He stepped on the porch and rang the bell. Spencer waited a beat, then pulled the door open. The guy in front of her wore jeans and a striped button-down. He was about Spencer’s height and well-built, and he had sharp green eyes and a sensual, pink full-lipped mouth. There were ugly white scars across his cheeks. There were more slashes on his hands. One of his ears was shriveled, barely there.
“Hey, Spencer,” he said.
She backed away from him. “W-who are you?”
“I’m Chase,” the guy said.
Spencer paused, waiting for the punch line. “No, you’re not,” she spat. “I know Chase.” She didn’t know what to think of Chase—even if he wasn’t A, maybe he was somehow working with Noel and Ali. How else could he have known about Jamaica?
She went to shut the door, but the guy caught her arm. “Actually, you know my brother. His name is Curtis. I sent him to meet you in my place. I’m the one you’ve really been talking to online. I’m the one who set up the Alison DiLaurentis website.”
Spots formed in front of Spencer’s eyes. A horn honked on the next street over, matching the dissonant sounds in her brain. She grabbed the cordless phone that sat on the table next to the door. “Leave right now, or I’ll call the police.”
The boy raised his hands in surrender. “Look, I’m sorry I lied to you. But we had such an amazing connection online, and I was so jazzed about you, but when I went to the Mütter Museum and saw how pretty you were, I just couldn’t go in there looking . . . you know . . . the way I look.” He gestured to his face, his ear. “My brother was in the car with me. So I sent him in instead, told him to be me. I told him what to say about the case. But he fell for you. And then when we found out that you were Spencer Hastings . . .” He paused and shook his head. “Then I really couldn’t show you who I was. I’ve had a crush on you since I read about you in People.”
Spencer didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I know.” Chase looked tormented. “But it’s the truth, I swear. Curtis texted me what you said during the meetings, and I told him what to say. We were both into you—Curtis and I actually got into a huge fight the night of prom because I thought we should come clean and he didn’t want to.”
Spencer’s head was whirling so fast it actually hurt. “He mentioned something I never told him—either of you.”
Chase blinked. “What did he bring up?”
Spencer swallowed hard. “Something about Jamaica,” she admitted. It hardly mattered who she told now—Noel was the guilty one, not her.
Chase’s brow furrowed, then a light came on in his eyes. “Oh—you were in Jamaica when Tabitha Clark died, is that it?”
Spencer’s eyes flashed, but she said nothing.
“I’ve gotten some requests to put the Tabitha Clark murder on my blog, since it’s local,” Chase said. “I looked into it a little. I also peeked at your Facebook page—some of your photos are public, including a few from The Cliffs in Jamaica last spring. Curtis was in the room when I was searching, and I might have said that you were there at the same time Tabitha was—it was such a weird and sad coincidence.” His big eyes filled with remorse. “But I’m sorry, Spencer. It’s a huge invasion of privacy. I should have never Googled you, never stalked your Facebook page. I should have been honest with you from the very start.”
The sun came out from behind a cloud, illuminating the scars on Chase’s cheek. Spencer shut her eyes and tried to process what Chase was saying. In some ways, it wasn’t really so different from what Their Ali did to them. She’d convinced them—everyone—that she was someone she wasn’t. And people trusted her because of it. People bought into her lies.
“Why should I believe anything you’re telling me?” she said stiffly. “You could be stalking me, too.”
“I’m not.” Chase shook his head. “I promise, Spencer, I’m not. I would never do that. This has happened to me, remember?”
“Exactly!” Spencer cried. “You know what being stalked was like. Or was that a lie, too?”
Chase set his jaw. “Look at me, Spencer. I’m not lying to you. And I’ll never lie to you again. My roommate slashed me—and even then, people didn’t believe he could do such a thing. You’re right: I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy like that, but I was just trying to help. As far as sending my brother in my place, tell me you wouldn’t have slunk away, creeped out by the scars. I saw your face when you met Curtis. We all judge a book by its cover. It’s just how life is.”
A gust of wind blew her hair sideways. How would she have reacted? Was she really that superficial?
Chase sighed heavily. “Look, I don’t expect to ever see you again, but I do want to assure you that everything on my site is for real. And I was serious yesterday when I had my brother say I found a picture of Alison on a surveillance video from a building not far from here. Look.”
He rummaged in his messenger bag. Spencer shifted, having forgotten what Curtis had mentioned in the car. Chase extracted a silver laptop, opened it up, and clicked on a folder. “I’m friends with a bunch of cops in Rosewood, Yarmouth, and a couple of other towns outside Philly. I was actually researching that case about the Rosewood Stalker—remember that? Someone thought they’d seen the stalker near Hollis. A cop friend gave me some surveillance videos, and I hit on this.”
The folder opened, and several pictures loaded. Spencer leaned down to look. A grainy, black-and-white shot of a Hollis street appeared. Garbage cans sat at the curb. A girl in a leather jacket was getting into her VW Beetle. There was nothing interesting in it, as far as she could tell.
But then Chase pointed to two shadowy figures in the top right corner. “Doesn’t that girl seem familiar?”