Stunning. Part 18

"We heard that go off," Aria said.

"Did you see who shot it?" Lowry asked.

Everyone exchanged a helpless look. "The fog was too thick," Emily said. "All we heard were footsteps."

"I saw someone run in front of my car," Spencer offered, "but I didn't see a face."

Lowry s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun with two gloved fingers, placed it into a plastic bag, and handed it to one of the detectives. The man tapped something into a laptop. Emily shivered next to her friends, trying to convey what she was thinking without speaking. How had this happened? And who killed Gayle? Was it completely unrelated to us or the baby?

Or, Emily thought with a shiver, what if the killer was absolutely related? Was it possible Gayle wasn't A after all? Was it possible that A had killed Gayle?

But why?

After a few torturous minutes, the detective returned to the girls. "Okay. The weapon was registered to a Gayle Riggs. According to the records, it hadn't been stolen. Whoever shot it must have taken it from her house."

The cop holding Aria jutted a thumb into the darkness. "Isaac saw you girls go into the house. Coincidence?"

"Yes," Aria said weakly. "It was someone else."

Lowry glanced at Gayle's body on the ground, which was now covered with a sheet. "We'll run fingerprints on the gun. The results should take a few hours." Then he glanced at the girls. "Until then, you four are coming with us."

32.

CONFESSION TIME.

The last time Spencer had been at the Rosewood police station was when Darren Wilden brought her and her friends in a year ago-the cops had accused the girls of helping Ian Thomas escape police custody, as well as aiding and abetting in Ali's murder. The precinct had changed since then, having gotten a fresh coat of paint, new front windows, one of those fancy coffee machines that also made cappuccino and hot chocolate, and a marginally nicer interrogation room. Instead of the banged-up wooden table with the graffiti all over it, there was a shiny new metal one.

Not that any of it made Spencer feel more comfortable being here.

She and her friends sat silently around the table. Hanna bit relentlessly at her thumbnail, which was still stained from fingerprinting ink. Aria kept bursting into tears, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. Emily was sucking so hard on her lip it looked like it might disappear. Spencer leapt up and began pacing around the room, the gnawing feeling in her gut too much to bear. What if they were accused of Gayle's murder? What if they were put away for life?

She stopped pacing. "Guys, maybe we should just tell them that A gave us that tip to go to Gayle's house. They're probably going to ask about it again anyway."

Aria's eyes widened. "You know we can't do that. A will tell on us."

Spencer sat back down in the chair. "But what if A is Gayle's murderer?"

Hanna frowned. "But I thought Gayle was A."

"Seriously?" Spencer stared at her. "After what we just witnessed?"

"It doesn't seem likely." Emily leaned forward on her elbows. "What if A planned all this? Luring us to Mockingbird Drive, everything? It's possible there wasn't a baby at her house at all. Maybe it was a recording."

Aria squinted. "But why would A kill Gayle?"

"To frame us, maybe." Spencer thought for a moment. "Or maybe A meant to get to us first, but Gayle got in the way. Wasn't she supposed to be at the fund-raiser?"

She shut her eyes and thought about those terrifying seconds when she'd pulled up the driveway on Mockingbird Lane. A figure had run in front of the car, then darted across the street into the woods. Whoever it was wore all black and had a hood cinched tight-Spencer hadn't been able to tell if it was a guy or a girl.

Hanna cleared her throat. "But Gayle is Tabitha's mom. She was out to steal Violet. She was at Princeton when Spencer was, she infiltrated my dad's campaign, she threatened me at the race. It makes so much sense that she's A."

"I agree," Aria said.

"So why is Gayle dead now?" Spencer demanded.

The door swung open, and everyone jumped. Lowry walked through and made a motion for the girls to stand up. There was a pinched look on his face, and he was holding a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. "Well, none of the prints on the gun matched any of yours."

Spencer stood up abruptly. "Whose prints were on the gun?"

"Ms. Riggs's." Lowry sipped his coffee. "And a set of prints we don't have on record. They could be her husband's. He just arrived from New York, and I want all of us to talk together."

Spencer exchanged a terrified look with the others. Gayle's husband was Tabitha's father.

Before they could say a word, a tall, thin man entered the room. Spencer recognized him from the news stories about Tabitha, the mourning father who'd do anything to have his daughter back. His eyes were tinged red, and he had a look on his face as though he'd just been struck by lightning. She folded in her shoulders, terrified that he'd know what they'd done to his daughter, but Mr. Clark seemed too catatonic to notice them.

Lowry curled his hands over the back of an empty chair. "Mr. Clark, I'd like to clear up a story Ms. Fields told us about your wife." He glanced at Emily, then at Tabitha's father. "I apologize that we have to do this so soon after her death, but it's important for our investigation."

He repeated what Emily had told him about Gayle wanting to adopt her baby this summer, ending in how Emily was worried that Gayle had stolen the baby tonight-they'd heard a baby crying on the back porch. Mr. Clark stared at Emily, looking startled. "She never told me about wanting to adopt a baby last summer," he said faintly.

Spencer squinted at him, hardly believing what she was hearing. How could Gayle not have told her own husband?

"She said you knew," Emily said. Spencer was amazed at her ability to speak-if she was the one being questioned right now, she'd probably hide under the table. "She said she was going to put you on the phone, but she never did."

"Probably because I told her very clearly I didn't want to adopt." Mr. Clark rubbed the top of his head. "So what happened? Why didn't you give her the baby?"

Emily's throat bobbed. "I chose another family. That's all."

Mr. Clark blinked rapidly. "Was it because you never spoke to me? Was it because you thought we weren't a good match?"

"It's hard to explain," Emily mumbled, staring at her high heels.

Mr. Clark's eyes were vacant and hollow as he stared past the girls at the wall. "Sometimes Gayle gets ideas in her head that she can't let go of. She can be very determined-even pigheaded-to get what she wants."

He blew his nose. "I a.s.sure you, though, we didn't kidnap any children. We hadn't told anyone yet, but Gayle had just taken a pregnancy test last week. It was positive, and she was overjoyed." He shook his head. "We'd worked so hard to get pregnant. This was our fifth round of fertility treatments. We'd been through so much pain." His shoulders started to shake. "This can't be happening. First Tabitha, now Gayle."

Tabitha. Just hearing her name was torture. Spencer reached over and took Emily's hand. Hanna and Aria looked like they were going to explode.

Emily shifted her weight. "I'm very sorry about your daughter. That must have been so hard for you two as parents."

Mr. Clark's eyebrows lowered as he turned toward them. "Well, Gayle was Tabitha's stepmother. It was hard on her, of course, especially since they had some . . . problems. Tabitha had behavioral issues. Gayle pushed to have Tabitha sent away, and I finally relented."

Spencer exchanged a covert, startled look with Emily and the others. Stepmother? That would explain why she was never on the news and had a different last name.

Mr. Clark put his head in his hands. "I shouldn't have given into Gayle's pressure to send Tabitha away. And I made so many mistakes with Gayle, too. I shouldn't have nagged her about all the boards she was on, all the money she spent on parties. I shouldn't have yelled at her for that money that went missing last summer. I just want her back. I need her back."

He let out a low moan. Lowry stood and shooed the girls out of the room, following them out. Once they were far enough away, he put his hands in his pockets and jingled loose change. "I don't think we need to ask him any more questions about whether he kidnapped your baby, Ms. Fields. I just got a text that the police are done with their search of the house, too. They didn't find any clues, and they certainly didn't find any children."

Emily's throat bobbed as she swallowed. "Okay," she said quietly.

Lowry frowned. "Do you know who might have sent you to Ms. Riggs's house, even as a joke?"

Emily shot a nervous look at the others, then shook her head. "I don't. But I don't think whoever sent it meant anything by it-or had anything to do with Gayle's murder. We're the Pretty Little Liars. People send us fake notes all the time, and this was all just a terrible coincidence."

Her lips trembled. Spencer could tell she hated lying. She almost jumped in to tell the cop everything about A, but then restrained herself.

Lowry let out a frustrated, why are you wasting my time sigh. "You girls are free to go. But don't think you're off the hook. You were still on someone's property without permission, and you were still witnesses to a murder. If there's anything you aren't telling me-like about who sent this text-you'd better come forward. And those of you who are under eighteen, I'm going to have to call your parents about this."

Emily flinched. "And tell them what?"

Lowry stared at her. "That you were trespa.s.sing. That you witnessed a murder. Personally, Ms. Fields, I think you should tell them the whole truth. But I can't make that decision for you."

With that, he opened the front door and let Spencer and the others out. The digital clock outside the bank across the street said it was almost three in the morning. Not a car was on Lancaster Avenue. Spencer pulled her coat around her and stared long and hard at her friends. "Okay. Did I just hear what I thought I heard?"

"I'm having a hard time believing it, too," Hanna whispered.

"That was why I saw her at Babies "R" Us," Aria murmured. "I thought it was to get ready for your baby, Em, but she must have been shopping for her own."

"But she threatened me," Hanna said in a small voice.

Spencer tapped her lips thoughtfully. "What exactly did she say?"

"That she wanted what she was owed. Meaning the baby."

"What if Gayle wasn't talking about the baby? What if she was talking about the money?" Spencer gestured in the direction of the police station. "Mr. Clark just said he was really hard on Gayle for losing some money over the summer. What if it was the money that she gave to Emily for the baby?"

"I gave that money back," Hanna protested.

"You put it in Gayle's mailbox. Someone could have easily stolen it," Spencer pointed out. "What if Gayle thought Emily scammed her? What if she's been p.i.s.sed all this time because she thought you took her money and ran?" She blinked hard, the puzzle pieces suddenly snapping together in a different way. "It could make sense. What if A stole the cash from Gayle's mailbox to make her angry, which would make her look like she was out to get us? What if A took advantage of the situation and cast suspicion on someone innocent, just like what happened with Kelsey?"

"But . . ." Aria bit her fingernail. "Gayle's Tabitha's mom."

"Stepmom," Spencer corrected. "It sounded like there wasn't any love lost between them, either."

"A could have lured us to Gayle's house, trying to trap us, just like you said, Spence," Emily said. "Maybe A hadn't expected Gayle to be there tonight-she was supposed to be at the gala. But then she was. Maybe she took A by surprise. So A killed her."

Spencer nodded, thinking the same thing. Had Gayle inadvertently saved their lives? If she hadn't been at the house, would A have killed them instead?

Aria and Hanna shifted, but didn't say anything. A long silence followed. A lone Honda Civic rolled through a stop light without waiting for the light to turn green. A neon sign blinked across the avenue.

"Do you think it's true?" Hanna's skin was pale. "Do you think we were wrong again?"

Spencer shivered, staring into the distance. "Maybe," she whispered.

And someone else was dead because of it.

33.

ARIA'S CONFIDANTE The next morning, Aria sat cross-legged on the living room floor at her dad's house, trying to meditate. Let go of all of your stress, a soothing voice said through her headphones. Breathe in and out and picture it all slowly floating away . . .

It was easier said than done, though, because the image of Gayle's ashen, bloodless face kept leaping into Aria's mind. The news had talked about nothing but Gayle's murder all morning, and everyone was hysterical that another Rosewood killer might be on the loose. Miraculously, Aria and the others weren't mentioned in the story. Last night, when Spencer's dad found out the girls had been taken to the police station for questioning about Gayle's murder, he'd immediately left his apartment in Philadelphia, driven to Rosewood, and had a long talk with Lieutenant Lowry, who happened to be the son of one of his best friends. Because there was no evidence that the girls had actually done anything, because the girls had been through so much media scrutiny the previous year, and because Mr. Clark wasn't pressing charges for trespa.s.sing, the cops had agreed not to release the girls' names to the press.

There was a lot of speculation in the press about who Gayle's killer might be-someone after Gayle's money, or an enemy of her husband's, or a partner from a business deal gone sour. No one had guessed that the Pretty Little Liars were involved.

The idea that Gayle wasn't A and that A had set a trap for them at Gayle's house terrified Aria-whoever they were dealing with was diabolical and brilliant. And they still didn't know what had happened to Emily's baby, if anything. None of them had received a message from A since the one that appeared in Emily's inbox at the benefit, so maybe the whole thing-including the crying baby sounds-was a bluff. One good thing had happened: Early that morning, Aria received a text from Hanna saying she'd finally tracked down the address of the family who had adopted Violet, using her dad's voter records. They live in Chestnut Hill, the text said. Em wants to drive by the house, and she wants us to go with her. They arranged to drive there later that night. Hanna had added that she'd asked to borrow Kate's car-it might be good to take one that people didn't a.s.sociate with any of them. Aria understood why without Hanna having to explain: An unrecognizable car meant A was less likely to follow them. If A was on the loose-and had no trouble killing people-they couldn't run the risk of leading A straight to Violet.

Now move into downward-facing dog, said the lilting voice in Aria's headphones.

Aria placed her hands on the carpet and pointed her b.u.t.t in the air. She heard footsteps and looked up. Meredith leaned against the doorjamb, her fingers worrying an ap.r.o.n around her waist. "I thought you said you weren't into yoga."

Aria sat up quickly, feeling caught. "Uh . . ." She trailed off, not able to find an appropriate excuse.

Meredith sat down on the edge of the couch and flicked the ta.s.sels on one of the pillows. "It was really nice to talk to you about that stuff between me and your dad the other day."

Aria's mouth twitched. "Um, yeah," she mumbled, not sure if she meant it.

"I've never been able to tell anyone about how hard things were," Meredith went on. "I realize you weren't the right person, and I understand that you probably don't care if things were difficult for me or not. But I do know that I hurt you. And I want you to know that I never meant to. I didn't want to break up your family. I feel terrible about that every day."

"Think about how I felt," Aria said, feeling a rush of anger. "I felt like I would break up my family if I didn't keep the secret. But I also felt like I was betraying my mom for not saying anything."

"I know," Meredith said earnestly. "And I'm sorry about that. But after things were out in the open, did you feel better?"

Aria arched her back, examining the wooden pendant light hanging from the ceiling. "It was awful hiding it. The antic.i.p.ation of getting found out was even worse than people knowing the truth. I guess I did feel better eventually."

Meredith twisted the promise ring Byron had given her around her finger. "Can I ask you something? Did you ask me all that stuff because you were curious about me, or because you were dealing with a secret of your own? Something you didn't want to tell anyone?"

Aria's head shot up, and for a moment, she feared A had sent Meredith a message, telling her everything. But Meredith's expression was innocent-caring, even. Like it mattered to her what happened to Aria. For a moment, she almost felt like-well, not a mother, exactly, but family.

"Something like that," Aria mumbled into her chest.

"Are you okay?"

Aria shrugged, not answering.