But before Spencer could ask, her cell phone bleated. She unclasped her purse and pulled it out. Take tomorrow off from school, a text said. Let’s have a spa day. My treat. Mom.
Spencer let out an involuntary squeal of delight. “Mom and I are having a spa day tomorrow!”
Melissa paled. Several emotions washed over her face at once. “You are?” She sounded incredulous.
“Uh-huh.” Spencer hit reply and typed Yes! Definitely.
Melissa smirked. “Is she trying to buy your love now?”
“No.” Spencer bristled. “It’s not like that.”
The light turned green, and Melissa hit the gas. “I guess our roles are reversed,” she said breezily, taking a corner too fast. “Now you’re Mom’s favorite and I’m the outcast.”
“What do you mean?” Spencer asked, trying to ignore the fact that Melissa had referred to her as an outcast. “Aren’t you getting along?”
Melissa rolled her jaw until the joint cracked. “Forget it.”
Spencer debated just letting it drop—Melissa was always overly theatrical. But curiosity got the best of her. “What happened?”
They whizzed past Wawa, Ferra’s Cheesesteaks, and the Rosewood Historical District, a string of old buildings that had been converted into candle shops, day spas, and real estate offices. Melissa let out a long sigh. “Before Ian was arrested, Wilden came over and questioned us about the night Ali went missing. He asked if we’d been together the whole time, if we saw anything strange, whatever.”
“Yeah?” Spencer had never told Melissa that she’d spied on her and Ian from the stairs that day, worried her sister was going to mention the fight Spencer and Ali had had outside the barn right before Ali disappeared. It was a memory Spencer had suppressed for years, but she’d let it slip to Melissa, even mentioning that Ali had admitted that she and Ian were secretly together and teased Spencer for wanting Ian too. Spencer had shoved Ali out of frustration, and Ali had slipped and hit her head on the rocky path. Luckily, Ali had been okay—until a few minutes later, anyway, when someone else shoved her in that half-dug hole in her backyard.
“I told Wilden that we hadn’t seen anything strange and that we’d been together the whole time,” Melissa went on. Spencer nodded. “But after that, Mom asked if I would’ve given Wilden the same story if Ian hadn’t been in the room with me. I told her it was the truth. But after she kept pushing, I slipped up and said we’d been drinking. Mom pounced on me. ‘You need to be really, really sure about what you tell the police,’ she kept saying. ‘The truth really matters.’ She kept grilling me about it until I suddenly wasn’t really sure what happened. I mean, there might have been a couple minutes when I woke up and Ian wasn’t there. I was pretty wasted that night. And I mean, I don’t even know if I was in my room the whole time or . . .”
She stopped abruptly, a muscle in her eye twitching. “My point is, I finally buckled. I said that maybe Ian had gotten up . . . even though I really didn’t know if he had or not. And she was like, ‘Okay then. You have to tell the cops that.’ Which is why we called Wilden back in to talk to me again. It was the day after you had that memory of Ian being in our yard when Ali died. My account was just the final nail in the coffin.”
Spencer’s jaw dropped. “But that’s the thing,” she whispered. “I’m not sure I remember Ian in the yard anymore. I saw someone . . . but I have no idea if it was him.”
Melissa made a left onto Weavertown Road, which was narrow and filled with apple orchards and farm co-ops. “Then I guess we both were wrong. And Ian paid the price.”
Spencer sat back, thinking about that second time Wilden had come to their house. The night before, they’d discovered that Mona Vanderwaal was A, and she had almost pushed Spencer over the edge of Floating Man Quarry. The next morning, Melissa had slumped guiltily on the couch. Their parents stood at the back of the room, their arms crossed impassively at their chests, the disappointment obvious on both their faces.
“I was a mess that day,” Melissa said, as if reading Spencer’s thoughts. She turned onto the Hastingses’ street, sweeping past the cop cars and landscaping trucks that were parked at the curb. Across the street, a plumber’s truck sat in the Cavanaughs’ driveway. During the latest freeze, one of the family’s main water pipes had burst. “I acted like I was really ashamed for not coming forward with the information sooner,” Melissa said. “But really, I was upset because I felt like I was selling out Ian for something I wasn’t sure he’d done.”
So that was why Melissa had seemed so sympathetic to Ian when he was in prison. “We should go to the cops,” she said. “Maybe they’ll drop the case against Ian.”
“There’s nothing we can do now.” Melissa gave her a wary sidelong glance, and Spencer wanted to ask if she was in contact with Ian, too. She had to be, didn’t she? But there was something closed-off about Melissa’s expression as she pulled up the driveway and into the garage. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly, even after they’d come to a complete stop.
“Why do you think Mom pushed you to say Ian was guilty?” she asked instead.
Melissa turned, reaching for her Foley + Corinna purse from the backseat. “Maybe she sensed something was wrong with my story and was just trying to get the truth out of me. Or maybe . . .” An uncomfortable look crossed her face.