Everyone stared at the lawyer, startled. “Are you saying you don’t believe us?” Spencer finally sputtered.
The lawyer raised his palms, but didn’t confirm or deny it.
Hanna put her head in her hands. Spencer tore her Styrofoam coffee cup into small pieces. Aria laid her palms flat on the table. “Can we give our side of the story in court?”
Rubens tapped his pen against the table. “I’d rather not put you girls on the stand. Then the DA will get to cross-examine you, and he’s going to be ruthless—he’ll find all sorts of ways to trap you in your story. Let me paint a picture of you girls. I’ll bring the right facts to light. But even with all that, I don’t know what chance we have. I can try and offer some theories of other people who might have killed Alison. Someone in Jenna Cavanaugh’s family, for example. Someone in Ian Thomas’s family. Someone else who hated her. But you are still the most compelling and logical suspects.”
Emily glanced at the others. “But she’s not dead,” Spencer repeated.
“Is there anything that can truly save us?” Aria asked weakly. “Anything that will guarantee we go free?”
Rubens sighed. “The only thing that I can think of is if Alison DiLaurentis herself strolls into that courtroom and turns herself in.”
Like that will ever happen, Ali said loudly in Emily’s head.
The lawyer blew air through his cheeks. “Get some sleep, girls. You look exhausted.” He gestured to the plate of Danishes. “And have one, for God’s sake. You don’t know when you’ll get the pleasure of a Danish from Rizolli’s again.”
Emily flinched. It was pretty easy to interpret what that meant: Prisons didn’t serve pastries.
Hanna snatched a bear claw and shoved it into her mouth, but everyone else filed out the door without even looking at the breakfast spread. At the elevator bank, Spencer stabbed the DOWN button. Suddenly, she looked at Emily with alarm. “Em,” she hissed, her eyes on Emily’s hand.
Emily looked down. A long line of blood dripped from her cuticle down her wrist. She’d picked her skin until it bled and hadn’t even felt it. She fumbled for a tissue in her bag, feeling her friends’ eyes on her. “I’m fine,” she said preemptively.
But they weren’t the only ones concerned about her; Emily’s family was acting even stranger. Unlike the other myriad of incidents when Emily had gotten in major trouble and her parents had disowned her, this time, her family continued to let her eat meals with them. They even bought her favorite foods, did her laundry, and checked in on her incessantly, as though she were a newborn. Her mom made stilted, polite conversation with her about TV shows and books and paid rapt attention whenever Emily said anything. Last night, Emily’s father had leapt up from the chair, saying the TV was all hers and she could watch whatever she wanted and could he get her something? Emily had longed for this sort of attention from her family for so long—basically since the beginning of A. But it felt strange now. They were only doing it because they thought she was crazy.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. The girls shuffled in silently, heads down. Emily could feel the other people in the elevator staring. One girl not much older than them pulled out her iPhone and started typing something on the screen. After a moment, Emily heard the snap of the device’s camera and noticed that the phone was aimed at her face.
She wheeled around and stared at the girl. “What are you doing?”
The girl’s cheeks reddened. She covered the phone’s lens with her hand and lowered her eyes.
“Did you take a picture of us?” Emily screeched.
She tried to grab the phone, but Spencer caught her arm, pulling her back. The elevator dinged, and the girl darted into the lobby. Spencer stared at Emily. “You have to get a grip.”
“But she was really rude!” Emily protested.
“You can’t freak out about it,” Spencer urged. “Everything we do, Em, everything we say—we have to think about how the jury is going to interpret it.”
Emily shut her eyes. “I can’t believe we have to appear in front of a jury at all.”
“Me, neither,” Hanna whispered. “What a nightmare.”
They walked across the lobby, past a guard’s desk. Emily glanced out the revolving doors. Sunlight sparkled on the sidewalk. A group of girls in colorful sundresses and sandals passed, laughing giddily. But then, beyond them, she thought she saw a shadow slip into an alley across the street. The hair rose on the back of her neck. Ali—the real Ali—could be anywhere. Watching them. Waiting to strike.
She turned back to her friends. “You know, we could take action,” she said in a low voice. “We can look for her again.”
Spencer’s eyes widened. “No way. Absolutely not.”
Aria’s throat bobbed. “It’s impossible.”
But Hanna nodded. “I have wondered where Ali went. And Rubens did say that was the only way we could go free.”