“I’m sorry,” Spencer mumbled as she stood, even though she wasn’t. Fathers weren’t interchangeable. She couldn’t randomly bond with some guy she didn’t even know. All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait until next fall when she was at Princeton. Away from Rosewood, away from her new family, away from A, away from the secret about Tabitha—and all the other secrets A might know, too. It couldn’t come fast enough.
Shoulders hunched, she stomped into the hall. A pile of mail was stacked neatly in the center of the hall table, a long, slender envelope from Princeton addressed to Spencer J. Hastings right on top. Spencer snatched it up, hoping for a fleeting second that perhaps the school was writing to tell her she could move in early—like now.
Soft, subdued voices sounded from the dining room. Spencer’s family’s two Labradoodles, Rufus and Beatrice, bounded toward the window, probably smelling deer on the lawn. Spencer sliced open the envelope with her fingernail and removed a single sheet of paper. A logo for the Princeton admissions committee paraded across the top.
Dear Miss Hastings,
It appears there has been a misunderstanding. Apparently, two Spencer Hastingses applied to Princeton’s incoming freshman class early decision—you, Spencer J. Hastings, and a male student, Spencer F. Hastings, from Darien, Connecticut. Unfortunately, our admissions board did not realize you were two separate individuals—some read your application, and others read the other Spencer’s application, but we all voted as if you were one applicant. Now that we’ve realized our oversight, our committee needs to reread and review both of your applications thoroughly and decide which of you shall be admitted. Both of you are strong candidates, so it will most likely be a very tough decision. If there is anything you’d like to add to your application that might sway the admissions board, now would be an excellent time.
Sorry for the inconvenience, and good luck!
All the best,
Bettina Bloom
President, Princeton Admissions Board
Spencer read over the letter three times until the school’s crest at the top of the page looked like a Rorschach blob. This couldn’t be right. She had gotten in to Princeton. This was done.
Two minutes ago, her future was secure. Now she was poised to lose it all.
A lilting giggle snaked around the room. On instinct, Spencer shot up and glanced out the side window, which faced the old DiLaurentis house next door. Something shifted beyond the trees. She stared hard, waiting. But the shadow she thought she’d seen didn’t reappear. Whoever had been there was gone.
Chapter 3
PRETTY LITTLE LONER
“Connect with the divine source of all life,” a soothing voice chanted in Aria Montgomery’s ears. “With every exhale, let go of the tension in your body. First your arms, then your legs, then the muscles in your face, then . . .”
Bang. Aria opened her eyes. It was Thursday morning at school. The door to the Rosewood Day auxiliary gym had flung open, and a bunch of freshman girls dressed in leotards and leg warmers pranced into the room for the first-period modern dance class.
Aria shot up quickly and pulled the headphones from her ears. She’d been lying on a yoga mat on the floor, thrusting her butt up and down in the air—the guru on the meditation tape said that the motion would cleanse her chakras and help her forget her past. But by the smirks on some of the freshman girls’ faces, they probably thought she was doing some kind of weird sex stretch.
She scuttled into the busy Rosewood Day hall, tucking the iPod back into her bag. All of the thoughts she’d tried so hard to forget swarmed back into her head like a knot of angry bees. Slipping into an alcove by the water fountains, she grabbed her cell phone from her jacket pocket. With one press of a button, she called up the page she’d been stalking obsessively on Google for two weeks now.
Tabitha Clark Memorial.
Tabitha’s parents had set up the website to honor their daughter. On it were Twitter posts from friends, pictures of Tabitha from cheerleading practice and ballet recitals, details about a scholarship set up in her name, and links to Tabitha-related news stories. Aria couldn’t stop looking at the page. She pounced on all of the news stories, always terrified that something—or someone—would connect Tabitha’s death with her.
But everyone still thought Tabitha’s death was a tragic accident. No one had even suggested that it might have been murder, and no one had made the connection that Aria and her friends had been in Jamaica the same time Tabitha was and at the same resort. Even Aria’s brother, Mike, and her boyfriend, Noel, who had been there as well, didn’t comment on the news story. Aria wasn’t even sure if they’d seen it. To them, it was probably just another senseless death to tune out.