Hanna flew past the snow-covered benches and a big green sign that said, PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG!

Had she been a fool to so easily befriend Kate? Was this another one of Kate’s tricks? What if Kate was as diabolical as Mona was, and this was all a well-laid plan to ruin Hanna’s life? Slowly, she let her mind creep over the intricate details of her and Mona’s friendship—or maybe enemy-ship. They had become friends in eighth grade, after Ali had been missing for months. Mona had been the one who’d approached Hanna, complimenting her D&G sneakers and the David Yurman bracelet she’d gotten for her birthday. Hanna was weirded out at first—Mona was a dork, after all—but eventually, she’d seen beyond Mona’s exterior. Besides, she needed a new BFF.

But maybe Mona was never her BFF. Maybe she had just been waiting for the precise moment to take Hanna down, to get revenge for all the horrible things Hanna and her friends had said to her. It was Mona who cut Hanna off from her old friends, and it was Mona who had further perpetuated the animosity with Naomi and Riley. Hanna had considered trying to make amends with them after Ali was presumed dead, but Mona had said absolutely not. Naomi and Riley were strictly B-listers, and they should have nothing to do with them.

It was Mona, too, who first suggested that they shoplift, telling Hanna that it would give her such a high. And then there were the things Mona had pulled off as A. Mona had had it so easy with Hanna—she was witness to so many of Hanna’s blunders. Who’d been sitting next to Hanna the night she’d totaled Sean Ackard’s father’s BMW? Who’d been with Hanna when she’d gotten busted for shoplifting from Tiffany?

Her feet sank into random pockets of slush, but she kept running. Everything else Mona had done gushed into her mind, as sloppy and uncontrollable as champagne fizzing out of an uncorked bottle. Mona-as-A had sent her that child-size court dress, knowing that Hanna would wear it to Mona’s birthday party and the dress’s seams would burst. Mona-as-A had gleefully sent Hanna that note that Sean was at Foxy with Aria, knowing for sure that Hanna would rush back to Rosewood and chew Sean out, ruining her dinner with her dad and making Kate look like the perfect, obedient little daughter yet again.

Wait a minute. Hanna stopped short under a copse of trees. Something about that didn’t fit. Hanna had told Mona that she was back in touch with her dad, but she hadn’t told her she was ditching Foxy to hang out with him in Philly. Even if Mona somehow found out about it some other way, she couldn’t have known that Kate and Isabel would be there too. Hanna remembered how Isabel and Kate had knocked on the door of her father’s suite in the Four Seasons. “Surprise!” they’d called. Mona couldn’t have known that was going to happen.

Unless…

Hanna breathed in sharply. The sky seemed to darken a few shades. There was only one way Mona could have known Kate and Isabel were going to show up in Philly: if Mona and Kate had secretly corresponded beforehand.

It made sense. Mona knew about Kate, obviously. An early A note had been a newspaper clipping about Kate receiving yet another school award. Maybe Mona had called Kate and told her the whole evil scheme. And since Kate hated Hanna so much, she’d gone along with it. That could explain how Kate knew to press Hanna to tell her what was wrong in Le Bec-Fin’s bathroom. Or how Kate knew to glance in Hanna’s purse—maybe Kate already knew Hanna had a Percocet stash. “She bragged that she had some,” Mona might have whispered to Kate over the phone, prepping her. “And she’ll totally trust that you won’t tell on her if you ask if you can have one. But after she’s gone for about an hour or so, when her dad’s starting to freak, bust it out. Tell him Hanna forced you to take it.”

“Oh my God,” Hanna whispered, looking around. The sweat on her neck began to drip icily down her back. Kate and Hanna bonding together as the school’s queen bees, Naomi and Riley becoming their BFFs—what if it was all part of Mona’s grand scheme? And what if Kate was doing Mona’s bidding…and really was planning to bring Hanna down?

Hanna’s knees buckled. She lowered herself to the ground, dropping awkwardly on her right arm.

What if it never ended?

Her stomach turned over. She lunged to the edge of the trail and threw up into the grass. Tears came to her eyes, and her throat burned. She felt so lost. And lonely. She had no idea anymore what in her life was true and what wasn’t.

After a few minutes, she wiped her mouth and turned around. The paved trail was empty in both directions. It was so quiet, Hanna could hear her stomach loudly gurgling. The bushes across the path started to shake. It seemed like there was someone caught between them, trying to get out. Hanna tried to move, but all her limbs felt the way her arm had after her accident—useless. The thrashing in the bushes grew more and more frantic.

It’s Mona’s ghost, a voice inside Hanna’s head screamed. Or Ali’s ghost. Or Ian.

The trees parted. Hanna let out a strangled yell and squeezed her eyes shut. But when she opened them a few seconds later, the path was still empty. Hanna blinked, looking around. And then she saw what had been making all that fuss—a little gray bunny, twitching near a patch of dried-up clover.

“You scared me,” Hanna scolded the bunny. She creakily stood back up, her pulse slowing down. Her nose burned with the smell of her own vomit. A woman in a pink Windbreaker jogged by, still smelling like the Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume she’d probably worn to work. Then a guy with a big black-and-white Great Dane passed. The world was full of people again.

As the bunny disappeared into the bushes, Hanna’s head started to clear. She took a few deep, cleansing breaths, her perspective restored. This was all just a ruse to mess with her head—by Ian, or whatever dumb kid was pretending to be the new A. Mona couldn’t control the universe from beyond the grave. Besides, Kate had hinted at her devastating relationship with Herpes Boy. Kate wouldn’t have admitted something like that if she was plotting to destroy Hanna forever.

Hanna jogged the half mile back to the Y’s parking lot, suddenly feeling much better. Her BlackBerry was nestled on the Prius’s passenger seat, and there were no new messages in her inbox. As she drove home, Hanna wanted to open up a reply text to A’s last note and write, Nice try, faux A. You almost got me. She felt guilty, too, for icily ignoring all Kate’s texts today and avoiding her in the halls. Maybe there was a way she could make it up to her. Maybe tomorrow they could drop by Jamba Juice before prepping for the benefit, and Hanna could treat Kate to a sugar-free Mango Mantra.

When she got home, the house was dark and quiet. “Hello?” Hanna called out, dropping her wet running shoes in the laundry room and unwinding the elastic from her hair. She wondered where everyone was. “Kate?”

As Hanna made her way upstairs, she heard a small, muffled voice. Kate’s bedroom door was closed, and music Hanna didn’t recognize filtered out. “Kate?” Hanna called quietly.

No answer. Hanna raised her fist to knock, when Kate let out a screechy cackle. “It’ll work,” Kate said. “I promise.”

Hanna frowned. It sounded like Kate was talking on the phone. She pressed her ear to Kate’s door, curious. “No, I promise,” Kate urged in a low voice. “Trust me. And it’s almost time—I can’t wait!”

Then Kate let out a low, nasty snicker. Hanna shot away from the door like it was on fire, covering her mouth. Kate’s snicker evolved into a full-on laugh.

Hanna backed down the hall, horrified. It was the kind of laugh she couldn’t help but recognize—she and Mona used to snicker like that when they were in the midst of planning something huge. They’d made that snickering noise when Hanna plotted to fake-friend Naomi because she’d stolen Mona’s date to the Sweetheart Dance. And they’d snickered like that when Mona created a fake MySpace page for Aiden Stewart, a cute guy from the Quaker school, and used it to torment Rebecca Lowry because Rebecca had nominated herself for Snow Queen, an honor that was rightfully supposed to go to Hanna. This isn’t going to be pretty, the snicker always implied, but this is what the bitch deserves. And we’re sure as hell going to find it fucking hilarious.

All of Hanna’s worries rushed back in as thunderously as a mudslide cascading down a mountain. It sounded like Kate was planning something huge too, and Hanna had a pretty good idea what it might be.

25

INTO THE BATHROOM…BUT OUT OF THE CLOSET

As soon as Emily and Isaac pulled into the Hastings family’s round driveway Saturday evening, a valet rushed to the car door and asked for their IDs. “We want to get a record of everyone who’s here,” the guy said. Emily noticed there was a gun on his belt.

Isaac glanced at the gun, then at Emily. He touched her hand. “Don’t worry. Ian’s probably halfway around the world today.”

Emily tried to hide her wince. Ian had been missing for a full day now. Emily had told Isaac she was one of Ali’s best friends and had attended the trial yesterday, leaving out, of course, that she had been receiving threatening notes from New A—who Emily was convinced was Ian. Unfortunately, Emily had a pretty good idea that Ian wasn’t halfway around the world by now, but still here in Rosewood, digging for some big secret he thought the cops were hiding.

Part of Emily was furious at Spencer for not telling them about Ian’s eerie visit sooner. At the same time, Emily understood why Spencer hadn’t told. Spencer had shown them the note that Ian had sent after his visit, the one that said Spencer would suffer if she said a word about it to anyone. Besides, it wasn’t like Emily had said much about her own A note, the one that threatened to tell Isaac if Emily told about A. It seemed Ian was as cunning as Mona had been, knowing precisely how to keep all of them quiet.

Still, right after Spencer admitted the truth, the girls had tried to grab a cop to tell him what had happened, but the entire Rosewood PD was already off on an Ian manhunt. Spencer’s parents had debated whether holding tonight’s fund-raiser was even appropriate, but they’d decided to just be very, very cautious. Spencer had called Emily and her old friends last night and begged them to please come so they could all be together for moral support.

Emily tugged at the bottom hem of the dress she’d borrowed from Carolyn and stepped out of the Volvo. Spencer’s house was all lit up like a birthday cake. Wilden’s police car was parked front and center, and a few more valets were directing traffic. As Isaac took her hand, Emily noticed Seth Cardiff, her ex-boyfriend Ben’s best friend, getting out of a car behind them. She tensed her shoulders and grabbed Isaac’s arm.

“This way,” she said urgently, pushing Isaac roughly up the front walk. Then she saw Eric Kahn standing on the porch. If Eric was there, Noel was undoubtedly close by.

“Er, wait.” She pulled Isaac into a shadowy spot next to a large, snow-laden shrub and pretended like she was searching through her silver clutch. The wind shook the branches on the big evergreen next to them. Emily suddenly wondered if what she was doing was nuts. Here she was, standing in the dark, when a crazy murderer was on the lam.