It was a picture, printed on copier paper, probably originally taken with a camera phone. Two girls danced together, one of them holding her arm out to take the photo. As Emily squinted, she realized she was staring at her own image. She wore a top that said MERCI BEAUCOUP, and her skin looked pale and drawn. Behind her were flaming tiki torches, swaying palms, and a familiar wood bar with a cerulean-tiled backsplash.
Jamaica.
Then Emily looked at the other girl, the one who’d taken the photo. The breath left her body. It was Tabitha. This was the picture she’d snapped during their one and only dance.
Crack. Another twig snapped in the woods. Emily peered at the bridge, her heart pounding.
Then she turned the photo over. There was writing scribbled across the center. It matched the script from the postcard they’d found in Ali’s mailbox. Emily’s mouth fell open as she read the words.
Is this proof enough? –A
Chapter 23
Whatever means necessary
“There she is!” Mr. Marin opened his arms wide when Hanna stepped into the atrium in the bottom level of the office building where her dad was holding a campaign fund-raising party. “My inspiration! The public’s new darling!”
Several guests turned and smiled as Mr. Marin embraced Hanna tightly, squishing her face against his wool suit. “My daughter’s been through a lot, but she’s a beacon of how people can change. How Pennsylvania can change. And how we can make that happen.”
Finally, he released her, giving Hanna a thrilled grin. Hanna’s smile was wobbly at best. In forty-eight hours, her dad might know the truth about her—in more ways than one.
How was she supposed to come up with $10,000? And even if she found a way to pay off Patrick, how could she stop A?
Hanna pulled out her phone and started to type a text to Mike. You were right about Patrick. I miss you. Please call me.
As she hit SEND, she noticed someone was bustling up the walk. Hanna narrowed her eyes at the bright blue Rosewood Day Swimming anorak. Was that Emily?
“I’ll be back in a sec,” she told her dad, who had turned to speak to a man in a tailored black suit. Hanna burst out of the atrium and into the frigid outdoors. Emily’s reddish-gold hair was wild around her face, and her clear green eyes looked red-rimmed. “I had to talk to you,” Emily said, noticing Hanna. “And you keep hanging up on me, so I figured this was the only way.”
“How did you know I’d be here?” Hanna demanded, hands on hips.
Emily rolled her eyes. “You posted it all over Facebook. You’d think with A running loose you’d be a bit more secretive about your whereabouts. Or do you still not believe it’s real?”
Hanna turned away. “I don’t know what to think.”
“So you’ve gotten notes, too?”
An older couple passed them and pushed through the atrium doors. In the middle of the big room, Hanna’s father shook hands and slapped backs. This was way too public of a place to be talking about A. She pulled Emily farther down the path and lowered her voice. “I already told you I’ve been getting notes.”
“Someone knows, Hanna.” Emily’s voice cracked. “A sent me a photo of me and . . . her.”
“What do you mean?”
Emily pulled out the picture and shoved it in Hanna’s face. Sure enough, it was from Jamaica. “Who could have gotten this? Who knows?”
“It’s her, Hanna. Tabitha. Ali.”
“But that’s impossible!” Hanna cried. “We—”
Emily cut her off. “All of my notes so far have sounded exactly like something Ali might write. In one of them, she even called me Killer.”
Hanna stared into the middle distance. Of course her notes reminded her of Ali. “It’s not possible.”
“Yes it is,” Emily insisted, sounding angry. “And you know it. Think about what happened. What we did. What we saw—or didn’t see.”
Hanna opened her mouth, then shut it again. If she allowed herself to talk or think about Jamaica, Tabitha’s awful voice would invade her head again.
But it was already too late. Visions swarmed into Hanna’s mind like an invasion of ants at a picnic. That awful night, after Tabitha hinted that she knew Hanna used to be a chubby, ugly loser, Spencer and Emily ran toward her, worry on their faces. “We need to talk,” Spencer said. “That girl that Emily saw on the landing? There’s something weird about her.”
“I know,” Hanna said.
They found Aria alone at the bar. She’d met Tabitha, too, she said, but she still didn’t believe she was Ali. “It has to be a coincidence,” she said.
“It’s not,” Emily urged.
The three of them dragged Aria up to the room she and Emily were sharing and triple-locked the doors. Then, one by one, each of them shared the eerie, Ali-like experience they’d had with Tabitha. With each tale, Hanna’s heart galloped faster and faster.
Aria frowned, still skeptical. “There has to be a logical explanation. How can she know things only Ali knows, say things only Ali says?”
“Because she’s Ali,” Emily insisted. “She’s back. Just . . . different. You saw the scars.”
Aria blinked. “So you’re saying she didn’t die in the fire?”
“I guess not.” Emily shut her eyes, guilt washing over her again. She swallowed it down. “I guess she escaped from the house.”
The room went silent. There was a loud thump from one of the upper floors; it sounded like kids were wrestling in their rooms. Aria cleared her throat. “But what about her family? Who’s been supporting her? How did she get here?”