Read Books Novel

Deadly

“What?” She thought of the A note threatening him. How had Chase found out? “D-did you get a note from A? Has someone tried to hurt you?”

Chase’s eyes darted back and forth. “No,” he said, after too long a beat, but it was the most pitiful lie Spencer had ever heard.

Spencer’s head buzzed. All she could focus on, for a moment, was the bumpy texture of the hallway walls. “I-I thought the police would keep you safe,” she said helplessly. “I thought they’d keep all of us safe.” She tried to pull open the door. “Please let me in. We can crack this video—I know we can. I need you.”

Chase pressed his lips together as if he were trying to keep from crying. “You have to go, Spencer. I’m sorry. I’ve just been through too much, okay? This is too intense, even for me.”

“But—”

“And I can’t believe you didn’t warn me.” Chase’s eyes were sad. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”

Then the door slammed. There were clicking sounds as Chase twisted the locks on the inside. Footsteps receded. The music came on again, louder now. A fast, angry song drowning out everything.

Spencer felt like he’d slapped her across the face. She stepped away from the door, surprised tears coming to her eyes. All at once, she felt completely abandoned. No one would help her anymore.

The magnitude of what was happening hit her hard. There was no way out of this. Ali had really and truly won.

Spencer reached for her phone and stared at it hard. Text me, bitch, she thought fiercely, desperately. If only Ali would write to her right now and rub this in her face. Boo-hoo, maybe. Poor widdle Spencer lost her boyfriend. She was probably dying to.

She stared hard at the screen, willing something to happen. She walked to the front of the apartment building and stood on the porch so Ali could see her, so that she’d know her pain. “Come get me,” she even said out loud into the still darkness. “Stop hiding and actually show your face, you coward.”

No one moved behind the bushes. No giggles echoed in the treetops. Spencer’s phone remained silent. She shut her eyes and drew back her hand, ready to hurl the phone to the sidewalk.

But instead she let her arm wilt at her side and walked the three blocks to catch the bus home.

22

SLOWLY SINKING

Two weeks after her arrest, Hanna staggered down the stairs of her mom’s house with her mini Doberman, Dot, following on her heels. All the lights were still on in the kitchen, but the room was empty. A note on the table said, I made coffee. Muffins in fridge.

Hanna listened, but there were no sounds of her mom anywhere—she must have already gone to work. Ms. Marin had been weirdly attentive in the past few days, bringing home sushi from the store, watching Teen Mom marathons with Hanna and Mike, even offering to give Hanna a mani-pedi, although Ms. Marin had a very well-known aversion to feet. On the one hand, Hanna thought it was sweet that her mom was trying to make an effort and stand by her. But it was too late. Her fate was sealed.

She fell into a kitchen chair, flipped on the TV, and absently stroked Dot’s smooth, flat head. Her blinking phone on the table caught her eye. TEN NEW MESSAGES. Her heart lifted, thinking one might be from her dad, who she hadn’t heard from since before her arrest. But then she scrolled through each of the messages. They were all from her classmates.

You’re disgusting, wrote Mason Byers. I bet you hurt Noel, too, right?

And from Naomi Zeigler: I hope you rot in Jamaica forever, bitch. And Colleen Bebris, Mike’s ex: I knew you were capable of this sort of thing.

Even Madison had written: Maybe I forgave you too soon. Now I don’t know what to think about the crash.

More of the same. Hanna had been getting these nonstop since she had been released from jail. She deleted them without reading more. Maybe it was good she’d been suspended: If she returned to Rosewood Day, she’d be the most-hated girl at school.

She held her phone in her palms for a few moments, then clicked over to a saved video link. An image of a waving American flag appeared. Then came her father’s voice-over: I’m Tom Marin, and I approve this message.

Hanna watched the whole PSA from start to finish. She would be the only person in Pennsylvania who actually saw it, as it had been pulled from the networks before it even aired. “And that’s why I stand behind Tom Marin’s Zero-Tolerance Plan,” TV Hanna said brightly at the end, offering a huge smile.

The camera zoomed in on her father’s supportive expression. He turned to Hanna at the end of the commercial, his essence oozing love and pride and loyalty.

What a farce.

As if on cue, a news broadcast appeared on the TV in the kitchen. Hanna looked up. The anchor was talking about Hanna’s dad’s run for Senate. “Since Mr. Marin’s daughter’s arrest, there has been a sharp downturn of Tom Marin supporters,” the woman said. A line graph appeared on the screen. A bold red line, representing the number of Tom Marin devotees, made a roller-coaster-like plunge. “Protesters demand that he withdraw,” the reporter added.

There was a shot of an angry mob holding picket signs. They’d been on the news nonstop, too—they were the same people who had protested outside Graham’s funeral, and the news had spent a good deal of time with them the day Hanna was released from jail, when they’d picketed her father’s office. It looked like they were in front of the office again today. Some of them bore the same STOP THE ROSEWOOD SERIAL KILLER message, but there were new signs now of Mr. Marin’s face with a red slash across it and Hanna, Spencer, Emily, and Aria wearing devil horns.

Chapters