Pretty Little Secrets

Aria took another step out of the garage, her heel landing in a pile of slush. “But not like this. We could really get in trouble. I thought you came here to escape trouble.”



Hallbjorn’s face fell. “Well, I thought you’d be into the idea. I thought you cared.”



“I do care. I love how committed you are to causes like this, and I want to share in your passion. But not by breaking the law.”



Aria glanced over her shoulder. They could get in trouble just by being here. Biedermeister and Bitschi could sue them for trespassing. And this place was so grim. All of the snowdrifts had turned black from truck exhaust. The smell of cat poop was making her eyes water. She looked down at the snake ring on her finger. Suddenly, the jocularity of their wedding ceremony seemed long ago and far away.



“Maybe we should think about this a little bit more,” Aria said, winding her arm around Hallbjorn’s waist. “If you really want to help the panthers, we should call some sort of authority—someone who can take them to a safe place. Besides, this is our wedding night. Wouldn’t you rather be doing wedding-night things instead of planning how to set panthers free?”



Hallbjorn’s mouth twisted. Aria could tell he was cracking.



She traced a pattern on his back. “Just think. Tomorrow morning we could wake up together as man and wife, watch the sunrise, have breakfast in bed . . .”



She walked her fingers up his back and pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. Hallbjorn glanced again at the panthers in their cages. Aria tilted his gaze away and lightly kissed his neck. “Please?”



Finally, Hallbjorn sighed. “How can I say no to you?”



“You can’t. I’m your wife. You have to do everything I say.”



Chuckling, Hallbjorn shut the garage door and mounted the tandem bike once more. Aria climbed on the back, and they rode to the hotel’s main entrance. As they rounded the corner, Aria heard another tormented roar. Hallbjorn’s back muscles tensed. But he kept pedaling, and eventually, the sad, lonely growl faded away.



Chapter 12



Mass Panic



Aria opened her eyes. She was standing on a lawn outside a courthouse. A whole town spread out before her over the hillside. It was Rosewood. From her vantage point, she could see Rosewood Day and the Hollis spire. She could even see the top of the Hastings house with its antique rooster weather vane.



But how did she get here? Did it have something to do with her marriage to Hallbjorn? Was she in trouble for forging Ella’s signature? She peered again at the ground and wrinkled her nose. The snow was gone. In fact, the grass looked kind of . . . green. How could a foot and a half have melted so quickly?



The doors to the courthouse flung open, and a flurry of people and reporters with cameras and microphones burst onto the steps. “Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomas!” Ian Thomas rushed down the stairs with his lawyer and ducked into a waiting car at the curb.



Aria’s head began to pound. She’d witnessed this scene before. This was Ian’s arraignment. Last month.



“Hey.”



Aria swiveled around. When she saw the blond figure with the heart-shaped face standing before her, a scream froze in her throat. “Ali?” she whispered.



“In the flesh,” the girl said, curtseying. “Did you miss me?”



Aria stared at her. It was Ali . . . but it wasn’t. She was taller now. Older. Her boobs were bigger and her face thinner, but her voice was eerily just the same. So were those haunting blue eyes, the ones that always gleamed with mischief whenever she proposed a new dare, the ones that always narrowed whenever Aria or the others said something she deemed uncool.



Aria gripped the side of her head as though to keep her brain from exploding out of her skull. She glanced back at the crowd in front of the courthouse. The reporters were surrounding Ian’s car, banging on the windows. But they should be talking to Ali, not Ian. Why didn’t they see her?



“Don’t bother getting their attention.” Ali coolly reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “Only you can see me.”



Aria widened her eyes. “What do you mean?”



“I’m here just for you.” The words on their own could have been a compliment, but Ali’s tone twisted them to make them sound menacing and scary. “I’m keeping tabs on you, Aria. I’m watching your every move.”



“Why?” Aria blinked hard.



Ali lit the cigarette and blew a smoke ring. “You know why.” She offered Aria a drag of the cigarette, but Aria shook her head.



“He doesn’t really love you, you know.”



It felt like Ali had dumped a bucket of cold water over Aria’s head. “Excuse me?” she sputtered.



Ali stubbed out the cigarette with her high-heeled bootie. “No one could ever love a kook like you. Noel didn’t want you. Ezra couldn’t get away from you fast enough. Hallbjorn is just using you.” She sauntered toward a waiting Town Car that had pulled up from out of nowhere and slid into the backseat. “I was your only real friend, and you let me die. You don’t deserve to be loved.”



“Ali?” Aria cried, taking a few steps toward the car. “Wait! Where are you going?”



Ali didn’t answer. The Town Car pulled away from the curb with a sputter of noxious exhaust. Aria got a big mouthful and staggered backwards. It felt like there were shards of glass in her lungs. A high-pitched giggle spiraled over the trees.



Aria shot up in bed, breathing hard. Her heart pounded in her ears. Her feet kicked under the sweaty covers. She looked around. She was in the room at the Borgata. Sun streamed through the windows. The clock on the side table said 9:03 A.M.



She rubbed her eyes for a long time. The images had been so vivid. Ali’s telltale laugh. Ali’s haunting blue eyes. But it was all a figment of Aria’s psyche, right?



The details of last night slowly came back to her, thanks to some clues around the room. The remains of the room service dinner she and Hallbjorn had eaten were still on a tray by the window. A drained bottle of champagne was tipped over on the floor. Hallbjorn’s tuxedo lay in a crumpled pile on the chair along with Aria’s vintage dress. The JUST MARRIED sign, which they’d propped up against the mirror, had fallen over. After they’d eaten, they’d collapsed into bed, swigging flutes of champagne. The alcohol had hit them both quickly, and they’d passed out before they could make the marriage, er, official.



The TV flickered, again tuned to the resort’s in-house channel. The commercial for the silver panther show appeared, the magicians parading around the stage in their ridiculous shoulder-padded costumes. Aria hit MUTE, not wanting Hallbjorn to be reminded of those poor panthers again.



Only, where was Hallbjorn? His side of the bed was empty. He wasn’t at the little dining table. There were no noises coming from the bathroom, either, and his hiking boots, which he’d kicked off by the minibar fridge, were gone.



Aria reached for her iPhone before she remembered—there was no way to reach Hallbjorn, as he’d ditched his phone before leaving Iceland, worried the police might be able to track it. She called down to the concierge instead, asking if they’d seen a very blond boy wandering through the lobby. Maybe he’d woken up early and gone to breakfast.



“I haven’t seen anyone by that description,” the perky woman who answered at the front desk said. “But I could page him for you. What was his last name again?”



“Gunterson.” Aria spelled it out. “Yes, please page him. Tell him his wife is looking for him.” It felt weird to say wife.



“I’ll have him call you if he comes to the desk,” the concierge said, then hung up with a click.



Aria paced around the hotel room, occasionally pulling back the curtains and staring at the empty beach out the window. After a few minutes, she couldn’t stand being in the room for another second and grabbed her keys. The hallway was eerily empty. A door quickly shut, as if someone didn’t want to be seen. The elevator cables creaked and moaned, sounding like screams. The dream throbbed in Aria’s mind. He’s just using you, Ali had said.



She rode the elevator to the ground floor and checked the fitness room, but only a couple of chubby women were walking on the treadmills, drinking something called AminoSpa. She popped her head into the little restaurant that served the buffet breakfast, but Hallbjorn wasn’t there, either. She pushed through the revolving doors that led to the valet parking area. What if the Icelandic police had tracked Hallbjorn here and took him away while Aria was sleeping?



Suddenly, Aria wanted nothing more than to see Hallbjorn’s blond head appear over the dunes. She craned her neck, hoping. When someone appeared, her heart lifted, but it was a middle-aged woman in a down coat instead. She was running at top speed.



“Take cover!” the woman screamed, shooting past Aria and through the revolving door into the hotel. A man sprinted up from the dunes next, glancing nervously over his shoulder. More people followed, terrified looks on their faces. All of them kept checking behind them, as though they were trying to outrun a tsunami.



A guy Mike’s age grabbed Aria’s arm. “Get back inside!” he shouted. “It’s dangerous out here!”



“Why?” Aria squinted at him.



“Didn’t you hear?” The guy looked at Aria like a tree branch had just sprouted out of her head. He pulled Aria inside and pointed to a TV screen tuned to CNN in the corner of the lobby. The Atlantic City skyline was on the screen. An anchor stared excitedly into the camera.



“Apparently, the incident happened just a few minutes ago, and we’re getting the very first footage of the rampage in Atlantic City,” the reporter said.



Rampage? Atlantic City? Aria moved closer to the TV. Was a serial killer targeting the city? She glanced out the window again, fearing for Hallbjorn’s life. What on earth had she done, dragging him here? What if he was hurt?



Then she turned back to the TV screen. A banner had appeared at the bottom. Deadly Cats Loose in Atlantic City, NJ.



Aria opened her mouth to scream, but no sounds came out.



A picture of the two silver panthers appeared, along with a shot of Biedermeister and Bitschi in their magician’s capes. “Panthers are very dangerous,” the CNN correspondent said. “They’ve been known to maul humans, so please, everyone in Atlantic City, stay inside.”



Aria sank into a chair, feeling dizzy. The next shot on the screen was of the tiny cages where the panthers had been held that Aria had seen the night before. Both doors were wide open, the locks broken. Words had been spray-painted on the cement floor in front of the cages. Panthers have rights, too. Animal cruelty is wrong.



“I can’t believe someone could do such a thing,” a woman who had come to a stop next to Aria murmured. “Do you think it’s al-Qaeda?”



Bile rose in Aria’s throat. She inched away from the woman as though she were culpable, too. She knew exactly who had done it. Without a shadow of a doubt.



Hallbjorn.



Chapter 13



Mistakes Were Made



In a matter of minutes, every guest of the Borgata was cowering in the lobby, too afraid to go outside and face the loose panthers. Rumors of panther sightings swirled. People had seen them on the beach, near the local diner that was famous for its blueberry pancakes, and roaring outside the Trump Taj Mahal. Apparently one of the panthers had trapped a child under the boardwalk; a couple of people had thrown hamburger meat on the sand, distracting the cat and allowing the kid to escape. The other panther had found its way into a strip club. Every stripper and patron was forced to evacuate, the girls standing in the parking lot in next to nothing.