“Open the door!” Ali screamed. The bedsprings inside the room squeaked. A drawer slid open, then closed. And then, distinctly, she heard a high-pitched giggle. It kind of sounded like a witch’s cackle and sent a shiver down her spine.
“I know what you’re doing!” Ali said, pressing her cheek against the door. “You can’t get away with this!”
She heard footsteps, and the door flung open. Her sister was wearing the striped halter again, just as Ali feared. Her hair was in a high ponytail, her new Polaroid was on a strap around her neck, and she had a big smile on her face. She held Ali’s gaze for so long that Ali began to feel nervous.
“Why not?” Courtney finally asked, her voice full of mirth. “You did.”
31
THE ULTIMATE POWER
Thursday evening after graduation, a battered Subaru pulled up to Ali’s front curb. Ali watched through the window as Aria spilled out from the backseat, pirouetted onto the lawn, and buried her face in the grass. “Delicious,” Ali heard her murmur.
Mrs. DiLaurentis touched Ali’s arm. “Aren’t you going to go out there?”
Ali whipped around and looked at her mother. Her heart was pounding as though she’d run a zillion laps around the hockey field. Every sound from upstairs, where her sister had been kept during graduation, made her tense up. “Are you sure you’ll keep her inside?” she asked, glancing toward the stairs.
A guilty look crossed her mother’s face. It was clear she felt terrible for letting Ali’s sister into her room to fool her friends, and she’d been trying for the past forty-eight hours to make it up to Ali. They’d ordered takeout from Ali’s favorite sushi place as a graduation dinner. She’d slipped Ali a pair of diamond stud earrings before the ceremony that afternoon, a graduation gift. But it didn’t fix what had happened. Courtney had fooled her friends. Courtney had been seen.
What if there had been something different about Courtney, something telling that her friends had noticed? She imagined them going home Tuesday night and discussing it on a four-way phone call. Her eyes looked a little different on the patio, don’t you think? Aria might have said. And then Hanna would have piped up with, And Ali wouldn’t wear a halter top like that. And then Spencer: You know, I’ve seen a light on in the guest room. And I’ve heard rumors over the years.
But no. There hadn’t been any rumors, had there? This had been a contained secret. Then, Ali thought of Jenna. What if she’d said something? Maybe just an innocent comment to Spencer once, something Spencer refused to believe. Or what about the man her mother had told? Maybe he’d said something. Her friends could have had an inkling all along.
What if they were slowly figuring it out? Everything, even the switch?
“You have nothing to worry about,” Mrs. DiLaurentis said softly, breaking Ali from her thoughts. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. “Although honestly, honey, I wish you’d just tell them.”
“No,” Ali almost shrieked.
“Why not? They’ll understand. They won’t care that you kept this from them, if that’s what you’re worried about. People keep things from people all the time.”
“Yeah, you know that all too well,” Ali snapped.
Mrs. DiLaurentis flinched. Reflexively, she raised her hand to Ali, and Ali thought she was going to slap her again, but she only used it to push a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Let’s not get into that again,” she said in an even tone.
Ali gritted her teeth. Did her mother just expect her to forget everything? There was a man out there who was her real father—she was sure of it—someone her mother was keeping from her. She was determined to find out who it was. She’d considered telling Mr. DiLaurentis, but then she’d decided that it was more powerful to wait until she uncovered the man’s identity.
When she turned back to the window, Emily was in the yard now, too, wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a nondescript blue T-shirt. She and Aria were joking around near Ali’s flower bushes. And then Ali had another thought: If she didn’t go out soon, her friends would ring the doorbell. Maybe they’d insist on coming in the house. What if Courtney appeared at the top of the stairs? What if the girls wanted to go upstairs, into Ali’s room, and Courtney loomed in the doorway?
She nudged open the front door with her toe and flounced out to greet them. The hem of her field hockey skirt, which she’d worn to the team’s end-of-the-year party this afternoon, fluttered in the breeze.