“That could be true.” Rubens pressed a finger to his lip thoughtfully. “But then I got to thinking about the pictures of Alison the police found in the basement in Rosewood.” He walked over to the TV monitor and flipped through the various digital evidence files, which included some shots of the Ali shrine Nick had set up. “Most of these are pictures of Alison from before the Poconos fire.” He pointed at the one of Ali at the press conference her parents had held after she’d been let out of The Preserve, then at another of Ali at the Valentine’s dance on the night she’d tried to kill them. “And there are even some pictures of Courtney, from when the girls knew her.” He gestured to the right side of the screen, where there were pictures of seventh-grade Courtney with Hanna and the others. “There are also pictures of Alison before Courtney made the switch and before the girls befriended her. But then I noticed this one.”
He pointed to a picture in the upper-left-hand corner. It showed only Ali’s smiling eyes, the rest of her face hidden by a blanket. “The shape of her brow is a little different, and her hair is a bit darker. I asked the police to run some forensic evidence on the print, and they told me it was done on a machine at a pharmacy sometime in the last year.” He stared at Nick hard. “You used a current picture of Ali, after the Poconos fire. From when she was with you.”
Nick blinked. Again, he glanced at DA in the audience. “Maybe . . . ,” he admitted.
“Look at her eyes.” Rubens stretched his fingers to blow up the image. “How does she look to you?”
“She’s . . . I don’t know. Smiling, I guess,” Nick admitted.
“Smiling.” Rubens looked at the audience. “A genuine smile, I’d say. A loving smile, even. A smile that said she knew exactly what she was doing. Not, in other words, the grimace of a girl who was being tormented.”
“Objection!” Reginald bellowed. “This is conjecture!”
But a smile began to stretch across Hanna’s face. She hadn’t noticed that picture of Current Ali in the shrine. But Rubens had a point—and a good one.
“And let’s talk about that letter that was slipped under the door in the Poconos house,” Rubens went on. “You said you wrote it, yes?”
Nick nodded. “I wrote it as Alison, to the girls.”
“And this was with Alison totally objecting every step of the way, right? Just like she says in her journal?”
“Uh huh.” Beads of sweat appeared on Nick’s brow. Hanna’s heart beat faster and faster.
“As you know, the police found that letter outside the house in the Poconos, the night of the fire,” Rubens said. The letter had been a key piece of evidence in Nick’s trial. Rubens walked over to the laptop, pressed a button, and there was the letter, suddenly, on a big projection screen. “I won’t ask you to read the whole thing, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, since you’re all familiar with it, but it explains what really happened the day Alison’s sister switched places with her. It mentions things like the wishing well Courtney drew on the time capsule flag, and how Courtney stole Alison’s ‘A-for-Alison’ ring. You wrote those things, yes, Mr. Maxwell?”
Nick shrugged. “They’re there in print.”
“I’m just wondering how you knew such specific details,” Rubens said to Nick. “Did Alison tell you willingly?”
“Wait!” The DA stood up. His mouth hung open. He didn’t say anything. He kind of looked bamboozled.
For the first time since the trial began, Hanna looked at Spencer and met her gaze. Spencer’s eyebrows shot up. It was like a tiny glimmer of sunlight had entered the courtroom. Nick wiped his hand across his forehead. “Uh, no?” He seemed uncertain, like he no longer knew the script he was supposed to follow. “I-I forced it out of her?”
“Ah.” Rubens placed his hands on his hips. “Of course. But, Mr. Maxwell, if Alison truly wasn’t the one to blame in these murders, if Alison was looking for a sure way to prove to these girls that she wasn’t the enemy, wouldn’t she have fed you some incorrect details instead?”
Nick blinked. “Huh?” he said softly.
Reginald stood up again from his seat, but he didn’t say anything, just stared.
“It wasn’t like you’d know if the details were true or not,” Rubens said. “And if Alison was smart—which she is—she would have given incorrect details, so that when the girls read the letter in that bedroom in the Poconos, they would have thought, Huh. This isn’t Ali. They would have been scared, of course—they were locked inside the house, a match had been lit—but they might have wondered what was exactly at play.”
“Maybe Alison isn’t that smart,” Nick said, but he sounded unconvinced.
Rubens shrugged. “Clearly the two of you didn’t bank on the girls surviving and explaining what the letter said at all. But they did, and it seems to me that by Alison giving you specific and accurate details, she could be seen as your co-conspirator, not your captive. Now, tell the truth. Alison willingly fed you that information for the letter. But she did so because she wanted the girls to know the whole, awful truth. She asked you to write it, though, so your prints would be on it if it was found. I bet she praised you for your writing, didn’t she? Made you think you were better suited to write such a letter, that you had a better way with words.”
Nick licked his lips. “How did you know that?” he whispered.
“Objection!” Reginald said, shooting up. But then he just stared at Nick, furious.
“I’ll keep you just a minute longer,” Rubens said. “My last question is about Ms. Marin, Ms. Hastings, and the others’ visit to you in prison last week.” He smiled. “I’m assuming you had a nice talk?”