“A little birdie told me,” Kelsey said lightly.
Amelia? Spencer wanted to ask, but she couldn’t make her mouth work. Kelsey had set her sights on Princeton, too, but it was doubtful the school had sent her a congratulatory early admission letter to cellblock D in juvenile hall. Then again, it seemed like they’d only sent one to Spencer by mistake.
“Kelsey?” Amelia’s nasal voice called from the den. “We need you! We’re going to run through the Schubert piece again!”
“Okay,” Kelsey yelled. Then she turned back to Spencer. Her mouth opened, as if she was going to say something, but then she seemed to change her mind and shut it again. “Good luck with Princeton, Spencer. I hope that all works out for you.” Then she walked stiffly away, the bow at her side.
Spencer sank into a kitchen chair, her heart pounding so hard it drowned out the sounds of the musicians.
Beep.
Spencer jumped. It was her cell phone, which was in the front pocket of her Dior bag that now sat on one of the chairs at the island. Swallowing hard, she paced over and pulled it out. There was a new text from an unknown sender. But before she read it, something caught her attention in the hall. Kelsey stood in the doorway to the den. She turned her head away as soon as Spencer looked up, but Spencer could tell she’d been watching. There was now a slim cell phone in the same hand that held the violin bow, too.
Stomach roiling, Spencer glanced down at the phone and pressed READ.
Think your summer bestie forgives you for being such a pill? Somehow I doubt it . . . Mwah! —A
Chapter 12
SOMEONE IS WATCHING
Later that night, Emily rolled her family’s Volvo station wagon into the Rosewood Day teacher’s lot and turned off the engine. As it was eight on a Saturday, the campus was empty, and all of the Gothic-style arched windows were dark. She stared at the school’s stone fa?ade, a flurry of memories flooding her mind: walking single-file into school in fifth grade, watching enviously as Real Ali, Naomi Zeigler, and Riley Wolfe stood at the front of the line; running to get to class and accidentally bumping Real Ali’s shoulder. “Watch it, Oscar the Grouch!” Ali teased. People used to call Emily that because of her chlorine-green, swim-damaged hair, but it hurt the most when Ali said it.
And then there was the day when Real Ali stood on this very strip of concrete, bragging about how her brother, Jason, had told her where a Time Capsule flag piece was hidden. She’d been so infuriatingly confident that day, filling Emily both with longing and frustration. I could steal her the piece, Emily had thought brazenly. What unfolded next led to the most wonderful, bizarre, and scary years of Emily’s life.
Usually, thinking about Real Ali filled Emily with ambivalence. How could she both fear and feel for someone at the same time? How could she have let a psychopath go free? And why did she find herself looking around for Real Ali everywhere, desperate to prove that she was still here, even though that would mean certain death for her and her friends?
But today, she felt too dazed and tired to dwell on it for long. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kay. At the end of the show last night, both of them a little more than tipsy, they’d set up a time to hang out next week. This morning, Kay had already sent a couple of steamy IMs. Can’t wait to see you again, hot stuff. And, Hope you got your cute butt out of bed this morning! Emily hadn’t received such provocative notes since Maya. But maybe Kay was flirty in general.
Now, she glanced at her cell phone again. About an hour ago, Spencer had sent a group text to Emily, Aria, and Hanna. We need to talk. Come to the swings. Eight p.m. Emily had texted her back, wanting details, but Spencer hadn’t answered. She wondered if this was about A.
Shivering, she climbed out of the car and trudged over to the swings by the elementary school, the spot where Emily and her friends had regularly met through the years—long ago to gossip, but more recently to talk about A’s chilling notes. The climbing dome towered in the distance, looking like a many-legged giant spider. The large avant-garde shark a local artist had created for the school loomed in the field beyond, the moonlight reflecting eerily off its smooth planes. Spencer was sitting on the middle swing, bundled up in a blue duffel coat and Ugg boots. Hanna leaned against the slide, arms crossed over her slender chest. And Aria, who had a faraway, dreamy expression on her face, huddled by the infamous spinning disc kids called the Hurl Wheel.
Spencer cleared her throat when Emily approached. “I got another note from A.”
Emily’s stomach twisted. Aria swallowed audibly. Hanna kicked a boot against the slide, making a hollow sound.
“Has anyone else?” Spencer went on.
“I did,” Hanna said in a quavering voice. “On Wednesday. But I took care of it.”
Spencer’s eyes bulged. “What do you mean, ‘took care of it’?”