Out of the corner of her eye, Spencer noticed her sister, Melissa, weaving through the crowd. Angling past the police barricades, she walked right up to Jason DiLaurentis and whispered something in his ear. Jason paled, turned toward Melissa, and said something back.
An uneasy feeling bolted through Spencer’s stomach. Why was Melissa here? And what was she doing? She hadn’t seen Melissa and Jason talk since high school.
Then Melissa craned her neck and stared at Courtney. Courtney noticed and flinched. Her smile drooped.
What the hell?
“What do you think about William Ford saying he’s innocent?” A voice called out from the crowd, breaking Spencer’s focus. The question came from a tall blond reporter in the front row.
Mrs. DiLaurentis pursed her lips. “I think it’s reprehensible. The evidence against him is staggering.”
Spencer turned back to Courtney. Dizziness overcame her. It was so bizarre. Courtney met her gaze, then shifted from Spencer to the other girls. Once she had everyone’s attention, she signaled to the side door of the house.
Emily stiffened. “Does she want us to…?”
“She couldn’t,” Spencer said. “She doesn’t even know us.”
Courtney leaned over and whispered something into her mom’s ear. Mrs. DiLaurentis nodded, then smiled at the crowd. “My daughter is a little overwhelmed. She’s going to go back inside for a while to rest.”
Courtney turned for the door. Before she disappeared into the house, she looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
“Should we go?” Hanna said uneasily.
“No!” Aria gasped at the same time Emily said, “Yes!”
Spencer chewed on her pinkie. “We should see what she wants.” She grabbed Aria’s arm. “C’mon.”
They sneaked around the side of the house, ducked past an overgrown holly bush, and darted through the red-painted side door.
The huge kitchen smelled of cloves, olive oil, and Febreze. One of the chairs was cocked at an odd angle to the table, as if someone had been sitting there moments before. Spencer recognized the old Delft pottery flour and sugar jars by the microwave from the DiLaurentises’ old kitchen. Someone had started a grocery list and pinned it to the refrigerator. Jelly. Pickles. French bread.
When Courtney appeared from the hallway, a whisper of a smile emerged on her eerily familiar face; Spencer’s legs dissolved into Jell-O. Aria let out a small squeak.
“I promise I won’t bite,” Courtney said. Her voice was exactly like Ali’s, husky and seductive. “I wanted a minute alone with you guys before things got too crazy.”
Spencer nervously shaped her dirty blond hair into a ponytail, unable to take her eyes off the girl. It was like Ali had crawled out of the hole in her old backyard, grown back her skin, and become alive and whole again.
The girls all stared at one another, their eyes wide and unblinking. The clock on the microwave ticked from 3:59 to 4:00.
Courtney plucked a yellow bowl full of pretzels from the island and joined them. “You guys were my sister’s best friends, right? Spencer, Emily, Hanna, Aria?” She pointed to each of them in succession.
“Yeah.” Spencer curled her hands around the caning on her chair, remembering the time in sixth grade when she, Aria, Hanna, and Emily had sneaked into Ali’s backyard, hoping to steal her Time Capsule flag. Ali had come out onto her porch, wearing a pink T-shirt and wedges, and caught them. After telling the girls they were too late—someone had already stolen the flag—she’d pointed at Spencer and said, “You’re Spencer, right?” She then made the others introduce themselves, acting as if she was way too popular to remember their names. It was the first time Ali had ever spoken to any of them. Just one week later, she handpicked them as her new best friends.
“Ali told me about you.” Courtney offered the girls pretzels, but everyone shook their heads. Spencer couldn’t fathom eating right now. Her stomach had inverted itself.
“But she never told you about me, did she?”
“N-no,” Emily croaked. “Not once.”
“Then I guess this is pretty bizarre,” Courtney said.
Spencer fiddled with a cork coaster that said MARTINI TIME! in fifties-style lettering.
“So…where were you? At a hospital or something?” Aria asked.
Not that Courtney looked sick. Her skin radiated, as if it was lit from an inside source. Her blond hair shone as if it was deep-conditioned hourly. As Spencer canvassed Courtney’s face, a realization hit her with meteoric force: If Ali was Spencer’s half sister, then this girl was, too. Suddenly she was keenly aware how much Courtney looked like Mr. Hastings…and Melissa…and Spencer. Courtney had her dad’s long, slender fingers and button nose, Melissa’s cerulean eyes, and the same dimple Spencer had on her right cheek. Nana Hastings had that dimple, too. It was amazing that Spencer hadn’t noticed these similarities when Ali was alive. Then again, she hadn’t known to look.
Courtney chewed thoughtfully. The crunches echoed through the room. “Kind of. I was at this place called the Radley. And then, after it became a hotel or whatever, I was moved to a place called the Preserve at Addison-Stevens.” She said the name with a haughty British accent, rolling her eyes.
Spencer exchanged a shocked look with the other girls. Of course. Jason DiLaurentis wasn’t the patient at the Radley—Courtney was. His name was in the logbooks because he’d visited her. And Hanna had said that Iris, her roommate at the Preserve, had drawn a picture of Ali in some secret room. But Iris must have known Courtney, not Ali.