Soon Hanna was sitting at her regular post next to Rubens, inhaling his sickly sweet cologne. He grunted a hello to her, and she grunted back. Hanna was still pissed at him for suggesting the plea bargain idea the other day. Then again, maybe Rubens was pissed at her and Spencer for not taking him up on it.
Rubens turned to Hanna, and then Spencer, who’d taken her seat on his other side. “I have some news. First of all, I just got word that Aria Montgomery has been found.”
Hanna’s heart went still. “I-is she okay?”
“Where was she?” Spencer asked.
“Outside Brussels. The police are bringing them back now. She won’t make it to the rest of the trial except for the jury sentencing.”
“Wait, you said them,” Hanna said. “Was someone with Aria?”
“Her boyfriend, I believe.” Rubens glanced at his phone. “They’re bringing him back, too.”
Hanna clapped a hand over her mouth. Noel had followed Aria to Europe? She swore Mike had told her he’d gone to his parents’ house in Colorado. She wondered what Mike thought about this, and swiveled around to the back of the courtroom to look for him. But Mike wasn’t in his normal seat.
“Second thing,” Rubens said. “The prosecution is indeed calling a surprise witness.”
“Ali?” Hanna blurted out before she could think.
Spencer snorted. Rubens shook his head. “No, of course not. Nick Maxwell.”
All sound died away. Hanna suddenly felt numb. “W-what does that mean?”
Spencer looked excited. “This could be good. Nick hates Ali. What he said in that news article proved it. He could dispute everything in that journal.”
Rubens made a sour face. “He’s the prosecution’s witness, though, which means he isn’t going to say anything disparaging about that journal. The prosecution probably cut him a deal to change his story.”
Hanna gasped. “They can do that?”
“That’s not fair!” Spencer said at the same time.
Rubens uncapped his bottled water and took a long swig. “I never said the law was fair. But don’t worry. I’ve got an idea.”
Spencer wrinkled her nose. “You, an idea?” she said under her breath.
Hanna shot her a smile. She’d been thinking the same thing. Spencer glanced at her for a moment, almost like the ice was about to crack, but then looked away.
Judge Pierrot emerged from his chambers and settled down on his bench. The jury filed in as well, and the bailiff went through his usual spiel of everyone rising and blah, blah, blah. Then Nicholas Maxwell was called to the witness stand.
The back doors flew open, and two guards walked Nick, who was still in his orange prison jumpsuit and ankle and wrist chains, to the front of the room. His head was down, but Hanna still caught him shooting a conspiratorial smile in Reginald’s direction. She balled up her fist. They did have a deal. What was Nick going to say?
“Mr. Maxwell,” Reginald said, strutting up to the witness stand once Nick had been sworn in. “According to some sources, you’ve done some terrible things. Is that right?”
Nick shrugged. “I guess.”
“Alison DiLaurentis wrote that you coerced her into murdering a lot of people. That it was your idea to kill her sister, Courtney. Your idea to kill Ian Thomas and Jenna Cavanaugh and set fire to the Hastings’s property. That you beat her and manipulated her and basically made her your captor. Is that true?”
Nick stared at his shackled feet. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yeah,” he finally grunted.
Hanna shut her eyes. Unbelievable. She nudged Rubens. “He wasn’t saying that in prison the other day.”
“So basically, you and Alison weren’t having a love affair, as Ms. Hastings, Ms. Marin, and the other girls purported,” the DA said. “You were torturing her. Keeping her alive and making her help you.”
Nick nodded almost imperceptibly. Hanna clamped down on Rubens’s wrist, but he shook her off. It wasn’t. Freaking. Fair.
“And so what she wrote in that journal—that’s all true?”
“The stuff about me is,” Nick mumbled.
“Even though you told the press it wasn’t?”
He nodded. “I was just upset. And surprised she’d expose that stuff. That’s all.”
“And so we can surmise, perhaps, that everything else in the journal is true, too?”
Nick’s gaze flicked out into the courtroom, landing on Hanna. He snickered.
Reginald sauntered over to the jury. “And so if Alison had, say, begged Ms. Hastings, Ms. Marin, Ms. Montgomery, and Ms. Fields for mercy, telling them that she was innocent and that they shouldn’t hurt her because she was a pawn in your game, that wouldn’t have been a lie, either?”
“Nope,” Nick drawled. “Alison wanted to reunite with them. She begged me again and again not to hurt them.”
“Oh my God,” Spencer hissed.
The district attorney seemed to notice this, but then he turned back to Nick. “What can you tell me about these four girls? You know them quite well, so I’ve heard.”
Rubens shot up. “Objection!” he cried. “This man is a murderer, and he’s admitted himself that he’s manipulative. He can’t serve as a character witness.”
But the judge looked intrigued. “You can continue, Mr. Reginald.”
All eyes turned to Nick again. He shrugged and glanced at Hanna and Spencer. “They want what they want,” he said simply. “Whether that’s to get the perfect grades at any cost. Whether it’s to place the blame on someone else so they can get off scot-free. Whether it’s to cover up their dirty secrets. All they care about is protecting themselves—and getting revenge on Alison. I got a long, hard look at their faces the day I trapped them in the basement. They weren’t angry at me—not really. They were angry at her.”