8901 HYACINTH DRIVE
One week and one day after Emily’s dive into the ocean, she had made her way down to Florida. The oppressive humidity hit her the moment she stepped off the Greyhound bus, but it was a welcome change compared to the rank, bologna-smelling, bone-rattling contraptions she’d been a prisoner of for the past week. She shaded her eyes and looked around. Palm trees swayed majestically down the boulevard. Fluffy, midday clouds drifted overhead. A big electronic sign loomed large on the side of the building. Today is Sunday, scrolled red digital letters. Welcome to Cocoa Beach.
Emily was finally here. She cocked her head, still expecting an Ali-voice comment, but Ali had been silent ever since Emily’s plunge into the sea. And so Emily relied on the old superstitious trick she’d used so many times since she was a kid, gazing out at the rushing traffic on the highway. If a semi truck passes in the next ten seconds, you’ll find her. If it doesn’t, you won’t.
She started to count. At seven, a semi rushed past. Her fingertips tingled with possibility.
She followed the crowd of people into the depot, cagily looking back and forth for fear that someone might recognize her. But no one was even glancing in her direction. Then again, she didn’t exactly look like the Emily Fields from the news, but instead like a skinny, bedraggled ragamuffin who hadn’t showered or eaten a proper meal in days. She’d had to transfer seven different times to ensure the cheapest bus to southern Florida. She’d read the same discarded copy of Golf Digest for four days in a row just to keep from going insane. She’d slept with her head against a bus window or curled up on a depot bench. She’d almost gotten pickpocketed twice, countless skeevy travelers had hit on her, and an old lady had screamed at her in Portuguese—Emily suspected she’d put a hex on her. She’d suffered a lot on this trip. Risked a lot, too.
But it was worth it. She was on a mission.
The depot was frigid and smelled like cleaning products, and an announcement blared over the loudspeaker in Spanish. Emily pushed into the women’s bathroom—the toilet on the bus had become entirely too gross to use by the end of the trip, and she’d been holding in pee since the Georgia/Florida line. Inside the stall, she reached into the plastic bag she’d been carrying, pulled out the burner cell she’d bought at a stopover in North Carolina, and went through the steps to activate it. She hadn’t wanted to use a cell phone before this, but now that she was here, she wasn’t sure what sort of situation she might run into. After the screen announced that the phone was active, she slipped it into her pocket, feeling every ounce of its weight.
Outside the bathroom was a big map of the Cocoa Beach area. It took some searching, but Emily located Hyacinth Street in a development several miles away. She pulled out the pen she’d swiped from a rest stop in South Carolina and wrote the directions on her hand. Then, something on the TV hanging over the ticket window caught her eye, and she looked up. Hanna’s and Spencer’s solemn, sober faces flashed on the screen, filling Emily with even more guilt. They looked so tortured. She’d caught snippets of the trial during the journey, and with each new story, she’d felt even worse for leaving them to deal with it all on their own, especially since Aria had taken off for Europe. She also hated that her suicide wasn’t a vote of confidence to the jury that they were innocent.
Then she noticed the headline. Pretty Little Liars Found Guilty, read big red letters. Emily’s jaw dropped. The trial was over. The jury didn’t believe them. They were going to jail.
She had to get to that house, now.
She found the bus line to Hyacinth Street and jogged to the stop just as a bus was pulling up. After paying the fare, she collapsed into a seat, AC blaring on the back of her neck. Art deco buildings swept past out the windows. Palm trees swayed. A woman near the front was listening to loud, lively music over headphones. Emily knew Ali had a grandma in Florida; was she hiding her now? But who had helped her get here? Who had paid her way the whole distance down the coast?
How had Ali passed unnoticed by everyone yet again?