And at that, she started peeling off her clothes, first her T-shirt, then her shoes and socks, then her jeans, which were Emily’s. Her legs and arms looked so pale. The knobs of her spine stuck out prominently.

“Iris!” Emily protested, running after her toward the water, dodging the pile of clothes she’d left in her wake. “You’ll freeze!”

But Iris had already plunged into the lake. She surfaced and shrieked at the cold, then laughed. “C’mon, Emily!” she called out. “It’s a rush!”

Emily stared at Iris, then turned back and looked at the carving on the tree. It was a rush, finding out something new about Ali. And Iris’s admission suddenly made her feel charitable. Daring and invincible, too. She pulled her sweater over her head, kicked off her jeans, and waded into the frigid water after Iris, not caring that the fishermen were staring. There was a flicker in the trees, and Emily stopped, goose bumps rising on her bare stomach. Ali? The word froze solid as it left her lips.

But when she looked again, the forest was still. Whoever had been watching had vanished.

16

Meeting of the Minds

On Tuesday night, Spencer sat at the kitchen table with Amelia, their schoolbooks spread in front of them and the classical station on at low volume. Spencer liked doing her homework at the kitchen table. As it turned out, so did Amelia, meaning the kitchen had turned into a turf war.

An IM popped up on Spencer’s laptop. It was Chase. Hey there, Britney.

Spencer smiled. Chase’s nickname had grown on her. But she hesitated before replying. It was one thing to break the Internet rule on a super-safe connection, but A probably had been bugging her laptop for months.

She jumped up from the table and ran into her mother’s office, a carved-out nook behind the pantry. Mrs. Hastings’s computer was on a vegan recipe website. Spencer exited out of it, logged into her mother’s instant messenger screen name, RufusAndBeatrice—Mrs. Hastings liked to IM Spencer that dinner was ready and things like that. She found Chase’s screen name, friended him, and told him that it was Britney, just using her mom’s account instead of her own.

After a moment, another message from Chase appeared. Two things: One, I’ve reached out to Billy Ford to see if he had any interaction with Alison before he was arrested.

Spencer almost dropped her bottle of coconut water. Billy Ford was the guy who’d been framed for murdering Their Ali—he’d been one of the guys who’d dug the hole where Ali’s body had been found. People thought he was A, too. The cops found pictures of Spencer and the others on the laptop in his truck. But Real Ali had planted them there.

Did he tell you anything interesting? Spencer asked. If she remembered correctly, Billy told the cops that the only time he’d seen Alison—or, rather, Courtney—was when he’d worked on her gazebo when the girls were in seventh grade. He had no idea how Real Ali had gotten those files onto his laptop.

He told me that a few days before all that stuff was found in his truck, someone from Geek Squad came to his door and offered to do a free security scan. Maybe that person helped frame him. Perhaps they were working with Alison.

Spencer’s eyes lit up. Was it a guy or girl?

He said it was a guy. But he barely remembers him. Couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.

Spencer laid her head on her mom’s desk. Another dead end.

There was another ping. Two, I just received some interesting photos of Ali and her sister when they were younger. Maybe they’ll spark a connection.

Spencer glanced over her shoulder in case Amelia was watching from the kitchen. Where did you find them? she typed.

The text box lit up again. You wouldn’t believe the sorts of people who come out of the woodwork when you run a conspiracy theory blog. I get all kinds of weird stuff about all sorts of topics. These I got anonymously, but I really think they’re legit. Exciting, right?

Spencer swished a gulp of coconut water in her mouth. Whenever anything was done anonymously, her first thought was that it was A. But why would A send DiLaurentis twin pictures to a conspiracy blog?

It is exciting, she wrote back—and she meant it. Not only finding new evidence, but also talking to someone who was just as jazzed about it as Spencer was. Not just someone, either, but a smart, interesting, funny, intriguing guy. Not that Spencer had a crush on him or anything.

Okay, maybe she did.

The idea of him was just so alluring. All the investigating he’d done on Ali, his tragic story about being stalked, even his choice of words in their chats. Last night, he’d used the phrase if I had my druthers, which was so adorably old-fashioned Spencer had squealed with delight. Chase was smart and funny . . . and they both wanted to bring Ali down. It sort of felt like they were a superhero duo, connected via Internet. Surely there was a picture of him online, right? But Spencer had spent hours last night searching all sorts of avenues. The work he’d done with the police. The stalking story. There wasn’t a single image of him anywhere—of course, it would help if she knew his last name.

She had to meet him.

She looked at the screen and took a deep breath. I really want to see them, she wrote. But I don’t want you sending them over the Internet. Do you think we could meet in person? It might be a risk to reveal who she really was, but she was willing to take the chance.

The cursor blinked . . . and blinked . . . and blinked. No new message appeared. Spencer’s cheeks burned. This felt just like the time in seventh grade when Spencer and Ali were competing over who could kiss the greatest number of older guys. Spencer had walked up to Oliver Nolan, the champion rower at St. Francis Prep, and asked him to kiss her, and he’d flat-out refused. Ali had been watching—she’d laughed her head off.

There was a knock on the front door. Spencer jumped up from her mom’s desk chair, ran through the kitchen and down the hall, and peered through the sidelight window. Emily stood on the porch. Her Volvo wagon chugged at the curb; Iris’s blond head could be seen in the passenger seat.

“What’s going on?” Spencer whispered as she opened the door.

Emily looked right and left. Then she pulled Spencer down the hall and into the powder room. She shut the door and turned on the overhead fan, which rattled noisily, and ran the faucet at full volume.

“What are you doing?” Spencer frowned at Emily’s reflection in the mirror. “What about Iris?”

“She’ll be okay,” Emily assured her. “I want to make sure no one hears. I just found out that Ali did have a special boyfriend, someone on the outside. The two of them met as soon as she was let out of The Preserve after Ian was arrested. There’s a carving at Keppler Creek State Park that says I love Ali D with last year’s date.”

“Keppler Park?” Spencer leaned against the pedestal sink. “That’s almost in Delaware.”

Emily chewed on her thumb. “I know. Maybe the boyfriend is from there. Ali said he was her best friend in the world. What if this friend is her helper?”

Spencer thought about what Chase had just said about Billy Ford: The Geek Squad employee who’d planted that stuff on his laptop was a guy, too. “She didn’t say who he was?”

“No. But maybe whoever this is hated us as much as Real Ali did. Maybe he was pissed that we put Real Ali in The Preserve and let Courtney go free. It sounds like we’re looking for a guy, right?”

“So it could be Jason,” Spencer said. “Or Wilden. Or . . . hold on.” She darted out of the powder room, up the stairs, and grabbed the rolled-up list they’d made in the panic room that she’d stashed in a padlocked box under her bed. She spread it out across the sink and crossed off the girls’ names. Jason and Wilden were next on the list.

“If it was someone who was pissed that Real Ali was locked up, this guy would have had to have known Real Ali before Courtney made the switch, right?” Emily murmured as she stared at the list. “Jason makes sense, obviously, but I just can’t see him killing for her.”

“That’s how I feel about Wilden,” Spencer murmured. “He hates Ali with a passion—and anyway, Ali-as-A kind of embarrassed him with all that Amish stuff last year.” A had sent Emily on a wild-goose chase to Amish country, where Emily had exposed Wilden’s roots there.

Emily nodded. “That was something he definitely didn’t want people to know about. If he was Ali’s helper, I don’t know why he would have allowed that.”

Spencer put a question mark next to Jason’s name and drew a faint line through Wilden’s. They looked at the list again. Graham. Noel.

Spencer glanced at Emily’s pale face in the mirror. “Have you talked to Aria lately?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“She won’t answer my calls.” Emily swallowed hard. “I think she’s upset that we’re asking her so many questions about Noel.”

“I feel terrible about it,” Spencer said into her chest. “But . . .” She trailed off, her thoughts still unfocused. She’d revisited a lot of memories about Noel over the past few days, and some worrying details had surfaced. Like how on the day after they’d pushed Tabitha off the roof, the girls had gathered together in Spencer’s room to discuss what they should do. As they were panicking, Spencer heard shuffling sounds in the hall. She peered through the peephole and saw Noel standing at the door, staring at something on his phone. She whipped open the door and glared at him. “Can I help you?”

“Oh!” Noel looked surprised. “I was just seeing if Aria was here. I want to take her to breakfast.”

Aria had rushed to Noel’s side, and the conversation had ended. Spencer hadn’t thought much of it—she’d just been glad Noel hadn’t overheard anything. But what if he had overheard? What if he already knew what they were talking about because he’d been there the night before?

“What about your search?” Emily whispered. “Have you figured anything out?”

Spencer straightened up. “Well, if Ali did escape the explosion, there might be a lead on a private nurse she hired to help her recover from her burns. I’m trying to track down where the nurse lives and what she knows.”

“Wow.” Emily sounded amazed. “How’d you figure all that out?”

“Oh, you know.” Spencer nervously folded the hand towel again and again. She could just hear Emily’s response if she told her she was corresponding with a conspiracy blogger: Are you out of your mind? That’s so dangerous!

“Do you think Ali knows you’re looking for her?” Emily whispered.

Spencer picked up a scented candle and put it back down. “I hope not.”

Emily glanced at the Nike watch on her wrist. “I’d better get back to Iris before she decides to drive off without me. At least we’re making progress, though.”

“We just have to keep pushing,” Spencer said.

She walked Emily to the door, her brain swimming. When she turned the lock again, the telltale ping of an IM rang through the hall. She ran back to her mom’s office. The screen was flashing. Chase had written back.