It didn’t seem like he was lying. It also didn’t seem like he had any idea who they were—he was just an old guy out for a walk with his dog. “Have you ever seen anyone coming and going out of this place?” she dared to ask. “Anyone at all?”
“Nope, not even a light on,” the man said. “But it’s private property. You should move along.” He gave them another long look, and for a moment, Spencer wondered if she’d trusted him too quickly. But then he whistled at his dog, and the dog stood. As they passed, the dog stiffened and turned its head toward the realtor’s office across the street. Spencer sucked in her stomach. Did the dog sense a presence? But then it loped off and lifted its leg on a clump of dandelions. The man and dog disappeared, all footsteps and jingling tags.
Spencer waited until the man was a safe distance away before turning to look at Chase. “This was definitely the unit in the photo.”
“Do you think Ali knew we found it?” Chase whispered, his eyes wide. And then, suddenly, a terrified look crossed his face. “Do you think it was possible that Ali planted that video? Maybe she was never here in the first place. Or maybe she sent us here to hurt us.”
Spencer couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her. She darted off the porch, certain something horrible was about to happen. It didn’t, but for a split second, she swore she could hear someone snickering. She squinted hard at the trees, then peered worriedly at the realtor’s office, desperate to make out Ali’s shape at the window. What if she was close? What if she realized what they’d discovered—and she was furious?
Spencer took Chase’s hand. “Let’s get out of here,” she said hurriedly, darting back to the car. She hoped, suddenly, that they hadn’t made a horrible mistake.
3
HANNA LOSES IT
An hour later, Hanna Marin and her boyfriend, Mike Montgomery, sat in Hanna’s Prius, in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way from the hospital back to Rosewood. Mike fiddled with the radio, first choosing a rap station, then flipping to sports. He let out a sigh and stared out the window, looking just as exhausted as Hanna felt. He’d hung around for a long time at the hospital last night, partly for Noel and partly for Hanna. Hanna wasn’t even sure when he’d left, but she was pretty certain it had been after midnight, and he’d showed up again shortly after Noel had woken up this morning.
Hanna’s phone, which was connected to the car’s Bluetooth system, bleated loudly. She pressed the ANSWER button on the center console without looking at the caller ID. “Hanna?” a familiar voice rang out. “It’s Kelly Crosby from the burn clinic.”
“Oh.” Hanna’s finger hovered over the HANG UP button on the steering wheel. She could feel Mike staring at her. “Uh, hi.”
“I was just calling to let you know that there’s no need for you to come in next week,” Kelly went on. “The clinic is closed until further notice because of the . . . murder.”
The murder. Hanna swallowed hard.
“I also wanted to let you know that Graham Pratt’s funeral will be tomorrow,” Kelly went on. “You were such good friends, I thought you might be interested.”
“Um, great,” Hanna said loudly to Kelly. “Gotta go!”
She hung up and stared straight through the windshield as though nothing were amiss. The only sound was the clunka-clunka-clunk of the uneven pavement on the off-ramp. Finally, Mike cleared his throat. “I thought you said Graham was the Unabomber, Hanna.”
Hanna gripped the steering wheel hard. Mike had been suspicious about her volunteering stint at the burn clinic, first certain she wanted to reconcile with her ex, Sean Ackard. That was ridiculous, but she couldn’t exactly tell him the whole truth, either—that would mean explaining about A. She’d finally admitted that Aria and Graham had been in the boiler room of the ship when the bomb went off, and she was spying on Graham to see what he knew. But there were a lot of holes in her story, and Mike knew it.
She shrugged. “I had to tell people at the burn clinic that Graham and I were friends. That was the only way they’d let me get close to him.”
“And what’s this about a murder?”
Hanna stared fixedly at a Delaware license plate on the car in front of her. “No clue.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t know!” Hanna protested.
But she did. Yesterday, a girl’s body had been found in the woods behind the clinic, and her hospital bracelet read KYLA KENNEDY. The girl had been dead for days, except Hanna had spoken to Kyla—or someone impersonating her—the previous night. Kyla’s bed had been outside Graham’s room. There was only one girl who didn’t want Graham to wake up and say who’d really set off the bomb.
Ali.
Hanna simply hadn’t recognized her under those bandages.
Hanna turned up her mom’s driveway and parked. She was out of the car and almost to the side door when she realized Mike wasn’t with her. He was still standing in the driveway, a strange expression on his face.
“I’m so sick of this,” he said in a quiet voice.
Hanna wilted. “Sick of what?”
“I know you’re lying.”
Hanna cut her gaze to the left. “Mike . . . stop.”
“First, you play detective, ditching prom—where you were queen—to go to the burn clinic and talk to the potential bomber instead of letting the cops deal with it.” Mike listed the items on his fingers. “Then, after you tell me that dude is dead, you disappear with Spencer and the others without telling me. When I find you next, you’re covered in mud.”