Someone cleared his throat, and Aria looked up. The shopkeeper was suddenly staring at her, a strange expression on his face.
She slipped her sunglasses over her eyes and backed away quickly, almost stumbling over the stoop onto the street. Her chest felt tight. The shopkeeper had recognized her, hadn’t he? She started walking as fast as she could down the street without breaking into a dead sprint. Any minute, the guy was going to follow her. Any minute, police cars were going to roar up and snatch her from behind.
Just keep going, she told herself. She picked up the pace and noticed other people staring at her, too. A man on a bicycle. A teenager sitting on a bench, earbuds in her ears. What if they all knew who she was? What if there were tons of calls to Interpol right this minute? Should she go to the American embassy? Except that was insane—they’d ship her back, and she’d go to jail.
She cut through an alley and burst onto another, busier street, blinded with panic. She ran as fast as she could, veering around bikes, cutting around open shop doors, eliciting more strange looks from passersby. Her bag thumped imposingly against her hip, but she was glad to have it—there was no way she could go back to that hostel now. Good Lord: She’d used her own ID to check in. When had that alert about her gone out? Had the hostel she’d stayed in received it, and did they cross-reference it with her name?
How could she have been so stupid?
The Anne Frank house loomed ahead of her, though she couldn’t imagine going inside now—it was far too cramped; she’d be too exposed. She stopped at the stairs and placed her hands on her thighs, panting. She needed a second before she pressed on.
Tons of people streamed past her. Tourists. Workers. Students. All at once, this felt like the worst idea in the world. She was in a foreign country—she didn’t even know the language. Nor did she know a single person here. No one would take her in and hide her, Anne Frank–style. She fumbled in her bag and pulled out her phone again. She hadn’t turned it on since she’d boarded the plane—in fact, she’d even removed the battery, as she’d heard somewhere that people could track you through GPS, even if your phone was off, if the battery was still installed. But maybe she should call someone. Surrender. Maybe the police would have pity on her if she went willingly.
Her fingers closed around the battery. Just snapping it back into place might set up a signal by which people could find her. Was she ready?
She was about to do it when a hand touched her shoulder. Aria whirled around, her arms protectively in front of her face. Her phone fell from her hand and skittered across the cobblestones, but she didn’t move to grab it. She stared at the person in front of her. Then she gasped.
“I knew it,” he said breathlessly. “I knew you’d come here, just like you said.”
Aria blinked, unsure of her senses. And she oscillated, she realized, between throwing her arms around him or running even farther away in order to protect him.
Noel.
15
SPENCER’S UPS AND DOWNS
“Miss Hastings?” the reporters screamed as Spencer hurried down the courthouse steps after the second day of the trial. “What are your thoughts on the proceedings?”
“Do you have any idea where Aria Montgomery is hiding in Europe?” another reporter bellowed.
“What do you think about Hanna Marin getting married?” someone else shouted.
“Do you still believe that Alison is alive?” A reporter shoved a microphone with a local news logo on the base in her face.
Spencer elbowed out of their way, somehow making it through the blue barricades to a “safe” area the cops had blocked off that was off-limits to the press. She scanned the parking lot for the car service her mom had arranged to take her home—apparently, Mrs. Hastings was far too busy to actually watch her daughter’s murder trial today. But the car wasn’t there yet. She leaned against the wall and breathed in, feeling like she might cry.
The trial had been a disaster today. The prosecution’s witnesses were first, and the DA had expertly uncovered every single damning thing Spencer had done through the years. Like how she’d pushed her sister down the stairs when she thought Melissa was A. Or that she’d freaked out in therapy, certain she’d killed Their Ali, or how she’d plagiarized her Golden Orchid essay (it didn’t matter that she’d confessed her crime before they gave her the prize), or that she’d framed another girl for drug possession and had aided and abetted in pushing Tabitha Clark off that balcony in Jamaica, and that she was suspected to be involved in a mass-drugging at an eating club party in Princeton. She’s a violent, psychotic liar who has a Machiavellian drive to get what she wants, the lawyer had sneered to the jury. We shouldn’t believe anything she says.