She trailed after Iris down the sweet-smelling corridor toward the Contemporary section. As Emily passed the handbags, someone yanked her arm. Spencer was crouched behind a table full of Marc by Marc Jacobs satchels. “Psst,” she whispered.
Emily ducked down beside her. “What are you doing here?”
Spencer’s eyes darted back and forth. “I special-ordered shoes for prom at Saks.” She peered down the corridor at Iris, who was now posing in front of a three-way mirror. “Has she told you anything yet?”
“Not since you last asked,” Emily grumbled. “We’ve been too busy.”
“Doing what?”
Emily gazed at a perfume ad across the aisle. The girl in the picture looked a little like Jordan, which made her heart ache. “Well, after I signed her out of The Preserve and before I met you at the panic room, Iris made me go to the city so she could make out with a Ben Franklin impersonator. And then, this morning, I had to drive her to her old school. Iris wanted to climb a rope in the playground and ring a brass bell at the top.” She’d looked like a spider on that rope, all spindly arms and legs, the jeans Emily lent her held up by a child-sized belt.
“It turns out high school kids hide pot up that pole,” Emily went on. “Iris came down with a huge bag. So now I’ve got an escaped mental patient and pot at my house. My parents will freak if they find out.”
As soon as she said it, she realized how ridiculous it sounded. Her parents would freak even more if they found out Emily was keeping the secret that Aria had stolen a priceless painting. And helped shove a girl off a roof. And everything else.
Spencer shifted her weight. “So she’s told you nothing about Ali?”
Emily looked around for Iris, finally spotting her blond head by a rack of miniskirts. “I’m working on it.” She’d asked Iris for an Ali tidbit last night, but Iris had said that Emily hadn’t done anything to really deserve information yet—she would have to prove herself. When Emily asked Iris what, specifically, she had to do to receive a blessed piece of information, Iris had tossed her hair, shrugged, and said, “I’ll know it when I see it.”
“And A doesn’t know Iris is with you, right?” Spencer whispered.
Emily squeezed a Michael Kors clutch, angry all over again that Iris had changed the rules on her. The tissue paper inside crinkled. “No.”
“What should we do about that painting?”
The cloying mix of perfumes was giving Emily a headache. “I don’t know. What do you think we should do?”
Spencer slowly shook her head. “I don’t have a clue.”
Emily stared into Spencer’s clear blue eyes. She still couldn’t believe that Aria had kept her secret for so long, especially given that she knew about things Spencer, Emily, and Hanna had done over the summer. But now that she thought about it, there might have been one time around Christmas when Aria had tried: They were at Spencer’s annual party, and after a couple of drinks, Aria had pulled Emily aside. “I’ve done something awful,” she’d whispered into Emily’s ear. “I can’t live with myself.”
Emily had assumed she meant Tabitha. “Any of us would have done the same thing.”
Aria shook her head, her eyes glittering with tears. “You don’t understand. You just don’t understand. What I did will ruin everything, and—”
“There you are!” a voice said from behind them, and suddenly Noel clapped a hand on Aria’s shoulder. Aria’s features crumpled into something resembling a smile. “Hey, will you come meet my buddy from lacrosse camp? I haven’t seen him in ages!” Noel said.
“Sure!” Aria said brightly, her mouth still wobbling.
And just like that, he was steering her away from Emily. In retrospect, perhaps a bit territorially. Like Aria was his possession.
But the next time Emily had caught up with her, she’d been buoyant and lively. What if Aria had been trying to tell her about hooking up with Olaf? Stealing the painting?
“Ooh! These are pretty!”
Emily snapped out of her reverie in time to see Iris showing Mrs. Fields a pair of teal-blue jeans. They were a size 00—and Emily guessed they would still be too big on Iris.
She was about to stand up to go join them, but Spencer grabbed her arm. “Do you really think Noel was on a ski trip the weekend Olaf was killed?”
There was a determined look in Spencer’s eye, the same sort of face she got when she, Ali, Emily, and the others used to put together puzzles on the floor of Ali’s Poconos living room. Sometimes, they made solving the puzzles a race, and Spencer, desperate to beat Ali, shoved pieces together even when they didn’t fit.
“I don’t think we should go on a witch hunt quite yet,” Emily said slowly.
“But Noel makes so much sense, don’t you think?” Spencer whispered.
Emily shut her eyes. She didn’t want Noel to make sense. It would kill Aria. “I don’t know,” she said wearily.
“Emily!” Iris crowed. When Emily looked up, Iris was coming straight for them.
Emily shoved Spencer out of the way and stood. “Hey!” she called, trying to smile.
“What were you doing on the floor?” Iris stared suspiciously at the spot where Emily had just been sitting. Blessedly, Spencer had scampered out of sight. Then Iris pressed an armful of silk blouses at Emily’s chest. “Stuff these in your bag. I already pulled the electronic tags off.”
She glared at Iris. “My mom’s right over there!” Mrs. Fields was holding up a leopard-patterned jacket to her torso and twisting this way and that in the mirror.
Iris scoffed. “So? She won’t see.” She inched closer. “I’ll give you a really good Ali tidbit if you do.”