In thirty minutes, they’d reached the Best Buy outside Rosewood. They walked into the store, which smelled like rubber and had Miley Cyrus blasting loudly over the speakers. “So we’ll buy four cameras,” Spencer was saying as they walked through the aisles. “They’ll be in four quadrants on the screen. And we’ll have a server so that we can watch even when we’re in the car, or in class—whatever. We don’t even have to find a wireless signal.”
“That sounds good,” Aria said, nearly colliding with a turning rack of headphones in order to keep up. “And I think . . .” She trailed off and stopped short. A familiar figure stood a few feet from her, staring at the selection of computer mice. A thin girl with long blond hair and expensive-looking wedge sandals stood next to him, her arm slung around his waist. Aria’s heart froze in her chest.
It was Noel.
A small sound escaped from the back of Aria’s throat. Noel turned and saw her, his features tensing, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“H-hi,” Aria blurted. Her cheeks reddened. She stared at the girl’s thin, tanned arm around Noel’s waist. She couldn’t help it.
Noel glanced at the blond girl, too. “Oh. Scarlett, this is Aria.”
The girl smiled tightly, a territorial look flashing across her face. After a beat, she extended her hand. “Scarlett Lorie. Nice to meet you.”
Aria nodded, her mind scattering in a zillion directions. She didn’t know that name or recognize this Scarlett person at all. Was she Noel’s girlfriend? For how long? Why were they shopping for computer mice together? Why did Noel look so happy?
Spencer swept up to Aria with a cart full of boxes. “We’re all good,” she said in a perfunctory voice, then noticed Noel and Scarlett, still standing there, their arms entwined. “Oh. Hi, Noel.” She grabbed Aria’s hand and pulled her away. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Aria turned and gave Noel a parting glance, but he didn’t wave. He just . . . stared at her, and Scarlett wrapped her arm around him tighter, leaning forward to whisper something into his ear. Aria bit down hard on the inside of her cheek as the cashier rang Spencer up and she handed over a stack of twenty-dollar bills—it was better to pay in cash, they’d decided, so no one could track them down later.
When the transaction was finished, she peeked at Noel once more. Now the two of them were laughing flirtatiously. Maybe at her.
Aria jerked away, facing the front of the store. Whatever. It didn’t matter. Noel could date anyone he wanted.
Even a ditzy blond idiot who looked, disturbingly, like Ali.
19
SPENCER’S GOT A FAN. . . .
“More coffee, miss?”
Spencer jumped and hid her iPad with a napkin. A petite Asian girl wearing a pink apron that said SUE’S held a carafe of coffee.
Spencer shook her head. “I’m okay for now, thanks.”
She waited until the waitress drifted away before looking at the iPad again. She’d been so lost in concentration on the video surveillance they’d set up yesterday, she’d forgotten that she was watching from this little café in Philly and not in her bedroom.
Not that the surveillance cameras had yielded any activity yet. It had been hard to conceal the cameras in the trees, first of all, so only one view really showed the inside of the house. The other three angles showed the porch, the side yard, and an angle facing the big house—they might be able to catch someone on their approach. There hadn’t been the slightest movement on any of the cameras, though. Only a few deer drifting past, some leaves blowing. Her friends hadn’t seen anything during their shifts, either.
We’ve only been at this one day, she told herself, nervously rearranging the sugar and Sweet’N Low packets in the small ceramic holder in the middle of the table so they all faced the same direction, something she often did to calm herself down. Maybe Ali was still in New York.
“What’s all this?”
Spencer jumped again. Greg stood above her, smiling bashfully.
“Oh!” Spencer hid the iPad screen with her hand. “Just some dumb thing on Vine. So how are you?” she said, trying to act casual.
“Fine.” Greg pulled out a chair. “You been here long?”
“Uh, traffic was light.” Spencer peeked at the iPad screen. Nothing. She quickly logged out of the server and shoved the device in her tote bag. “I love this place, by the way.”
Greg smiled. “I’m glad. It’s the only place I know in Philly, actually. I don’t get to the city much.”
He’d texted last night wanting to see her, and when Spencer had said yes, he’d mentioned Sue’s and said he had time at 10:00 AM. Sue’s had quaint, mismatched tables, miniature tea sets on high shelves along the walls, and stacks and stacks of books and board games that overtook a lot of the floor space. There was something so pleasantly haphazard about the café, like you were drinking coffee in a professor’s living room.
“Well, thanks for coming all the way to Philly,” Spencer said after the same waitress poured Greg a cup of coffee.