“I’m not doing this for attention,” she blubbered.
Noel turned to her. “I know. People are idiots. They have nothing better to do than gossip.”
She flopped back on the pillow. Noel settled next to her. Their fingers lightly touched. Aria felt her heart begin to pound. “I have something to tell you,” Noel said.
“Oh?” Aria squeaked. Her throat suddenly felt dry.
It was a long time before Noel spoke again. Trembling with anticipation, Aria tried to calm down by watching the rotating ceiling fan above their heads. “I found another medium,” Noel finally admitted.
All the air slowly drained from Aria’s body. “Oh.”
“And this one’s supposedly really good. She, like, becomes the person you’re trying to contact. All she needs is to be at the spot where the person died, and then . . .” Noel waved his hands in the air, indicating a magical transformation. “But we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Like I said, going to the cemetery and just talking also really helps too. It’s peaceful.”
Aria laced her hands over her belly. “But going to the cemetery isn’t going to give me answers. It’s not like Ali’s going to talk back.”
“Okay.” Noel set his drink on the side table, pulled out his cell phone, and scrolled through his contacts. “How about I call the medium and tell her we can meet tomorrow night? I could pick you up and we could drive to Ali’s old backyard together.”
“Wait.” Aria sat up, the bedsprings squeaking. “Ali’s . . . backyard?”
Noel nodded. “We have to go where the person died. That’s how it works.”
Aria’s hands tingled and it felt like the temperature in the room had dropped at least ten degrees. The idea of standing over the half-dug hole where Ali had been found chilled Aria to the bone. Did she really want to speak to Ali’s ghost that badly?
Yet a nagging feeling tugged at her. Deep down, she felt like Ali really did have something important to say, and it was Aria’s responsibility to listen.
“Okay.” Aria gazed out the window at the fingernail-shaped moon above the trees. “I’ll do it.” She pulled her knees in so that she was sitting cross-legged. “Thanks for helping me with this. And for getting me out of that mess downstairs. And . . .” She took a deep breath. “Thanks for being so nice to me in general.”
Noel gave her a crazy look. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”
“Because . . .” Aria trailed off. Because you’re a Typical Rosewood Boy, she was about to say, but she stopped. She didn’t really know what that meant anymore.
They were silent for what seemed like hours. Not able to stand the tension any longer, she leaned over and kissed him. His skin smelled like chlorine from the hot tub, and his mouth tasted like gin. Aria shut her eyes, forgetting momentarily where she was. When she opened them, Noel was there, smiling at her, like he’d been waiting for her to do that for years.
Chapter 18
An Affair to Forget
Friday morning, Spencer sat at the kitchen table, slicing an apple over a bowl of steaming oatmeal. The yard workers had started early this morning, dragging more burnt timber out of the woods and loading it into a long green Dumpster. A police photographer was standing near the barn, taking pictures with a high-tech digital camera.
The phone rang. When Spencer picked up the kitchen extension, a woman’s voice screeched in her ear. “Is this Miss Hastings?”
“Uh,” Spencer stammered, caught off guard.
The woman spoke in rapid staccato. “My name is Anna Nichols. I’m a reporter with MSNBC. Would you like to give a comment about what you saw in the woods last week?”
Spencer’s muscles tensed. “No. Please, just leave me alone.”
“Can you confirm an unverified report that you actually wanted to be the leader of the clique? Maybe your frustration with Ms. DiLaurentis got the best of you and you accidentally . . . did something. It happens to all of us.”
Spencer squeezed the phone so hard that she accidentally hit a bunch of digits. They beeped in her ears. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing, nothing!” The reporter paused to murmur something to someone on her end. Spencer slammed the phone down, shaking. She was so overcome, the only thing she could do for the next few minutes was stare at the blinking red numbers on the microwave across the room.
Why was she still getting phone calls? And why were the reporters digging around to see if she could have had anything to do with Ali’s death? Ali was her best friend. And what about Ian? Didn’t the cops still think he was guilty? Or the person who’d tried to roast them alive in the woods? How could the public not realize they were all victims in this, the same as Ali?
A door slammed, and Spencer shot up from her slumped position against the wall. She heard voices in the laundry room and stood very still, listening.
“It would be better if you didn’t tell her,” Mrs. Hastings was saying.
“But, Mom,” Melissa whispered back, “I think she already knows.”
The door flung open, and Spencer shot back to the kitchen island, feigning obliviousness. Her mother paraded in from her morning walk, holding both the family’s labradoodles on a split leash. Then Spencer heard the laundry room door bang and saw Melissa storming around the side of the house toward the driveway.
Mrs. Hastings unhooked the dogs and set the leash on the island. “Hi, Spence!” she said in a voice that was way too chipper, as if she was working hard to seem nonchalant and unbothered. “Come see the purse I bought at the mall last night. Kate Spade’s spring line is gorgeous.”