The truth was, some niggling inconsistencies and unanswered questions about the case remained, things Aria still couldn’t help thinking about. Like exactly how Billy knew so much about her and her friends—down to Spencer’s family’s dark secrets. Or what Jason DiLaurentis had said to Aria in the cemetery, after she accused him of being a psychiatric patient: You’ve got it all wrong. Only, what did Aria have wrong? Jason had obviously been an outpatient at the Radley, a mental hospital now turned classy hotel. Emily had seen his name all through the hospital’s logbooks.
Aria slammed her locker shut. As she started down the hall, she heard a far-off giggle—just like the one she’d been hearing ever since she started receiving notes from A. She looked around, her heart slamming against her rib cage. The halls were thinning out, everyone scuttling off to homeroom. No one was paying any attention to her.
With trembling hands, Aria reached into her yak-fur bag and pulled out her cell phone. She clicked on the envelope icon, but there were no new text messages. No new clues from A.
She sighed. Of course there wasn’t a new note from A—Billy had been arrested. And all of A’s clues had been misleads. The case was solved. The pieces that didn’t make sense weren’t worth thinking about anymore. Aria dropped her phone back into her bag and wiped the sweat from her palms on her blazer. A is gone, she told herself. Maybe if she repeated it enough, she’d actually begin to believe it.
3
HANNA AND MIKE, POWER COUPLE
Hanna Marin sat at a corner table in Steam, Rosewood Day’s chic coffee bar, waiting for her boyfriend, Mike Montgomery, to show up. It was the very last period of the school day, and both of them had it free. To prepare for the mini-date, Hanna flipped through the latest Victoria’s Secret catalogue and folded down various pages. She and Mike liked picking which girls had the fakest boobs. Hanna used to play a version of the game with her now dead best friend turned maniac killer, Mona Vanderwaal, but it was way more fun playing it with Mike. Most things were more fun with Mike. The guys Hanna had dated in the past were either too prudish to look at nearly naked girls, or else thought making fun of people was mean. Best of all, thanks to being a member of the Rosewood Day varsity lacrosse team, Mike was more popular than all of them—even Sean Ackard, who’d gotten kind of preachy ever since he’d broken up with Aria and repledged his devotion to Virginity Club.
Hanna’s iPhone chimed. She pulled it out of its pink leather case. On the screen was a new e-mail from Jessica Barnes, a local reporter. She was sniffing around for a quote for yet another Billy Ford story. Thoughts about Billy’s lawyer saying he’s innocent? Reaction to the Polaroids of the four of you on the night Alison disappeared? Twitter me! J.
Hanna deleted the message without replying. The idea that Billy was innocent was such bullshit. Lawyers probably had to say that about their clients, even if they were the biggest scumbags on earth.
Hanna had no comment on the creepy, hazy Polaroids from the night Ali went missing, either. She didn’t want to think about that sleepover ever again for as long as she lived. Whenever she dared to dwell on Ali’s, Ian’s, or Jenna’s murders—or the fact that Billy had stalked Hanna and her old friends—her heart pounded faster than a techno beat. What if the cops hadn’t caught Billy? Would Hanna have been next?
Hanna gazed down the school hallway, wishing Mike would hurry up. A bunch of kids were leaning against the lockers, fiddling with their BlackBerrys. A squirrelly-looking sophomore boy was writing notes on his hand, probably for a test he had next period. Naomi Zeigler, Riley Wolfe, and Hanna’s soon-to-be stepsister, Kate Randall, stood by a large oil painting of Marcus Wellington, one of the school’s founders. They were laughing at something Hanna couldn’t see, their hair shiny, their skirts shortened three inches above the knee, all of them wearing matching Tod’s loafers and J. Crew patterned tights.
Hanna smoothed the new sapphire Nanette Lepore silk top she bought last night at Otter, her favorite store at the King James Mall, and ran her fingers down the length of her frizz-free auburn hair—she’d gone to Fermata spa this morning for a blowout. She looked perfect and glamorous, definitely not the kind of girl who’d spent any time in a mental hospital. Not the kind of girl who’d been tormented by her mentally ill roomie, Iris, or who’d spent a couple of hours in jail just two weeks ago. Definitely not the kind of girl anyone would exclude or ostracize.
But despite her flawless appearance, every single one of those things had happened. Hanna’s father had warned Kate that she’d get in huge trouble if word got out about Hanna’s stint at the Preserve at Addison-Stevens mental hospital. Billy-as-A had sent Hanna there, convincing Mr. Marin that it was the only proper treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. All bets were off, though, when a photo of Hanna at the Preserve showed up in People magazine. A trip to the loony bin had made Hanna an instant social pariah, and she was ousted from the queen bee clique the second she returned to Rosewood Day. Not long after, Hanna discovered the word PSYCHO scrawled in Sharpie marker on her locker. Then she got a Facebook friend request from someone named Hanna Psycho Marin. Naturally, Hanna Psycho Marin had zero friends.
When Hanna complained to her father about the page—she knew Kate was behind it—her dad just shrugged and said, “I can’t force you girls to get along.”
Hanna stood, straightened her clothes again, and elbowed through the mob. Naomi, Riley, and Kate had been joined by Mason Byers and James Freed. To Hanna’s surprise, Mike was also with them.