The words sank in slowly. Spencer suddenly tasted sticky martini at the back of her throat. “W-what?”
“Not it,” Courtney repeated, still bobbing to the beat. Even her eyes danced. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our old favorite game, Spence.”
Our old favorite game? Spencer stepped away from Courtney, nearly colliding with a tall girl with waist-length brown hair. Lightning crackled through her veins. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong.
Emily and Courtney exchanged another knowing look. Then Courtney took Spencer’s arm and guided her and Emily away from the dance floor to a quieter part of the bar. Spencer’s heart rocketed. Something about this seemed planned, staged.
They made her sit down in an empty booth. “Spence, I have something to tell you,” Courtney said, pushing a lock of hair out of her face. “Emily already knows.”
“Knows?” Spencer repeated. Emily smiled conspiratorially. “Knows what? What’s going on?”
Courtney reached out and grabbed her hands. “Spence. I’m Ali.”
Spencer’s head snapped up. “That’s not funny.”
But Courtney had a serious look on her face. Emily did, too.
The music warped. The strobe light was giving Spencer a migraine. She slid farther into the booth. “Stop it,” she demanded. “Stop it right now.”
“It’s true,” Emily said, her eyes wide and unblinking. “Honest. Just hear her out.”
Courtney began to explain what had happened. When Spencer heard the word switch, the martinis she’d downed crawled up the back of her throat. How was this possible? She didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.
“How many times were you two in Rosewood together?” Spencer croaked, woozily gripping the edge of the banquette.
“Just once,” Courtney—Ali?—said, her eyes downcast. “The weekend my sister died.”
“No, wait.” Emily frowned, raising a finger. “Wasn’t she here one other time?” She reached into her black patent clutch, pulled out her phone, and showed them the old photo text A had sent. Ali, Jenna, and a third blond girl whose back was to the camera stood in the DiLaurentises’ yard on what looked like a late-summer afternoon. The third blond girl could definitely be Ali’s twin.
“Oh.” Courtney pushed her hair out of her eyes and snapped her fingers. “Right. I forgot. She was home for a couple hours when she was switching hospitals.”
Spencer counted the funky glass tiles on the wall along the back of the booth, trying to make some sense and order out of the chaos. “But if Courtney always pretended she was Ali, how do I know you aren’t Courtney?”
“She’s not,” Emily urged. The blond girl shook her head, too.
“But what about the ring?” Spencer pressed, pointing to Courtney’s naked finger. “The girl in the hole was wearing Ali’s initial ring on her pinkie. If you’re Ali, why was Courtney wearing it?”
Courtney made a pinched face, as if she’d done a shot of Sour Apple Pucker schnapps. “I lost the ring the morning before our sleepover. I’m sure my sister stole it.”
“I don’t remember you wearing it that night,” Emily said quickly.
Spencer shot Emily a look. Of course Emily wanted to believe this was Ali—this was what she’d wanted for the past four years. But as Spencer struggled to remember, she wasn’t sure, either. Had Ali worn her ring the night of their sleepover?
A bunch of spiky-haired guys in button-downs passed by, looking as though they wanted to approach and hit on them, but they must have sensed something weird was going down and ambled away. Courtney took Spencer’s hands. “Remember that day we fought in the barn? I’ve thought about that for three and a half years. I’m so sorry. And I’m sorry about other stuff I did, too—like hanging my JV hockey uniform in my window so you’d see. I knew it got to you. But I was jealous…and insecure. I always worried that you deserved to be on the hockey team, not me.”
Spencer clutched the seat of the leather-upholstered booth, trying to breathe. Anyone could’ve known about the fight in the barn—Spencer had had to relay that information to the police. But the hockey uniform in the window? That was something Spencer hadn’t even told her friends.
“And I’m sorry about all that stuff with Ian, too,” Courtney—or was it really Ali?—said. “I shouldn’t have said I was going to tell Melissa you two had kissed when I was the one in a relationship with him. And I shouldn’t have said that I’d made him kiss you. That wasn’t even true.”
Spencer gritted her teeth, all the shameful, angry feelings from that fight bubbling up again. “Gee, thanks.”
“I was bitchy, I know. I felt so bad afterward that I didn’t even bother to meet Ian. I ran up to my room instead. So in a way, you saved me, Spence. If we hadn’t had that fight, it would have been me out there in the woods, easy prey for Billy.” Ali wiped her eyes with a cocktail napkin. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I knew we were sisters. I only found out a little bit before our last sleepover, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“How did you even find out?” Spencer asked weakly.
The music changed to a Lady Gaga song and the whole bar erupted into cheers around them. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” she said. “What matters right now is what I said to you yesterday at my house—I want to start fresh. To be the sisters we’ve always wanted.”
The room spun wildly. There was a clamoring, greedy crowd three-deep at the bar. Spencer stared at the girl sitting across from her in the booth, scrutinizing her small, pink hands, her round fingernails, and long neck. Could this be Ali? It was like looking at a very well-made knockoff Fendi bag, trying to distinguish it from a real one. The differences had to be there.
And yet…it made sense. Spencer had had a funny feeling the moment this girl had stepped onto the stage at the press conference that something was…off. The secret twin had looked at all of them so knowingly. She’d called Emily Killer. She’d decorated her room exactly as Ali had. She’d gotten every element of Ali right, something even a good impersonator—even a twin—couldn’t pull off. This was the girl who’d befriended her that day of the charity drive. The one who’d made her feel wanted, special.
But then she thought about the eerie photographs Billy had taken the night of the sleepover. If only Ali would have let Spencer open the blinds, if only she hadn’t insisted on doing everything her way, they would’ve seen who was out there. None of this might have happened.
“We spent every day together for two years. How come you never told us about your sister?” Spencer asked, lifting her hair off the back of her neck. It seemed like a hundred more people had just entered the bar. She felt trapped and panicky, like the time she and Melissa got stuck in an overstuffed Saks elevator on Black Friday.
Ali blew her blond bangs off her face. “My parents asked me not to. And also…I was ashamed. I didn’t want you guys to ask all kinds of uncomfortable questions.”
Spencer let out a frustrated sniff. “Like the kinds of questions you used to ask us?”
Ali stared at her helplessly. Emily pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. The music throbbed in the background.
“You knew all our secrets,” Spencer said, her voice trembling. Her anger was accumulating fast, like a snowball that grew bigger and bigger as it rolled down a hill. “You held them over us for power. You were afraid that if we knew this, we’d hold it over you. You wouldn’t have any leverage anymore.”
“You’re right,” Ali conceded. “I guess that’s true. I’m sorry.”
“And why didn’t you try to contact us from the hospital?” Spencer went on, her skin pulsing with fury. “We were your best friends. You should have said something. Do you have any idea what we went through after you vanished?”
Ali’s mouth did acrobatics as she tried to assemble a response. “I…”
Spencer cut her off. “Do you have any clue how hard that was?” Tears were now streaming down her face. A couple of people gaped at her as they passed, then scuttled on.
“It was hard for me, too!” Ali protested, shaking her head. “I wanted to tell you guys, I swear! I didn’t contact you at first because I couldn’t. It took me months to get phone privileges, and by the time I could call you, eighth grade had started. I thought…well, after all I did to you guys, you wouldn’t want me back anyway.” She gazed stubbornly into the crowd. “You were probably happy I was gone.”
“Ali, that’s not true,” Emily protested immediately, touching Ali’s arm.
Ali shook her away. “Come on. It’s a little true, isn’t it?”
Spencer stared into the half inch of pink liquid left in her martini glass. It was true. After Ali disappeared, Spencer had been relieved to escape her taunts and tormenting. But if Ali had contacted her from the hospital, Spencer would have run the entire way to Delaware.
The three of them were quiet for a while, staring out at the masses around the bar and the DJ bopping and jerking behind the booth. A redhead climbed on a table to dance, a cadre of seven boys surrounding her like vultures. A bartender cleared a full bottle of beer from the adjacent table, and a girl with blunt-cut blond hair slipped out of the restroom. Spencer sat up straighter. Was that…Melissa? She squinted hard, trying to find the figure again, but she was gone. Spencer’s head pounded and she felt feverish. Her eyes were obviously playing tricks on her—weren’t they?
Spencer let out a long sigh. Ali stared at her, her face full of vulnerable anxiety. It was obvious how badly she wanted Spencer to forgive her. Finally, Ali crossed to the other side of the booth and flung her arms around Spencer. Spencer lightly patted Ali’s back.
“Hot,” someone behind them whispered. They broke away and turned. Emo Super Mario was leaning against one of the columns, casually watching them over a tall glass of beer. “Can I join you?” he said in a slimy voice.
Emily let out an embarrassed titter. Ali giggled into her hand. She exchanged a naughty glance with both of them. Even Spencer knew what was coming.
“Not it!” they all cried at exactly the same time. Emily and Ali burst into hysterical laughter. Spencer laughed, too, first a bit uneasily, but then a little harder, and then harder still, until the weird, shocking tension slowly began to dissolve away.
She squeezed Ali’s hand and drew her into a bear hug. Somehow, against all the odds, she had her friend—and her sister—back.
14
REVENGE IS THE NEW BLACK
At exactly 5:38 P.M. the following night, Hanna, Courtney, Kate, Naomi, and Riley emerged from the subway in front of the New York Public Library steps. A bunch of teenage tourists in platform sneakers were taking pictures of one another in front of the lion statues.
“This way,” Hanna said authoritatively, turning left toward Bryant Park. Tents fluttered over the trees, reminding Hanna of white-capped waves. She wore a silk charmeuse DVF dress with an abstract floral print and a slimming waist tie. It wasn’t technically in stores yet—when Sasha at Otter heard that Hanna was going to the show, she dug out her only sample and let Hanna borrow it. She was also wearing a pair of royal purple DVF platforms she bought in the fall, and she’d broken down and purchased the designer’s metal-beaded slouch bag even though she was pretty sure it had maxed out her credit card.