“‘A strong, determined, misunderstood young woman’?” Emily made a face. “And ‘someday the world will know the true her’? Do they think she’s alive?”
Spencer shook her head. “It seems like more of an in-memory-of thing. There are posts about parties where everyone dresses like Ali and—get this—reenacts the Poconos fire scene. Except they have Ali get out alive. Some of them write fan fiction about what Ali did next. They’re actually selling it on Amazon.”
Hanna shuddered. “That’s gross.”
Aria folded her paper napkin into smaller and smaller triangles. “Maybe we should contact one of them. Maybe they do know something.”
Spencer sniffed. “I tried that. But they all go by code names. And anyway, why do you think they’d tell us?”
“These people could be dangerous,” Emily said worriedly. Aria looked at the newspaper again. “I wish we could get Nick to admit he’s lying.”
“How?” Hanna folded her hands. “It’s not like we can go to the prison and just force it out of him.”
“Maybe there’s a way to trick him into confessing,” Emily suggested. “Or—”
“Or we could let this go,” Spencer interrupted.
Everyone fell silent. Hanna gawked. “Are you serious?” Spencer had always been at the front of the let’s-find-Ali crusade. She’d suggested they have a situation room to try to figure out who Ali’s helper was. She hadn’t wanted to drop the idea of sniffing Ali out even after the girls were arrested.
Spencer fiddled with her silver Tiffany keychain. “This has ruined almost two years of our lives. I’m just . . . done, you know? And I haven’t received any new A notes. Have you guys?”
Emily muttered no; so did Aria. Hanna reluctantly shook her head, too. She kept expecting a new note to ping into her in-box, though. “That doesn’t mean we should give up,” she said weakly. “Ali’s out there.”
“But how useful is Ali without Nick by her side?” Spencer pressed. “She’s probably hanging by a thread.”
“An Ali Cat might help her,” Emily reminded.
“I suppose that’s true.” Spencer turned her phone over in her hands. “But they sound like crackpots, don’t they?” She balled up her napkin. “It sucks that Ali’s walking free. It sucks that Nick took all the blame, but hey, if he wants to rot in jail, that’s his choice. But we need to live our lives.” She looked at Hanna. “Speaking of which. Doesn’t summer school start today?”
Hanna nodded. Rosewood Day had dropped her and the others after they were charged with murder, but now the girls were allowed to graduate if they completed their course requirements. The Fashion Institute of Technology, the college that had accepted her, even said it would hold a place for her in the fall as long as her final grades were acceptable. The other girls had been given similar offers—except for Aria, who had chosen to take a gap year. “I have history in a half hour.” She looked at the others. “When do you guys start?”
“I have to repeat chemistry, but it starts tomorrow,” Emily answered.
“All I have to do is submit my AP Art portfolio and take my finals,” Aria said. “Most of my classes wound down before we were kicked out of school.”
“Same,” Spencer said. Then she stood. “Well, come on, Han. You shouldn’t be late.”
The other girls stood, too, giving one another tight hugs. They exited into the bright day, promising to call one another later. And then, just like that, the meeting was over, and Hanna was alone on the street. She wasn’t sure what to think about everything they’d discussed. As much as she wanted to take Spencer up on just letting Ali go, it was terrifying to think Ali was out there . . . roaming free. Plotting. Scheming.
A high-pitched screech of a semitruck sounded from around the corner. Laughter echoed from an alleyway. Suddenly, goose bumps rose on Hanna’s arms, and she got that old, nagging feeling that someone was watching.
There’s no one here, she told herself determinedly.
She shaded her eyes and started the few blocks to Rosewood Day Prep, a sprawling compound of stone and brick buildings that had once belonged to a railroad baron. It was amazing how different the place looked now that it was summer. The regal blue-and-white Rosewood Day flag, complete with the Rosewood Day crest, was absent from the flagpole. The marble fountain in front of the gym was dry. The swings and the climbing dome on the Lower School’s playground weren’t full of screaming little kids, and no ubiquitous yellow school buses lined the curbs.