“Are you going into Philadelphia?” Aria blurted, groping for something to say. She instantly wanted to smack her forehead. Duh. Of course he was going into Philadelphia. This train line didn’t go anywhere else.
Jason nodded. “To Penn. I just transferred. I used to go to Yale.”
Aria refrained from saying I know. The day Ali told them Jason had gotten into Yale, his top-choice school, Aria had considered drawing him a Congratulations card. But she decided against it, afraid Ali would tease her.
“It’s great,” Jason went on. “I only have classes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and I get out early enough to take the three P.M. bullet train back to Yarmouth.”
“Yarmouth?” Aria repeated.
“My parents moved there for the trial.” Jason shrugged and riffled his paperback’s pages through his fingers. “I moved into the apartment above the garage. I figured they needed me to help them through this…stuff.”
“Right.” Aria’s stomach started to ache. She couldn’t imagine how Jason was dealing with Ali’s murder—not only had his old classmate killed her, but that he’d then vanished. She licked her lips, thinking of answers for what she guessed would be his next questions: What was it like seeing Ian’s body in the woods? Where do you think it is now? Do you think someone moved it?
But Jason just sighed. “I usually get on at Yarmouth, but today I had something to do in Rosewood. So here I am.”
Outside, an Amtrak bullet train roared into the station. The other people who had been waiting stood up and clattered through the door to the platform. After the train roared away, Jason walked across the aisle and sat down right next to Aria. “So…don’t you have school?” he asked.
Aria opened her mouth, fumbling for an answer. Jason was suddenly so close to her, she could easily smell his nutty, spicy soap. It was intoxicating. “Uh, nope. It’s parent-teacher conference day.”
“Do you always wear your uniform on days off?” Jason pointed to the bottom hem of Aria’s plaid Rosewood Day skirt. It was peeking out under her long wool coat.
Aria felt her cheeks blaze. “I don’t usually ditch, I swear.”
“I won’t tell,” Jason teased. He leaned forward, making the bench creak. “You know the go-kart place on Wembley Road? Once I went there for the whole day. Drove that little car around and around for hours.”
Aria chuckled. “Was the lanky guy there? The one who wears head-to-toe NASCAR gear?” Mike used to be obsessed with that go-kart track—before he became obsessed with strippers and lacrosse.
“Jimmy?” Jason’s eyes sparkled. “Totally.”
“And he didn’t ask why you weren’t in school?” Aria asked, curling her hand over the bench’s armrest. “He’s usually so nosy.”
“Nope.” Jason poked her shoulder. “But I had sense enough to change out of my uniform so it wouldn’t be so obvious. Then again, the girls’ uniforms are way cuter than the guys’.”
Aria suddenly felt so bashful, she turned her head and stared fixedly at the row of potato chips and pretzels in the vending machine. Was Jason flirting?
Jason’s eyes gleamed. He breathed in, maybe about to say something else. Aria hoped he was about to ask her on a date—or maybe even for her phone number. Then the conductor’s voice blared over the loudspeaker, announcing that the eastbound train to Philadelphia would arrive in three minutes.
“I guess that’s us,” Aria said, zipping up her jacket. “Want to ride together?”
But Jason didn’t answer. When Aria looked over, he was staring at the television. His skin had turned pale and his mouth was a taut, distressed line. “I…uh…I just realized. I have to go.” He stood up sloppily, pulling his books into his chest.
“W-what? Why?” Aria cried.
Jason maneuvered around the benches, not answering. He bumped against Aria as he passed, upending her purse. “Oops,” she mumbled, wincing as a super-plus tampon and her lucky Beanie Baby cow spilled to the sticky concrete floor. “Sorry,” Jason muttered, pushing out the door to the parking lot.
Aria gazed after him, astonished. What the hell just happened? And why was Jason going back to his car…and not into the city?
Her cheeks burned with sudden awareness. Jason had probably realized how Aria felt about him. And maybe, because he didn’t mean to lead her on, he’d decided to drive into Philadelphia by himself instead of ride the train with her. How could she have been so stupid to think Jason was flirting? So what if he’d said she was the only one with substance, or that she looked cute in a skirt. So what that he’d given her Ali’s Time Capsule flag way back in the day. None of that necessarily meant anything. In the end, Aria was nothing more than one of the nameless Alis.
Humiliated, Aria slowly turned back to the TV. To her surprise, a news broadcast had interrupted Regis & Kelly. The headline caught Aria’s eye. Thomas’s Body a Hoax.
The blood drained from Aria’s face. She whirled around and scanned the line of cars in the parking lot. Or was this why Jason ran off so quickly?
On television, the Rosewood chief of police was speaking to a bevy of microphones. “We’ve been searching those woods for two days straight and can’t find a single trace of Mr. Thomas’s body,” he said. “Maybe we need to step back and consider other…possibilities.”
Aria frowned. What other possibilities?
The feed cut to Ian’s mother. A bunch of microphones were shoved under her chin. “Ian e-mailed us yesterday,” she said. “He didn’t say where he was, just that he was safe…and that he didn’t do it.” She paused to wipe her eyes. “We’re still verifying if it really was from him or not. I pray that it wasn’t someone using his account to play a trick on us.”