“Everyone needs to feel comfortable and welcome here, Spence,” Spencer’s mother answered quietly, pushing a lock of ash blond hair behind her ear. The four-carat diamond engagement ring Mr. Pennythistle had given her glinted under the overhead lights. “Besides, I thought Great-great-grandpa’s portrait scared you.”
“It scared Melissa, not me,” Spencer mumbled. In truth, she liked the kooky family portrait—several sad-eyed spaniels perched on Great-great-grandpa Hastings’s lap. Great-great-grandpa was also the spitting image of Spencer’s father, who’d moved out of the Hastings abode after her parents’ divorce and bought a loft in downtown Philadelphia. It had been Mr. Pennythistle’s idea to swap out the portrait with the grisly Civil War tableau, surely wanting to expunge all evidence of Spencer’s father from his new house. But who wanted to walk through the front door and be greeted by a bunch of rearing, angry steeds and bloodied Confederates? Just looking at the battle scene stressed Spencer out.
“Dinner is served!” a voice trilled from the kitchen.
Melissa, Spencer’s older sister, popped her head into the hall. She’d offered to cook the family dinner tonight, and she wore a black apron that said GREEN GOURMET across the front and silver oven mitts on her hands. A thin black velvet headband held back her chin-length blond hair, a pearl necklace encircled her throat, and understated Chanel ballet flats adorned her feet. She looked like a younger, fresher version of Martha Stewart.
Melissa caught Spencer’s eye. “I made your favorite, Spence. Lemon chicken with olives.”
“Thanks.” Spencer smiled gratefully, knowing this was a gesture of solidarity. The sisters had been rivals for a long time, but last year, they’d finally put aside their differences. Melissa knew Spencer wasn’t adjusting well to the new family situation. But there were other things Spencer was having a hard time swallowing, too. Things Spencer didn’t dare talk about with her sister—or with anyone.
Spencer followed her mother and Mr. Pennythistle—she still couldn’t bring herself to call him Nicholas—into the kitchen just as Melissa was setting a baking dish in the center of the table. Their stepsister-to-be, Amelia, who was two years younger than Spencer, perched in the corner seat, napkin primly on her lap. She was wearing a pair of low-heeled booties Spencer had picked out for her on a recent shopping trip in New York, but her hair was still frizzy and her shiny cheeks were desperately in need of foundation.
Amelia scowled when she looked up and saw Spencer, and Spencer turned away, feeling a prickle of annoyance. It was clear Amelia still hadn’t forgiven her for getting her brother, Zach, sent away to military school. Spencer hadn’t meant to out Zach to his father. But when Mr. Pennythistle had walked in on Spencer and Zach in bed together, he’d assumed the worst and flown into a rage. Spencer had only announced that Zach was gay to get Mr. Pennythistle to stop hitting his son.
“Hey, Spencer,” another voice said. Darren Wilden, Melissa’s boyfriend, sat on the other side of Amelia, chewing on a piece of fresh-from-the-oven garlic bread. “What’s new?”
A fist clenched in Spencer’s chest. Though he now worked security at a museum in Philly, until recently Darren Wilden had been Officer Wilden, the chief investigator in the Alison DiLaurentis murder case, and it had been his job to sense when people were hiding something or lying. Could Wilden know about Spencer’s new stalker, who—of course—went by A? Could he suspect what she and her friends had done to Tabitha in Jamaica?
“Uh, nothing,” Spencer said haltingly, tugging on the collar of her blouse. She was being ridiculous. There was no way Wilden could know about A or Tabitha. He couldn’t possibly know that every night, Spencer had bad dreams about the Tabitha incident, replaying the awful day in Jamaica over and over again. Nor could he know that Spencer read and reread articles about the aftershocks of Tabitha’s death as often as she could—about how devastated Tabitha’s parents were. How her friends in New Jersey held vigils in her honor. How several new nonprofits had sprung up to condemn teenage drinking, which was what everyone had assumed had killed her.
But it wasn’t what killed her—and Spencer knew it. So did A.
Who could have seen them that night? Who hated them so much to torture them with the information and threaten to ruin their lives instead of going directly to the cops? Spencer couldn’t believe that she and her friends were yet again faced with the task of figuring out who A might be. Even worse, she couldn’t think of a single suspect. A hadn’t written Spencer or the others another note since that harrowing newscast two weeks ago, but Spencer was sure A wasn’t gone for good.
And what else did A know? A’s last message said, This is just the tip of the iceberg, as if he or she was privy to other secrets. Unfortunately, Spencer had a few more skeletons locked in her closet. Like what had happened with Kelsey Pierce at Penn last summer—Kelsey had been sent to juvie because of what Spencer had done to her. But surely A couldn’t know about that. Then again, A always seemed to know everything. . . .
“Seriously, nothing?” Wilden took another bite of crispy bread, his gray-green eyes on her. “That doesn’t sound like the whirlwind schedule of a soon-to-be Princeton student.”
Spencer pretended to wipe a spot off her water glass, wishing Wilden would stop staring at her as though she were a paramecium under a microscope. “I’m in the school play,” she mumbled.
“Not just in the school play, you’re the lead—as usual.” Melissa rolled her eyes good-naturedly. She smiled at Mr. Pennythistle and Amelia. “Spence has starred in every production since preschool.”
“And you’re playing Lady Macbeth this year.” Mr. Pennythistle sank ceremoniously into the heavy mahogany chair at the head of the table. “That’s a challenging role. I can’t wait to see the performance.”
“You don’t have to come,” Spencer blurted, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.
“Of course Nicholas is coming!” Mrs. Hastings squeaked. “It’s marked on our calendars!”
Spencer stared at her reflection in the back of her spoon. The last thing she wanted was a man she barely knew feigning interest in her life. Mr. Pennythistle was only coming to the play because Spencer’s mom was making him.