Ian breathed out, his brow still furrowed. “I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”
“Stop lying,” Spencer snapped, her cheeks burning. “You killed Ali,” she repeated. “Stop pretending you didn’t.”
Ian opened his mouth, but no sound came out. “What if I told you there’s something you don’t know?” he finally blurted.
An airplane rumbled softly overhead. A few houses down, Mr. Hurst started up his snowblower. “What are you talking about?” Spencer whispered.
Ian took another drag of his cigarette. “It’s something big. I think the cops know about it too, but they’re ignoring it. They’re trying to frame me, but by tomorrow I’ll have my hands on evidence that will prove my innocence.” He leaned closer to Spencer, blowing the smoke in her face. “Believe me, it’s something that will turn your life upside down.”
Spencer’s entire body went numb. “So tell me what it is.”
Ian looked away. “I can’t say yet. I want to know for sure.”
Spencer laughed bitterly. “You expect me to just…take your word for it? I don’t owe you any favors. Maybe you should be talking to Melissa instead of me. I think she’ll be more sympathetic to your little sob story.”
A wary look Spencer couldn’t quite read passed over Ian’s face, as if he didn’t like that idea at all. The toxic smell of his cigarette settled over them like a shroud. “I may have been drunk that night, but I know what I saw,” Ian said. “I went out there intending to meet up with Ali…but I saw two blondes in the woods instead. One of them was Alison. The other…” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Two blondes in the woods. Spencer shook her head quickly, understanding what Ian was implying. “It wasn’t me. I followed Ali out of the barn. But then she left me—to find you.”
“It was another blonde, then.”
“If you saw someone, why didn’t you say something to the cops when Ali first went missing?”
Ian’s eyes darted left. He took another nervous drag. Spencer snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “You never said anything, because you never saw anything. There isn’t any big secret the cops are ignoring…period. You killed her, Ian, and you’re going to fry. End of story.”
Ian held her gaze for a long few seconds. Then, he moved his shoulder jerkily, flicking his cigarette butt into the yard. “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said in a dead voice. And just like that, he whirled around and stomped off the deck, skulking through Spencer’s side yard and slipping into the woods. Spencer waited until he was past the tree line before she collapsed weakly to her knees, barely noticing as the slush immediately soaked through her jeans. Hot, frightened tears slid down her face. Several long minutes passed before she noticed that her Sidekick, still sitting on the patio table, was ringing.
She leapt up and grabbed it. There was one new text in her inbox.
Question: If poor little Miss Not-So-Perfect suddenly vanished, would anyone even care? You told on me twice. Three strikes and we’ll find out if your “parents” will cry over the loss of your pathetic life. Tread softly, Spence.
—A
Spencer looked up at the trees at the back of the property. “Not sending notes, huh, Ian?” she screamed out into the emptiness, her voice raw. “Come out where I can see you!”
The wind swirled silently. Ian didn’t answer. The only evidence that he had been here at all was the angry, red-tipped ember of his cigarette butt, slowly dying in the middle of the yard.
19
FORTUNE COOKIES USUALLY NEVER SAY ANYTHING THIS GOOD
Thursday night after swimming, Emily stood in front of the full-length mirror in the Rosewood Day natatorium, examining her outfit. She had on her favorite pair of chocolate brown corduroys, a pale pink blouse with just a teensy bit of ruffle, and dark pink flats. Was the look appropriate for a dinner at China Rose with Isaac? Or was it too girly and un-Emily? Not that she knew what constituted “Emily” these days.
“Why are you looking all cute?” Carolyn burst around the corner, making Emily jump. “You got a date?”
“No!” Emily said quickly, horrified.
Carolyn cocked her head knowingly. “Who is she? Anyone I know?”
She. Emily sucked her teeth. “I’m just meeting a guy for dinner. A friend. That’s all.”
Carolyn flitted over and adjusted Emily’s collar. “Is that the story you gave Mom, too?”
Actually, it was the story Emily had given her mother. She was probably the only girl in Rosewood who could tell her parents she was going out with a boy without getting any paranoid lectures about how sex is a serious thing and should be between two people who were much older and in love.
Ever since her kiss with Isaac yesterday, she’d been wandering around in a perplexed haze. She had no idea what had happened in any of her classes today. Her peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunch could’ve been made with sawdust and sardines, for all she’d noticed. And she’d barely flinched when Mike Montgomery and Noel Kahn waved to her in the parking lot after swim practice, asking if she’d had a good Christmas break. “Is there a lesbian version of Santa Claus?” Mike had yelled excitedly. “Did you sit on her lap? Are there lesbian elves?”
Emily hadn’t even been offended, and that worried her too—if gay jokes no longer bothered her, did that mean she wasn’t gay? But wasn’t that the big, scary thing she’d figured out about herself over the past few months? The reason her parents had shipped her off to Iowa? If she felt the same emotions for Isaac as she had for Maya and Ali, what did that make her? Straight? Bi? Confused?
As much as she wanted to tell her family about Isaac—he was, ironically, the model boy to bring home to her parents—she felt sheepish. What if they didn’t believe her? What if they laughed? What if they got angry? She’d put them through a lot this fall. Now she liked a boy again, just like that? And her note from A had actually made a good point. She had no idea how conservative Isaac was or how he’d react to the secrets of her past. What if it made him uncomfortable and he never spoke to her again?
Emily slammed her locker shut, spun the dial, and then scooped up her canvas bag. “Good luck,” Carolyn singsonged breezily as Emily left the locker room. “I’m sure she’ll love you.” Emily winced, but didn’t correct her.
China Rose was a few miles down Route 30, a cheerful little stand-alone building next to a falling-down stone structure that used to be a spring. To get there, Emily had to drive through the parking lot of a Kinko’s, a yarn store, and the Amish market, which sold homemade apple butter and paintings of farm animals on lacquered slabs of wood. When she got out of the car, the parking lot was eerily silent. Too silent? The hair on the back of her neck began to rise. Emily had never called Aria back last night to discuss New A. Frankly, Emily had been too afraid to talk to anyone about it, and decided that if she just didn’t think about it, maybe it would go away. Aria hadn’t called back either. Emily wondered if she was trying to block it out too.
The Rosewood Bowl-O-Rama was in the business complex too, although it was in the process of being remodeled into yet another Whole Foods.
Emily, Ali, and the others used to go bowling at this very alley on Friday nights at the beginning of sixth grade, right after they’d become friends. At first, Emily had thought it was strange. She’d assumed they’d be hanging out at the King James Mall, where Ali and her old posse used to go on the weekends. But Ali said she needed a break from the King James—and from everyone else at Rosewood Day. “New friends need alone time, don’t you think?” Ali told them. “And no one from school will find us here.”
It had been in this very bowling alley that Emily asked Ali her one and only question about the Time Capsule game—and the spooky thing Ian had said to Ali that day. They had been fooling around in a lane, getting a sugar rush off fountain sodas from the snack bar and seeing if they could knock down more pins by bowling between their legs. Emily felt extra brave that night, more willing to delve into the past that they all tried so hard to avoid. When Spencer got up to bowl and Hanna and Aria ran off to the vending machines, Emily turned to Ali, who was busy drawing cartoon smiley faces in the margins of the scorecard.
“Do you remember that fight Ian Thomas and your brother got into that day Time Capsule was announced?” Emily asked casually, as if she hadn’t been thinking about it for weeks.
Ali laid down the nubby scorecard pencil and stared at Emily for nearly a minute. Finally she leaned over and retied her already tight shoelace. “Jason’s a freak,” she mumbled. “I teased him about it when he gave me a ride home that day.”
But Jason hadn’t given Ali a ride home that day—he’d sped away in a black car, and Ali and her posse had headed toward the woods. “So that fight didn’t upset you, then?”
Ali looked up, grinning. “Easy there, Killer! I can take care of myself!” It was the first time Ali had ever called her Killer—as in, her personal, protective pit bull—and the name had stuck.
Looking back on it now, Emily wondered if Ali had gone to meet Ian that day and covered it up with her lie about riding home with Jason. Shaking all thoughts of Ali from her head, Emily slammed the door of the Volvo, put her keys in her pocket, and made her way down the little brick path to China Rose’s front door. The inside of the restaurant was decorated to look like a thatch-roofed hut, with bamboo sheaths covering the ceiling and a big aquarium filled with bloated, silvery goldfish. Emily wove around the takeout waiting area, the smell of ginger and green onions tickling her nose. A bunch of cooks hovered over enormous woks in the chaotic open kitchen. Thankfully, she didn’t see anyone she recognized from Rosewood Day.
Isaac was waving at her from a table toward the rear. Emily waved back, wondering if her face was contorted with nerves. Feeling wobbly, she walked toward him, trying not to bump into any of the tightly grouped tables.
“Hi,” Isaac said. He was wearing a dark blue button-down that brought out his eyes. His hair was pushed back from his face, showing off his chiseled cheekbones.
“Hi,” Emily answered. There was a pregnant pause as she sat down.
“Thanks for coming,” Isaac said, rather formally.
“You’re welcome.” Emily tried to sound shy and demure.
“I missed you,” Isaac added.
“Oh,” Emily squeaked, having no clue how to respond. She took a sip of water so she wouldn’t have to answer.
A waitress interrupted, handing them menus and towels for their hands. Emily laid the towel over her wrists, trying to calm down. Feeling the moist heat against her skin made her think of the time she and Maya had gone swimming in the Marwyn trail stream in the fall. The creek water had been so warm from the midday sun, as soothing as a hot tub.
A pan clattered in the kitchen, shattering Emily’s thoughts. Why on earth had Maya popped into her head? Isaac gazed at her curiously, as if he knew what she was thinking. It made her blush even more.
