“Some people suspect the four Rosewood girls who claimed they saw Alison DiLaurentis may be keeping vital information from the police,” a smug, blond reporter said into the camera. Downtown Rosewood, with its quaint village square, French cafe, and Danish furniture store, was in the shot behind her. “They’ve been at the center of many scandals involving Alison DiLaurentis’s case. Then on Saturday they were found at the site of a fire that ravaged the woods where Mr. Thomas was last seen, destroying any possible clues as to his whereabouts. According to several reports, the police are ready to take action against the Liars should any evidence of conspiracy emerge.”
“Conspiracy?” Aria repeated, dumbfounded. Did they honestly think Aria and the others had helped Ian escape? It seemed Wilden’s warning had been right. They’d lost any remaining shred of credibility when Emily claimed they saw Ali. The entire town had turned against them.
She gazed vacantly out the bay window to the backyard. Workers and cops were scattered around the woods behind her house, poking through the ashes and searching for clues as to who had set the fire. They looked like busy ants in a colony. A woman cop stood near a big telephone pole, two panting German shepherds wearing K-9 Unit vests at her side. Aria wanted to run outside in her hemp slippers and drop Ian’s ring back where she’d found it, but guards and dogs were patrolling the perimeter 24/7.
Sighing, she pulled out her phone and started a new text to Spencer. Did u just see the news about polygraphs?
Yes, Spencer texted back immediately.
Aria paused, considering how to word her next question. Do you think it’s possible that Ali’s spirit is trying to tell us something? Maybe that’s what we saw the night of the fire?
Seconds after she fired off the text, Spencer wrote back. Like her ghost?
Yes.
No way.
Aria turned her phone facedown on the table. It wasn’t surprising that Spencer didn’t believe her. Back when they used to go swimming in Peck’s Pond, Ali made them chant a rhyme that would keep the spirit of the dead man who’d drowned there from harming them. Spencer was the only one who rolled her eyes and refused to play along.
“Dude,” Mike said excitedly, and Aria looked up. “You have to tell me what a polygraph is like. I bet it’s awesome.” When he saw Aria’s sick expression, he scoffed. “I’m kidding. The cops won’t make you take a test. You haven’t done anything wrong. Hanna would tell me if you had.”
“Are you and Hanna really dating?” Aria asked, desperate to change the subject.
Mike squared his shoulders. “Is that really such a surprise? I’m hot.” He popped a pretzel into his mouth. Crumbs fell to the tile floor. “And speaking of Hanna, if you’ve been looking for her, she went to Singapore to be with her mom. She’s not, like, locked away somewhere or anything. She’s not, like, I don’t know, in Vegas training to be a stripper.”
Aria stared at him crazily. She really had no idea how Hanna put up with him. She didn’t blame Hanna for taking off to Singapore either—Aria would do anything to get out of Rosewood too. Even Emily had gotten out of town, off on some church trip to Boston.
“I heard something about you.” Mike pointed at her accusingly, wiggling his dark eyebrows. “A reliable source told me that you and Noel Kahn hung out yesterday.”
Aria groaned. “Would that reliable source be Noel himself?”
“Well, yeah.” Mike shrugged. He leaned forward and asked in a gossipy voice, “So what did you guys do?”
Aria licked pretzel salt off her fingers. Huh. So Noel hadn’t told Mike that they’d gone to a seance. It appeared that he hadn’t told the press, either. “We just ran into each other somewhere.”
“He totally likes you.” Mike propped his dirty sneakers on the kitchen table.
Aria ducked her head, staring at what looked like a morsel of Kashi on the tile floor. “No, he doesn’t.”
“He’s having a hot tub party on Thursday,” Mike added. “You heard about that, right? The Kahns are going away and Noel and his brothers are going all out.”
“Why is the party on a Thursday?”
“Thursday is the new Saturday,” Mike quipped, rolling his eyes as if everyone should know that. “It’s going to be sick. You should go.”
“No, thanks,” Aria said quickly. The last thing she wanted to do was go to another Noel Kahn party—they were full of Typical Rosewood Boys doing keg stands, Typical Rosewood Girls puking up their chocolate martinis and Jell-O shots, and Typical Rosewood Couples making out on the Kahn family’s Louis XV-style sofas.
The doorbell rang, and they both sat up straighter. “You get it,” Aria insisted. “If it’s the press, I’m not home.” Reporters had become so brazen, walking right up to the porch and ringing the doorbell several times a day, as nonchalant as the UPS man; Aria half-expected that one of these days they were going to barge right in.
“No problem.” Mike peeked at his reflection in the hall mirror and smoothed back his hair.
Just as Mike was about to open the door, Aria realized that she was plainly visible from the front porch. If it was the press, they’d push past Mike and never leave her alone. Feeling panicked and trapped, Aria looked around, darted into the pantry, wedged herself awkwardly under a shelf that contained sacks of brown rice, and slid the door shut.
The pantry smelled like pepper. One of Meredith’s brandings—words burned onto big slabs of wood—was propped over a box of couscous. WOMEN UNITE, it said.