Emily looked at Hanna. “You should take Graham. You’ve volunteered at the Bill Beach before—maybe you could get your job back.”
Hanna shot up straight. “I don’t want to go there again!”
“Em’s right, Hanna,” Spencer said. “You make the most sense. You want to figure this out, right?”
A foul taste welled up in Hanna’s mouth. She thought of the clinic’s horrible antiseptic smell. The yellow pee in the bedpans. Dealing with Sean, her ex. Then again, it was a better option than going to The Preserve. It would be just her luck that they’d readmit her or something.
“I’ll do it,” Hanna mumbled.
“And I’ll talk to Iris,” Emily volunteered. She looked at Hanna. “Do you think she’s still at The Preserve?”
Hanna closed her eyes, remembering the last time they’d all been to the mental hospital to question Kelsey Pierce, the girl Spencer had framed for drug possession who then almost hurled herself off Floating Man Quarry. “I don’t remember seeing her,” she murmured.
Spencer peered at the video cameras. The lawn was still empty. “I’ll go after Real Ali herself. Maybe there’s a way to find her. Maybe we’re missing something. If we found her, we could end this even faster.”
“Who should I investigate?” Aria asked, winding a piece of hair around her finger.
Spencer shifted awkwardly. “Well, you could look into Noel. Just to get him off the list.”
Aria’s eyes blazed. “A isn’t Noel!”
“I know,” Spencer said. “But you could peek around his room. Make sure he doesn’t have a second cell phone or a secret e-mail account. Not that he ever would, of course.”
Aria looked miserable. “If my relationship ends because of this, it’s your fault.”
They talked through a few more possibilities, solidifying their plans. After another fifteen minutes, they felt like they had worked through as much as they could. Spencer stood and stretched.
Hanna turned to the cameras once more. The picture was in black and white, and something at the very edge of the back lawn flickered into view. She inhaled sharply. Had someone just moved behind a tree?
She shot up, staring at the fuzzy image. It was difficult to tell whether it was a person, an animal, or nothing at all. She looked at her new phone’s screen. No alerts had come in.
Aria, Spencer, and Emily were peeking at their phones, too. It was as if they were waiting for A to write, saying Gotcha! Or, Did you really think you could outsmart me? One minute passed. Then another. Finally, Spencer breathed out. “I think we’re good.”
Hanna shut her eyes. All her life, she’d fought to not be invisible, to not be a nobody. But right now, it was the best feeling in the world.
7
Emily’s New Houseguest
Even though Emily had been to The Preserve at Addison-Stevens only once before, she felt an uneasy sense of familiarity as she drove up the long road. The building’s gray brickwork had definitely shown up in her dreams. She’d doodled the Gothic windows in the margins of her notebook without knowing why.
She parked in the visitors’ lot and tried to slow her breaths. It was the following afternoon; she’d skipped her last period of the day, a free study, to make the drive to The Preserve. But just knowing that Real Ali had spent years here, masterminding ways to kill them, made her stomach seize. What if Ali’s helper had also been imprisoned behind these walls? What if the two of them had huddled in the dreary dayroom together, plotting how they were going to ruin Emily, Hanna, Spencer, and Aria? Emily peered at the figures passing through a glass-walled hallway. If the next person who walks by is a woman, this will go okay, she wagered silently.
A tall man in a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows walked by next. That wasn’t encouraging.
But she had to go through with this. Rolling her shoulders, she stepped out of the car and started toward the double doors. Earlier today, she’d called the hospital asking if she could visit Iris Taylor. The nurse had said that Iris could have visitors in the afternoon, so Emily knew that Iris was still a patient. But when Emily pressed to see how long Iris had been at The Preserve—she wanted to rule her out as Ali’s helper—the nurse wouldn’t give her any information.
A gust of wind slithered down Emily’s back and lifted her coattails. Before she went inside, she picked up her new phone and, after a pause, logged onto Twitter. Yeah, it was breaking the no-Internet rule, but she had to check. There was her prom invitation and note, but no one had responded or retweeted. What made Emily think Jordan had even seen it?
She shut her eyes and tried to imagine what Jordan was doing right now. Sitting at an Italian café in big sunglasses? Lounging on a deserted beach in the tropics? She longed to be stirring her coffee next to her or splashing her with sea foam. The desire was so strong, it physically hurt.
Sighing heavily, she trudged inside the marble lobby. A woman in a white lab coat greeted her with a big smile. “I’m here to see Iris Taylor,” Emily said. “I’m Heather Murphy.” It was her default name; she’d used it when she was a waitress at the seafood restaurant on Penn’s Landing the summer she was pregnant. Gayle Riggs, the woman she’d almost given her baby to, only knew her as Heather . . . until A got involved, that was.
The woman smiled. “I’ll let her know.”
With a gesture of her arm, she directed Emily toward the patient area. Emily walked slowly, bracing herself, and shuddered at the heavy click of the bolt on the door that separated the lobby from the ward. The hallway was quiet, had stained beige carpet, and smelled of hot dogs. A chilling laugh pealed from one of the rooms. A wild-haired girl passed, going the other direction. When she caught Emily watching, she stared back at her blankly. “Boo!” she shouted. Emily jumped, and the girl laughed.