Feeling for her iPhone in the pocket of her denim shorts, she pressed the PHONE button and dialed Aria’s number. It rang once, twice . . .
Aria’s own iPhone bleated in the peaceful Rosewood darkness. When she saw Spencer’s name on the Caller ID, she flinched. “Hey,” she answered cautiously. Aria hadn’t heard from Spencer in a while, not since their fight at Noel Kahn’s party.
“Aria.” Spencer’s voice was tremulous, like a violin string stretched taut. “I need your help. I’m in trouble. It’s serious.”
Aria quickly slipped through the sliding glass door and padded up to her bedroom. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Spencer swallowed hard. “It’s me and Kelsey. We got caught.”
Aria paused on the stairs. “Because of the pills?”
Spencer whimpered.
Aria didn’t say anything. I warned you, she thought. And you lashed out at me.
Spencer sighed, sensing the reason for Aria’s silence. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said to you at Noel’s party, okay? I . . . I wasn’t in my right mind, and I didn’t mean it.” She glanced at the window in the door again. “But this is serious, Aria. My whole future could be ruined. My whole life.”
Aria pinched the skin between her eyes. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m not messing with the police—especially not after Jamaica. I’m sorry. I can’t help.” With a heavy heart, she hung up.
“Aria!” Spencer cried into the receiver, but the CALL ENDED message was already flashing.
Unbelievable. How could Aria do this to her, after all they’d been through?
Someone coughed outside Spencer’s holding room. Spencer turned to her phone again and quickly dialed Emily’s number. She pressed her ear to the receiver, listening to the brrt-brrt-brrt of the ringing line. “Pick up, pick up,” she pleaded.
The lights in Carolyn’s room were already off when Emily’s phone started to beep. Emily glanced at Spencer’s name on the screen and felt a wave of dread. Spencer probably wanted to invite her to a get-together at Penn. Emily always said she was too tired, but really it was because she hadn’t told Spencer or any of her other friends that she was pregnant. The idea of explaining it to them terrified her.
But as the screen flashed, she felt an eerie premonition. What if Spencer was in trouble? The last time she’d seen Spencer, she’d seemed so scared and desperate. Maybe she needed Emily’s help. Maybe they could help each other.
Emily’s fingers inched toward the phone, but then Carolyn rolled over in bed and groaned. “You’re not going to get that, are you? Some of us have class in the morning.”
Emily pressed IGNORE and flopped back down to the mattress, biting back tears. She knew it was a burden for Carolyn to let her stay here—the futon took up nearly all the floor space, Emily constantly interrupted her sister’s studying schedule, and she was asking Carolyn to keep a huge secret from their parents. But did she have to be so mean about it?
Spencer hung up without leaving Emily a message. There was one person left to call. Spencer pressed Hanna’s name in her contacts list.
Hanna was zipping her suitcase closed when the phone rang. “Mike?” she answered without looking at the screen. All day, her boyfriend had been calling her with random trivia about Iceland—Did you know there’s a museum about sex there? I am so taking you.
“Hanna,” Spencer blurted on the other end. “I need you.”
Hanna sat back. “Are you okay?” She’d barely heard from Spencer all summer, not since she began an intensive summer program at Penn. The last time she’d seen her was at Noel Kahn’s party, when Spencer’s friend Kelsey came along, too. What a weird night that had been.
Spencer burst into tears. Her words came out in choppy bursts, and Hanna only caught bits of sentences: “The police . . . pills . . . I tried to get rid of them . . . I am so dead unless you . . .”
Hanna rose and paced around the room. “Slow down. Let me get this straight. So . . . you’re in trouble? Because of the drugs?”
“Yes, and I need you to do something for me.” Spencer clutched the phone with both hands.
“How can I help?” Hanna whispered. She thought about the times she’d been dragged to the police station—for stealing a bracelet from Tiffany, and later for wrecking her then-boyfriend Sean’s car. Surely Spencer wasn’t asking Hanna to cozy up to the cop that arrested her, as Hanna’s mother had done.
“Do you still have those pills I gave you at Noel’s party?” Spencer said.
“Uh, yeah.” Hanna shifted uncomfortably.
“I need you to get them and drive them to Penn’s campus. Go to the Friedman dorm. There’s a door around the back that’s always propped open—you can get in that way. Go to the fourth floor, room four-thirteen. There’s a keypad combination to get into the room—five-nine-two-oh. When you get in, put the pills under the pillow. Or in the drawer. Somewhere kind of hidden but also kind of obvious.”