“We didn’t know Ali came back into the house,” Aria mumbled.
“Oh.” Ali’s mom’s hands trembled as she reached for her coffee. “Has Ali ever talked about someone teasing her?”
“No one would do that,” Emily said quickly. “Everyone loves Ali.”
Mrs. DiLaurentis opened her mouth to protest but then changed her mind. “I’m sure you’re right. And she never said anything about running away?”
Spencer snorted. “No way.” Only Emily ducked her head. She and Ali sometimes talked about running away together. One of their fantasies about flying to Paris and adopting brand-new identities had recently been in heavy rotation. But Emily was sure Ali had never been serious.
“Did she ever seem sad?” Mrs. DiLaurentis went on.
Each of the girls’ expressions grew more and more baffled. “Sad?” Hanna finally blurted. “Like . . . depressed?”
“Absolutely not,” Emily stated, thinking about how gleefully Ali had pirouetted across the lawn the day before, celebrating the end of seventh grade.
“She’d tell us if something was bothering her,” Aria added, although she wasn’t quite sure if this was true. Ever since Ali and Aria had discovered a devastating secret about Aria’s dad a few weeks ago, Aria had avoided being around Ali. She’d hoped that they could put it behind them at last night’s sleepover.
The DiLaurentises’ dishwasher grumbled, shifting into the next cycle. Mr. DiLaurentis wandered into the kitchen, looking bleary-eyed and lost. When he glanced at his wife, an uncomfortable expression came over his face, and he quickly wheeled around and left, vigorously scratching his beakish, oversize nose.
“Are you sure you don’t know anything?” Mrs. DiLaurentis asked. Worry lines creased her forehead. “I looked for her diary, thinking she might’ve written something in there about where she went, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
Hanna brightened. “I know what her diary looks like. Do you want us to go upstairs and search?” They’d seen Ali writing in her diary a few days ago, when Mrs. DiLaurentis sent them up to Ali’s room without telling Ali first. Ali had been so absorbed in her diary that she’d seemed startled by her friends, as if she’d momentarily forgotten that she’d invited them over. Seconds later, Mrs. DiLaurentis had sent the girls downstairs because she wanted to lecture Ali about something, and when Ali emerged on the patio, she’d seemed annoyed they were there, like they’d done something wrong by staying at her house while her mom yelled at her.
“No, no, that’s all right,” Mrs. DiLaurentis answered, setting down her coffee cup fast.
“Really.” Hanna scraped back her chair and started down the hall. “It’s no trouble.”
“Hanna,” Ali’s mom barked, her voice suddenly razor-sharp. “I said no.”
Hanna halted under the chandelier. Something impossible to read rumbled beneath Mrs. DiLaurentis’s skin. “Okay,” Hanna said quietly, returning to the table. “Sorry.”
After that, Mrs. DiLaurentis thanked the girls for coming over. They filed out one by one, blinking in the startlingly bright sun. In the cul-de-sac, Mona Vanderwaal, a loser girl in their grade, was making big figure eights on her Razor scooter. When she saw the girls, she waved. None of them waved back.
Emily kicked a loose brick on the walkway. “Mrs. D is overreacting. Ali’s fine.”
“She isn’t depressed,” Hanna insisted. “What a retarded thing to say.”
Aria stuffed her hands into her miniskirt’s back pockets. “What if Ali did run away? Maybe not because she was unhappy, but because there was somewhere cooler she wanted to be. She probably wouldn’t even miss us.”
“Of course she’d miss us,” Emily snapped. And then she burst into tears.
Spencer looked over, rolling her eyes. “God, Emily. Do you have to do that right now?”
“Lay off her,” Aria snapped.
Spencer turned her gaze to Aria, canvassing her up and down. “Your nose ring is crooked,” she pointed out, more than a tinge of nastiness in her voice.
Aria felt for the stick-on, bedazzled nose stud on her left nostril. Somehow, it had slipped almost to her cheek. She pushed it back into position and then, in a rush of self-consciousness, pulled it off altogether.
There was a rustling noise, and then a loud crunch. They turned and saw Hanna reaching into her purse for a handful of Cheez-Its. When Hanna noticed them watching warily, she froze. “What?” she said, a halo of orange around her mouth.
Each girl stood silently for a moment. Emily blotted her tears. Hanna took another sneaky handful of Cheez-Its. Aria fiddled with the buckles of her motorcycle boots. And Spencer crossed her arms, looking bored with them. Without Ali there, the girls suddenly seemed so defective. Uncool, even.
A deafening roar sounded from Ali’s backyard. The girls turned and saw a red cement truck positioned next to a large hole. The DiLaurentises were building a twenty-person gazebo. A scruffy, scrawny worker with a stubby blond ponytail raised his mirrored sunglasses at the girls. He gave them a lascivious smile, revealing a gold front tooth. A bald, beefy, heavily tattooed worker in a skimpy wifebeater and torn jeans whistled. The girls shivered uneasily—Ali had told them stories about how the workers were constantly calling out lewd comments as she passed. Then one of the workers signaled to the guy at the wheel of the cement mixer, and the truck slowly backed up. Slate gray concrete oozed down a long chute into the hole.