Spencer shook her head. “It’s too risky.”
Aria frowned. “Noel won’t tell anyone.”
“He might leave his phone out somewhere that A might see, though. And you’ll have to explain to him why you got a burner phone.”
“How am I going to explain why I’m not using a phone at all?” Aria asked, hands on her hips.
Spencer stared at her, exasperated. “I don’t know! Say you’re doing it for a school project about living for a week without technology.”
“What about e-mail?” Hanna asked.
“We can still use school e-mail for schoolwork—maybe we could carry our old phones around but only use WiFi. I’m pretty sure WiFi usage on phones can’t be tracked in the same way as usage on a data plan. And we shouldn’t use the Internet on our home computers—for all we know A has hacked into our systems. We need to use computers that won’t be linked to us and definitely don’t have any spyware installed.”
Emily glanced at the spot where the barn had stood. “All that sounds well and good for A not knowing where we are now. But A could still frame us.”
“That’s the second part of my plan,” Spencer shouted over the leaf blower. “As soon as possible, we need to go somewhere really secret and safe and sit down and figure out who A could be. There are probably all kinds of clues that we aren’t even thinking about. And now that we know what happened the night of the fire, A could be Real Ali.”
The leaf blower sputtered. The trees at the back of the property swayed, and for a moment, Spencer swore she saw a figure in the woods.
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Hanna said. “Where should we go?”
Everyone paused to think. Then Spencer’s gaze drifted to a light on inside Mr. Pennythistle’s office in the house. “The other day, Mr. Pennythistle told me that his model home at Crestview Estates has a panic room. Aren’t those places, like, soundproof?”
“I think so,” Hanna said. “And sometimes they have video surveillance, so you can see if someone is on your property.”
“Perfect,” Emily said. “A will never hear us in somewhere like that.”
Aria squinted. “Crestview Estates isn’t far from here, right? In Hopewell?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said. Hopewell was a town about fifteen minutes from Rosewood. “And I bet I could steal the key to the house.” Mr. Pennythistle kept copies of all of his properties’ keys in his home office. It would just be a matter of finding the right one.
Emily’s eyes gleamed. “Should we drive together?”
Spencer shook her head vehemently. “We need to all go separately to confuse A. It would be even better if we could go by different modes of transport—like bus or SEPTA or car.”
Aria ground her toe into the grass. “Well, the public transport goes to Hopewell.”
“And if some of us drive, we can take different routes,” Emily said. “A won’t know which one of us to follow. And if it seems like someone is following us, we could speed up or pull off or do a quick turnaround, maybe catching A in the act. Then we might see who A is.”
“Great,” Spencer said. She looked hard at the others. “How about tomorrow night?”
Everyone nodded. Then Spencer caught sight of a black sedan rolling up the long driveway. Her stomach turned over. Showtime.
The car cruised to a stop at the front of the house. A tall, thin woman with long, wavy, black hair and sharp features started toward the front door. When she noticed Spencer and the others in the backyard, she stopped and waved.
“Miss Hastings?” She looked questioningly at the leaf blower. “Doing some yard work?”
Spencer turned off the leaf blower and dropped it to the ground. She tramped through the wet grass toward the house. “Something like that.”
The woman extended her hand. “I’m Jasmine Fuji.” She looked at the others with wide gray eyes. “Let me guess. Hanna, Aria, and Emily,” she said, pointing at each girl in turn. Then again, it wasn’t hard—the four of them had been plastered all over People magazine last year after Real Ali allegedly died. Even a made-for-TV movie called Pretty Little Killer had been filmed, documenting Real Ali’s torment and near killing of the girls.
When no one said anything, she cleared her throat. “How about we go inside and talk?”
Spencer led the way through the kitchen, nervously trying not to trip over anything. Then they lined up on the living room couch, squeezed together tightly. Aria flicked a tassel on a pillow. Emily crossed and uncrossed her legs. Everyone’s hair was a windswept rat’s nest from the leaf blower.
Fuji sat across from them on a striped ottoman, pulled out a yellow notepad, and flipped to a clean page. Her nails were impeccably groomed and painted pink. “Well. Okay. Thanks for meeting me, for one thing. This is just a formality, but I appreciate your cooperation.”