Spencer started to chuckle, but then stopped. Mr. Pennythistle probably wasn’t making a joke—he was a brilliant land developer, a real estate mogul, and a pretty good cook, but he definitely wasn’t a comedian. Still, she didn’t mind him—he made a wicked gumbo every Saturday, played her favorite sports radio station in the kitchen when he was cooking, and even let Spencer drive his pimped-out Range Rover now and then. If only his daughter were bearable.
Spencer slipped two slices of rye bread into the slots of the toaster. Amelia had a point, of course—trouble was following her everywhere. Maybe she should go to a panic room for a while. Not only had Spencer been on the Splendor of the Seas, but one of her best friends, Aria Montgomery, had also been in the boiler room when the explosion occurred. Equally disconcerting, Aria had come into possession of a locket on that cruise that belonged to Tabitha Clark, a girl they’d accidentally hurt in Jamaica last year. At the time, they’d thought Tabitha was the real Alison DiLaurentis, the evil twin who’d stalked and nearly killed Spencer and the others at the DiLaurentises’ Poconos vacation home in an explosive fire. They’d thought Ali was back for revenge, so Aria had pushed the girl off a roof to get rid of her for good.
But then the news came out that Tabitha wasn’t Real Ali—she was an innocent girl. That was when the nightmare began.
Tabitha’s necklace connected them to the night Tabitha was killed—the girls were sure that their diabolical stalker, New A, had planted it on Aria to frame her. They knew they couldn’t just throw away the necklace on the ship—A would find it and get it back to them. So instead of evacuating to the shore after the explosion, Spencer, Aria, and their friends Emily Fields and Hanna Marin stole a motorized life raft and sailed to a cove Spencer had heard about in her scuba diving class. They buried the locket somewhere A would never look, but then their raft was punctured—surely A’s plan, too. A rescue crew arrived in the nick of time.
After that mess, they decided to come clean about what they’d done to Tabitha—it was the only way to get A off their backs. They’d met at Aria’s house to make the call to the authorities, but as they were on hold with the chief investigator on the case, a news flash came on TV. Tabitha Clark’s autopsy report was in—she’d been killed by blunt-force trauma to the head, not from a fall off the roof. That didn’t make sense, though; none of the girls had hit her. Meaning . . . they didn’t do it.
Seconds later, they received a message from A. You got me, bitches—I did it. And guess what? You’re next.
A charred smell roused Spencer from her thoughts. Smoke was pouring out of the toaster. “Shit,” she whispered, hitting the lever to pop the toast up. When she turned around, everyone at the table was staring. There was a wisp of a smirk on Amelia’s face. Melissa looked worried.
“You okay?” Mrs. Hastings asked.
“I’m fine,” Spencer said quickly, dropping the hot pieces of bread into the oversized marble sink. Yes, it was a huge relief that they hadn’t killed Tabitha, but A still had a ton of dirt on them, including pictures of them on the roof deck that night. A could say the girls had gone down to the beach when they discovered that Tabitha hadn’t died and finished her off. And A’s confessional text wouldn’t hold up in court—I did it could mean anything.
And what about You’re next? Who was A? Who could want to kill them so badly? The same day they were going to confess, Emily had told the girls that she’d left the door open for Real Ali at the Poconos house, allowing her to possibly escape the blast. So she could be alive . . . and she could be A. It made the most sense: Real Ali was the only person that crazy.
Melissa stood up from the table and tickled Spencer’s side. “I bet I know why you’re spacey this morning. Someone’s nervous about seeing a certain boy again?”
Spencer ducked her head. She’d let slip that Reefer Fredericks, her new boyfriend, was visiting today from Princeton, where he lived. They hadn’t seen each other since the cruise. Today was an in-service day for both schools and the first day they were both free.
“It should be fun,” she said nonchalantly, even though her stomach started to flip.
“Are you going to ask him to prom?” Amelia asked.
“Oh, Spence, you should!” Melissa cried. “You can’t go stag in that gorgeous Zac Posen gown!”
Spencer bit her lip. She did plan on asking Reefer to prom, which was in two weeks. She’d been staring at the Zac Posen dress she’d bought on a trip to New York City with her mom all morning, dreaming about how she’d look in it on Reefer’s arm.