She placed the empty soup bowl back on the stack and took his hand. “I can’t talk here.”
She led Greg down a maze of halls and into a quiet bar with a fireplace, where she and Ali used to come after long summer days at the pool. There was an old bartender named Bert who’d leave his post for long stretches of time to use the bathroom across the hall; they would sneak themselves secret nips of vodka or white wine while he was gone. Today, not a single soul was inside except for an unfamiliar, younger bartender toweling off some martini glasses. He nodded at Spencer and Greg, then returned his gaze to the baseball game on the TV screen.
She sat on the leather couch in front of a roaring fire—a little unnecessary, given how warm it was outside—and Greg sat, too. Spencer looked at him for a long time. “Ali is closing in on us,” she finally admitted in a low voice.
Greg blinked. “What do you mean?”
She told him about the prison murder and Aria’s painting scandal. “Maxine Preptwill was a secret name Ali used to use,” she said. “She knew that we’d recognize it but no one else would. It’s, like, a code.”
Greg nodded, the worried creases on his forehead growing deeper. “Maybe you can trace the account?”
“That’s what I suggested.” Spencer shrugged. “I guess we could try.”
Greg took her hand and held it tight. “That’s not all, though. Is it?”
Outside the room, a bunch of kids thundered past, balloons that said ROSEWOOD RALLIES! trailing behind them. The chlorine smell of the indoor pool at the very end of the building suddenly wafted into her nostrils. Spencer sighed deeply. “It’s about Dominick,” she whispered. “He’s an Ali Cat. I’m sure of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because . . . I just do.”
He set his jaw and stared into the fire. “This isn’t going to work unless you actually talk to me, Spencer.”
She stared at her palms. “We tracked Ali down to a property about an hour from here. She was definitely there—the inside smelled like vanilla soap, which is so utterly her. It was more than that, too. We just felt . . . a presence.”
Greg’s eyes widened. “She’s living in a house?”
“In a pool house in the back of Nick’s family’s property in Ashland. We went inside, but Ali wasn’t there. So we decided to monitor the place with cameras connected to a wireless feed. We made sure to hide them really carefully, so she wouldn’t know.”
Greg’s head shot up.
“There are . . . cameras?”
Spencer wasn’t sure what to make of his horrified reaction—placing the cameras hadn’t seemed that dangerous. “I camouflaged them with leaves. You can’t see them from the ground at all. And there are no wires—they run on solar batteries. There’s really no way for anyone to tell they’re there unless they’re really looking.”
Greg ran his hand over the top of his head. “I can’t believe you got that past her.”
She hugged her arms to her chest. “Well, I think we did. We’ve been watching it day and night, and so far, Ali hasn’t taken them down or come back. But . . . someone was there.” There was a lump in her throat. “Dominick. I’m almost positive.”
She told him about chasing Dominick down the other night. Greg sat back. His eyes were kind of glazed. “And what do you think Dominick was doing there?”
“I watched the tape again. It looked like he was waiting for someone.” Her mouth twitched. “Maybe Ali.”
Greg nodded faintly, then stared at his phone in his lap. It pinged, and he tapped on it, answering a text as casually as if they’d been talking about the weather. But a muscle twitched in his jaw. Spencer wondered if he was really upset. Maybe he was really angry that she’d taken such crazy risks. Or maybe he was upset she hadn’t told him before.
“Look, I know you don’t want me to handle this on my own, but I have no choice,” she said. “No one is listening to us. No one wants to help. We have to catch her.” She shook her head. “But now with this whole Ali Cat wrinkle, I’m starting to wonder. What if the Ali Cats are the people we need to worry about? What if they’re behind everything, and Ali really is dead?”
“Oh, she’s not dead.”
Spencer flinched. Greg’s face was in profile, lit orange by the fire. “Pardon?” she asked.
He turned to face her. His expression was oddly placid, no longer freaked or worried. “I said, she’s not dead,” he repeated, cracking a smile. “And she’s definitely coming for you.”
Spencer’s heart jumped. She pulled her hand away from Greg’s and shifted back on the couch. “W-what?”
Greg smiled blandly. “I have to thank you, Spencer. I wondered if there were cameras. I was thinking about that when I was there yesterday.”
Spencer blinked hard. Her mind scrambled for a foothold. “What do you mean, yesterday?”