They started down the stairs, straightening their clothes. Halfway down, Emily heard someone let out a phlegm-filled cough.
They both froze. Emily widened her eyes at Isaac. His parents weren’t supposed to be back until after seven.
A creaky footstep sounded from the kitchen. A set of car keys jangled, then dropped into a ceramic bowl. Emily’s stomach swooped. She gazed at the mute, glassy-eyed dolls on the steps. They seemed to be smirking at her.
Emily and Isaac scrambled down the stairs and flung themselves on the couch. As soon as their butts hit the cushions, Mrs. Colbert walked into the room. She was dressed in a long red wool skirt and a white cable-knit sweater. Because of the way the light reflected off her glasses, Emily couldn’t tell where she was looking. There was a stern, disapproving look on her face. For an agonizing second, Emily became panicked that Mrs. Colbert had heard everything that had just happened.
Then, she turned and flattened her palm to her chest. “Guys! I didn’t see you there!”
Isaac leapt up, awkwardly knocking the stack of photo albums on the coffee table to the floor. “Mom, you remember Emily, right?”
Emily stood up, too, hoping her hair wasn’t a complete mess and that she didn’t have a rapidly growing hickey on her neck. “H-hi,” she stammered. “Nice to see you again.”
“Hello, Emily.” There was a pleasant enough smile on Mrs. Colbert’s face, but Emily’s heart continued to gallop all the same. Was she really surprised to see them, or was she just waiting until Emily left to yell at Isaac in private?
She gazed at Isaac, who looked uncomfortable. He placed his hand on top of his head, matting down his mussed hair. “Uh, Emily, do you want to stay for dinner?” Isaac blurted. “That’s okay, right, Mom?”
Mrs. Colbert hesitated, drawing her lips together until they practically disappeared. “I—I shouldn’t,” Emily stammered, before Mrs. Colbert could answer. “My mom is expecting me home.”
Mrs. Colbert breathed out. Emily swore she looked relieved. “Well. Perhaps another time,” she said.
“How about tomorrow?” Isaac pressed.
Emily shot an uneasy glance at Isaac, wondering if he should just let the dinner thing drop. But Mrs. Colbert brushed her hands together and said, “Tomorrow would be fine. Wednesday is pot roast night.”
“Uh, okay,” Emily answered. “I guess I could do that. Thanks.”
“Good.” Mrs. Colbert gave her a tight smile. “Bring your appetite!”
She glided back to the kitchen. Emily sank back onto the couch and covered her face with her hands. “Just kill me now,” she whispered.
Isaac touched her arm. “We’re safe. She doesn’t know we were upstairs.”
But as Emily glanced through the arched doorway to the kitchen, she saw Isaac’s mom standing at the sink, rinsing off the breakfast dishes. Although her hands continued to manically scrub the plates, Mrs. Colbert’s dark eyes were fixed steadily on them. Her lips puckered, her cheeks flushed, and the cords in her neck bulged with fury.
Emily flinched, aghast. Mrs. Colbert noticed Emily was watching, but her expression didn’t falter. She stared unblinkingly at Emily, as if cognizant of exactly what she and Isaac had done. And maybe even blaming Emily—and only Emily—for all of it.
9
SURPRISE! HE’S STILL HERE…
As the sun was sinking beneath the horizon, turning all of Rosewood pitch-black, Spencer watched out her bedroom window as the remaining Rosewood PD squad cars and news vans pulled away from her street. The cops had abruptly called off the search for Ian’s body, having found nothing in the woods. And a lot of people had bought into the new theory that the girls had made up seeing Ian’s body, thereby allowing him to easily escape Rosewood forever.
Such bullshit. And it didn’t seem possible that the cops hadn’t found a single piece of evidence. There had to be something out there. A footprint. Tree bark rubbed off from someone’s nails.
Her desktop computer at the other corner of the room made an angry buzz. Spencer looked up, eyeing the CD she and Andrew had made of her dad’s hard drive yesterday. It was where she’d left it after it finished loading last night, sitting in a paper sleeve on top of her antique Tiffany blotter. She hadn’t looked through the files yet, but there was no good time like the present. She walked to her desk and slid the CD into her computer.
Instantly, the computer made a farting noise, and every single icon on Spencer’s desktop turned into a question mark. She tried to click on one, but it wouldn’t open. Then the screen went black. She tried to reboot, but the computer wouldn’t turn on.
“Shit,” she whispered, ejecting the CD. She had backups of everything on her hard drive, like her old papers, tons of pictures and videos, and her journal, which she’d kept since before Ali disappeared, but without a functional computer, she couldn’t look through her dad’s files for evidence.
A door slammed downstairs. Her father spoke in a muffled voice, then her mother. Spencer looked up, her stomach burbling. She hadn’t really spoken to them since they’d all returned from Nana’s funeral. She glanced at her computer again, then stood and walked downstairs.
The air smelled like the baked brie her parents always bought at the Fresh Fields deli counter, and the family’s two labradoodles, Rufus and Beatrice, were lazing on the big round rug by the breakfast nook. Spencer’s sister, Melissa, was in the kitchen, too, scuttling around, piling the design magazines and books she’d scattered around the room into a paper shopping bag. Spencer’s mom was rifling through the drawer that held all the phone books and numbers for the various people who helped around the house—landscapers, driveway sealers, electricians. Mr. Hastings was pacing from the kitchen to the dining room, his cell phone to his ear.