A tiny movement outside caught her eye, but when she went to the window, she didn’t see anything suspicious. Her mother’s fiancé, Mr. Pennythistle, had parked his enormous SUV in the driveway. The new woman who’d moved into the Cavanaugh house across the street was kneeling in the flower bed, weeding. And to the left, Spencer could just make out Alison DiLaurentis’s old bedroom window. When Ali had lived there, the pink curtains were always flung open, but the room’s new owner, Maya St. Germain, always kept the wooden blinds twisted closed.
Spencer sat down on the bed. “Maybe it doesn’t matter that the cops figured out Tabitha was killed. There’s still no way they can trace the murder back to us.”
“Unless A talks,” Emily warned. “And who knows what A is capable of—A might not stop at blaming Tabitha’s murder on us. A could frame us for killing Gayle, too. We were there.”
“Has anyone heard from A?” Aria asked. “It’s weird that A’s been quiet since Gayle’s funeral.” The funeral had been almost a week ago.
“I haven’t,” Spencer said.
“Me neither,” Emily piped up.
“A’s probably planning the next big attack.” Hanna sounded worried.
“We need to stop it before it happens,” Spencer said.
Hanna snorted. “How are we going to do that?”
Spencer walked over to her bed and nervously fingered the gold latch on the steamer trunk. She didn’t even have the beginning of an answer. Whoever New A was, New A was crazy. How could she anticipate a lunatic’s next move?
“A killed Gayle,” Spencer said after a moment. “If we figure out who A is, we can go to the cops.”
“Yeah, and then A will turn around and tell the cops about us,” Hanna pointed out.
“Maybe the cops wouldn’t believe a murderer,” Spencer said.
“Yeah, but A has pictures to prove it,” Aria hissed.
“Not of us specifically,” Spencer said. “And anyway, if we figure out who A is, maybe we could find them and delete them.”
Aria sniffed. “That all sounds great if we were, like, James Bond. Right now we don’t know who A is.”
“You know, it’s good we’re going on this trip,” Hanna said after a moment. “It’ll give us time to think.”
Aria scoffed. “You really think A is going to leave us alone?”
Hanna breathed in. “Are you saying A might come?”
“I hope not,” Aria said, “but I’m not holding my breath.”
“Me neither,” Spencer said. She’d considered the possibility of A being on board, too. The idea of being trapped in the middle of the ocean with a psycho was chilling.
“How do you guys feel about going back to the Caribbean?” Emily asked nervously. “I feel like it will remind me of … everything.”
Aria moaned.
“At least we aren’t going to Jamaica,” Hanna said. The cruise ship was stopping in St. Martin, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda.
Spencer shut her eyes and thought about how excited she’d been to go to Jamaica last spring break. They had all planned to put Real Ali, the evil A notes they’d received from her, and their near-death in the Poconos behind them. She’d packed bikinis, T-shirts, and the same Neutrogena sunscreen she’d plopped in the steamer trunk, hope rising in her chest. It’s all over, she’d kept thinking. My life is going to be great now.
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. “Guys, it’s ten. We’d better go.” They were supposed to be at the boat docks in Newark, New Jersey, a little after noon.
“Shit,” Hanna said.
“See ya there,” Aria answered.
Everyone hung up. Spencer dropped her phone in her canvas beach bag, then hefted it onto her shoulder and righted the steamer trunk on its wheelie-board. When she was almost to the door, something out the window caught her attention once more.
She walked over to the window again and stared out at the DiLaurentises’ yard. At first, she wasn’t sure what was different. The tennis courts, which the new family had built over the half-dug hole where the workers had found Courtney DiLaurentis’s body, were empty. The wooden blinds at Ali’s old window were still shut. The multilevel deck at the back, where the girls used to hold court, gossiping and boy-rating, was swept clean of leaves. But then she saw it: There was a child-sized life preserver in the middle of Ali’s yard. It was red-and-white striped, like a candy cane, and had large, curly, piratelike script across the bottom that read DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES.
Acid rose in Spencer’s throat. Even though there was no one around, it still felt like the preserver was a message expressly from A. Better hang on to this for dear life, A seemed to be saying, because I might just make you walk the plank.
2
EMILY’S LITTLE MERMAID
The road leading up to the Newark shipyards was a nondescript two-lane highway with generic-looking office complexes, gas stations, and seedy bars. But when Emily Fields and her father took a sharp left and pulled onto the waterfront, the sky opened up, the scent of salt hung heavy in the air, and the enormous Celebrity cruise ship rose before her like a giant, many-tiered wedding cake.