, saying she was going to take the shortcut home. For years, Spencer, Emily, Aria, and Hanna hadn’t spoken, even if they sat behind one another in history class or were alone together in the girls’ bathroom. Yet Spencer knew things about all of them—intricate parts of their personalities only a close friend could know. Like, of course Emily was taking Ali’s death the hardest. They used to call Emily “Killer” because she defended Ali like a possessive Rottweiler.



Back in her car, Spencer sank into the leather seat and turned on the radio. She spun the dial and found 610 AM, Philly’s sports radio station. Something about over-testosteroned guys barking about Phillies and Sixers stats calmed her. She’d hoped talking to her old friends might clear some things up, but now things just felt even…ickier. Even with Spencer’s massive SAT vocabulary, she couldn’t think of a better word to describe it than that.



When her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, she pulled it out, thinking it was probably Emily or Aria. Maybe even Hanna. Spencer frowned and opened her inbox.



Spence, I don’t blame you for not telling them our little secret about Toby. The truth can be dangerous—and you don’t want them getting hurt, do you? —A



2



HANNA 2.0



Mona Vanderwaal put her parents’ Hummer into park but left the engine running. She tossed her cell phone into her oversize, cognac-colored Lauren Merkin tote and grinned at her best friend, Hanna. “I’ve been trying to call you.”



Hanna stood cautiously on the pavement. “Why are you here?”



“What are you talking about?”



“Well, I didn’t ask you for a ride.” Trembling, Hanna pointed to her Toyota Prius in the parking lot. “My car’s right there. Did someone tell you I was here, or…?”



Mona wound a long, white-blond strand of hair around her finger. “I’m on my way home from the church, nut job. I saw you, I pulled over.” She let out a little laugh. “You take one of your mom’s Valiums? You seem sort of messed up.”



Hanna pulled a Camel Ultra Light out of the pack in her black Prada hobo bag and lit up. Of course she was messed up. Her old best friend had been murdered, and she’d been receiving terrifying text messages from someone named A all week. Every moment of today—getting ready for Ali’s funeral, buying Diet Coke at Wawa, merging onto the highway toward the Rosewood Abbey—she felt sure someone was watching her. “I didn’t see you at the church,” she murmured.



Mona took her sunglasses off to reveal her round blue eyes. “You looked right at me. I waved at you. Any of this sound familiar?”



Hanna shrugged. “I…don’t remember.”



“Well, I guess you were busy with your old friends,” Mona shot back.



Hanna bristled. Her old friends were a sticky subject between them—back a million years ago, Mona was one of the girls Ali, Hanna, and the others teased. She became the girl to rag on, after Jenna got hurt. “Sorry. It was crowded.”



“It’s not like I was hiding.” Mona sounded hurt. “I was sitting behind Sean.”



Hanna inhaled sharply. Sean.



Sean Ackard was her now ex-boyfriend; their relationship had imploded at Noel Kahn’s welcome-back-to-school field party last Friday night. Hanna had made the decision that Friday was going to be the night she lost her virginity, but when she started to put the moves on Sean, he dumped her and gave her a sermon about respecting her body. In revenge, Hanna took the Ackard family’s BMW out for a joyride with Mona and wrapped it around a telephone pole in front of a Home Depot.



Mona pressed her peep-toe heel on the Hummer’s gas pedal, revving the car’s billion-cylinder engine. “So listen. We have an emergency—we don’t have dates yet.”



“To what?” Hanna blinked.



Mona raised a perfectly waxed blond eyebrow. “Hello, Hanna? To Foxy! It’s this weekend. Now that you dumped Sean, you can ask someone cool.”