“Isn’t it obvious?” Hanna said. “The accident on Reeds Lane? That horrible night in the rain? A knows.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. The night of Hanna’s accident felt so far removed—it had happened at the beginning of the summer, before anything else. She’d found out she was pregnant just after spring break in Jamaica, and though she’d still been living at home when Hanna had called, she was moving in with Carolyn the following week, much to her sister’s chagrin. When Hanna called Emily, she had almost declined—she had a little belly bulge at the time, and what if the other girls guessed what was going on? It was hard enough to hide it from her parents. Her mother had even commented on Emily’s new billowy-shirt style.
But a split second later, she’d felt terrible. Hanna needed her. And then Aria had called, saying she’d swing by and pick her up, and Emily didn’t know how to say no. In the end, if any of them noticed her belly, no one said anything. They were all too preoccupied with the car crash.
Emily leaned against the bar. “How does A know about that?” she asked, looking at Hanna. They’d been on such a desolate stretch of road, and they’d driven away before the ambulance had arrived. But then more of the night came back to her. They’d possibly hurt the girl. And then they’d run, like it was a prank.
Hanna fiddled with a large, carved tiki-head candle on top of one of the tables. “I’m not sure. But you know that girl in the car, Madison? It turns out she’s Naomi Zeigler’s cousin. Naomi and I have been getting along, and at first I thought it seemed suspicious, but then I figured she’d turned over a new leaf. Until I saw her fake ID—it’s Madison’s picture.”
Aria’s brow furrowed. “So you think Naomi was being nice to you because she’s A?”
“I’m not sure,” Hanna said. “But if she’s not, A is going to tell her about the crash. Naomi will turn us in for sure.”
“Yeah, if A doesn’t turn us in first.” Spencer pointed at Hanna’s phone. “A called you jailbird.”
“Hanna, did Naomi say anything about the accident?” Aria asked.
“Sort of,” Hanna admitted, looking at Spencer. “She mentioned going through some terrible stuff last summer. And she got this weird look on her face when someone asked her who it was on her fake ID. She was like, My cousin doesn’t need her ID anymore.”
“Like she was dead?” Spencer gasped.
Emily’s eyes widened. “In the crash?”
“She couldn’t have died in the crash.” Hanna’s eyes darted back and forth. “She was still breathing when you guys got to the scene.”
“Was she?” Aria squinted. “Did anyone actually check?”
Emily looked around at the others. “I don’t remember if we did or not.”
“I don’t, either,” Aria said.
Spencer’s face was green. “What if we killed her when we moved her?” She slumped against one of the metal posts that propped up the awning. “I dropped her.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions yet, Spence,” Aria said quickly, though she looked just as sick.
“How do you think A knows about that?” Emily asked.
Hanna shrugged. “If A is Naomi, she could have seen the accident from her house. It is just over the hill from the crash, not that I’d ever made that connection.”
“Or maybe Madison lived, and she saw the girl playing you in Pretty Little Killer and figured it out,” Aria piped up.
“No, Madison would’ve had to figure it out before that,” Hanna insisted. “If Naomi is A, she must have known almost immediately—and decided to stalk all of us. That could be how she found out about Gayle and Kelsey.”
Emily nodded, considering this. She had spent time at Gayle’s house that summer, and Gayle had offered to buy Emily’s baby in a café. If Naomi had been following her, it would have been easy for her to figure out what was going on.
Aria ran her hands down the length of her face. “I’m not sure Naomi makes sense as A, though. How could she know about all the other secrets A knows? Like Jamaica—that happened before the thing with Madison.”
“Well, it’s easy to explain how she knew about what happened to us in the summer—Naomi lives in Rosewood.” Hanna’s eyes were wide. “She’s friends with Kate—she’s been at my house hundreds of times. She definitely could have dug up tons of dirt on me like that.” She snapped her fingers.
Spencer bit her lip. “Actually, Naomi was around a lot when A was threatening me about Kelsey, too. She was one of the witches in Macbeth.”
“And she latched onto Klaudia—a lot of my A notes were about her for a while,” Aria added thoughtfully. “And she was at Noel’s when I got a message from A about his family.”
Everyone looked at Emily, waiting for her to contribute her own Naomi story. She just shrugged. “I haven’t had any interaction with her.”