Emily lived in an older, modest neighborhood with a lot of retired residents, and everyone was out on their porches or in the middle of the street, concerned over the three police cars in the Fieldses' driveway and by the ambulance that had just roared away. Spencer pulled up to the curb and spotted Aria. She was still in her polka-dotted dress from Foxy.
"I just got here," Aria said as Spencer approached. "But I can't find out anything. I've asked a bunch of people what's going on, but no one knows."
Spencer looked around. There were plenty of police dogs, police officers, EMS people, and even a Channel 4 news van—it had probably just driven over from the DiLaurentis house. She felt like all the police officers were looking at her.
And then Spencer started to shake. This was her fault. Completely her fault. She felt sick. Toby had warned her that people would get hurt, yet she'd done nothing. She'd been so absorbed in Wren—and look how that had turned out. She couldn't even think about Wren right now. Or Melissa. Or them together. It made her feel like there were worms crawling through her veins. Something had happened to Emily, and she'd had the chance to stop it. The police had been sitting in her living room. Even A had warned her.
Suddenly, Spencer noticed Emily's sister Carolyn standing in the driveway, talking to some cops. One of the officers leaned down and whispered something in her ear. Carolyn's face crumpled, like she was crying. She ran back into the house.
Aria's posture wavered a little, like she was about to faint. "Oh God, Emily's..."
Spencer swallowed hard. "We don't know anything yet."
"I can just feel it, though," Aria said, her eyes full of tears. "A—Toby—his threats." She paused, pushing away a strand of hair that had gotten in her mouth. Her hands shook badly. "We're next, Spencer. I know it."
"Where are Emily's parents?" Spencer asked in a loud voice, trying to drown out everything Aria just said. "Wouldn't they be here if Emily were..." She didn't want to say the word dead.
A Toyota Prius barreled crookedly up the road and parked behind Spencer's Mercedes. Hanna got out. Or, it was a girl who resembled Hanna. She hadn't bothered changing out of a pair of flannel pajama pants, and her long, normally stick-straight dark auburn hair was kinky and stuffed into a half-up, half-down bun. Spencer hadn't seen her look so up-put together in years.
Hanna spied them and ran over. "What's going on? Is it—"
"We don't know," Spencer interrupted.
"You guys, I found something out." Hanna slipped off her sunglasses. "I talked to a cop this morning, and..."
Another news van pulled up and Hanna stopped talking. Spencer recognized the woman from Channel 8 news. She took steps closer to the girls, her cell phone to her ear. "So the body was found outside this morning?" she said, looking at a clipboard. "Okay, thanks."
The girls exchanged a pleading look. Then Aria took the others' hands and they strode across Emily's lawn, treading straight through a flower bed. They were a few feet from Emily's front door when a police officer stepped in their path.
"Hanna, I told you to stay out of this," the cop said.
Spencer gulped. It was Wilden, the guy who's come by her house yesterday. Her heart started to pound.
Hanna tried to push him aside. "Don't tell me what to do!" The officer grabbed Hanna by the shoulders, and she started to squirm. "Get off me!"
Spencer quickly gripped Hanna around her tiny waist. "Try to calm her down," Wilden said to Spencer. Then he noticed who she was. "Oh," he breathed. He looked confused, then curious. "Miss Hastings."
"We just want to know what happened to Emily," Spencer tried to explain, her insides roiling. "She's...she's our friend."
"You guys should all go home." Wilden crossed his arms over his chest.
Suddenly, the front door opened...and Emily stepped out.
She was barefoot and pale, and holding a glass of water in an old McDonald's Muppet mug. Spencer was so relieved to see her, she actually cried out. A vulnerable, pained noise escaped from her throat.
The girls rushed over to her. "Are you all right?" Hanna asked.
"What happened?" Aria said at the same time.
"What's going on?" Spencer gestured to the crowd of people.
"Emily..." Wilden put his hands on his hips. "Maybe you should see your friends later. Your parents said you were supposed to stay inside."
But Emily shook her head, almost irritated. "No, it's okay."
Emily led them right past the cop to her side yard. They stood practically in a rosebush up against the side of the house, so they'd have a little privacy. Spencer took a good look at Emily. She had dark circles under her eyes, and there were scratches all over her legs, but otherwise, she looked fine. "What happened?" Spencer asked.
Emily took a huge breath. "A mountain bike found Toby's body in the woods behind my house this morning. I guess...I guess he OD'd on pills or something."
Spencer's heart stopped. Hanna gasped. Aria went pale. "What? When?" she asked.
"It was sometime during the night," Emily said. "I was going to call you, except that cop's watching me like a hawk." Her jaw was trembling. "My parents are visiting my grandmother this weekend." She tried to smile, but it warped into a grimace, and then her face collapsed into a sob.
"It's all right," Hanna comforted her.
"He was acting crazy last night," Emily said, wiping her face with her shirt. "He took me home from Foxy, and one minute, it was totally normal, and the next, he was telling me how much he hated Ali. He said he couldn't forgive Ali for what she did, and he was glad she's dead."
"Oh my God." Spencer covered her eyes. It was all true.
"That's when I realized—Toby knew," Emily went on, her pale, freckly hands fluttering. "He must have found out what Ali did, and...and I think he killed her."
"Wait a second," Hanna interrupted, holding up her hand. "I don't think he—"
"Shhh." Spencer put her hand lightly on Hanna's tiny wrist. Hanna looked like she wanted to say something, but Spencer was afraid that if Emily stopped, she wouldn't be able to finish.
"I ran away from him—the whole way way yo my house," Emily said. "When I got inside, Spencer called, but we got cut off. Then...then Toby was at my back door. I told him that I knew what he'd done, and I was going to tell the police. He acted all amazed that I'd figured it out."
Emily seemed winded by all that talking. "You guys—how did Toby know?"
Spencer's stomach dropped. The phone lines had gone down before she could explain the truth of The Jenna Thing to Emily last night. She wished she didn't have to tell Emily now—she seemed so fragile. It had been bad enough telling Aria and Hanna—but the truth was going to shatter Emily's world.
Aria and Hanna were looking at Spencer expectantly, so Spencer steeled herself. "He always knew," she said. "He saw Ali do it. Only, Ali blackmailed him into taking the blame. She made me keep the secret." She paused for a breath and noticed that Emily wasn't reacting the way she thought she would. She was standing there, completely calm, as if she were listening to a geography lecture. It kind of put Spencer off balance. "So, um, when Ali went missing, I always thought that maybe, I don't know..." She looked up toward the sky, realizing that what she was about to say was true. "I thought maybe Toby had something to do with it, but I was too scared to say anything. But then he came back for her funeral...and my A notes referenced the Toby secret. The last one said, You hurt me, so I'm going to hurt you. He wanted revenge on all of us. He must have known we were all involved."
Emily was still standing there so calmly. Then, slowly, her shoulders started to shake. She shut her eyes. At first, Spencer thought she was crying, but then she realized she was laughing.
Emily threw her head back, laughing louder. Spencer glanced at Aria and Hanna uneasily. Emily had obviously lost it. "Em..." she prodded gently.
When Emily brought her head back down, her bottom lip was trembling. "Ali promised us that no one knew what we'd done."
"Guess she lied," Hanna said flatly.
Emily's eyes flickered searchingly back and forth. "But how could she lie to us like that? What if Toby decided to tell?" She shook her head. "This...this happened when we were all inside Ali's house, watching at her front door?" Emily asked. "That very same night?"
Spencer nodded solemnly.
"And Ali came back inside and said everything was fine, and when none of us could sleep except for her, she comforted us by scratching our backs?"
"Yes." Tears came to Spencer's eyes. Of course Emily remembered every detail.
Emily stared off into space. "And she gave us these." She held up her arm. The bracelet Ali had made them—to symbolize the secret—was tightly knotted around her wrist. Everyone else had taken theirs off.
Emily's legs buckled, and she fell to the grass. Then she started tearing at the bracelet around her wrist, trying get it off, but the strings were old and tough. "Damn it," Emily said, collapsing her fingers together to make her wrist smaller so she could yank the bracelet off without untying it. Then she went at it with her teeth, but it wouldn't budge.
Aria put her hand on Emily's shoulder. "It's all right."
"I just can't believe any of it." She wiped her eyes, giving up on the bracelet. Emily pulled up a fistful of grass. "And I can't believe I went to Foxy with Ali's...killer."
"We were so scared for you," Spencer whispered.
Hanna waved her arms around. "You guys, that's what I've been trying to tell you/ Toby's not Ali's killer."
"Huh?" Spencer frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I...I spoke to that cop this morning." Hanna pointed toward Wilden, who was talking to the news team. "I told him about Toby...how I thought he killed Ali. He said they checked him out, like, years ago. Toby's not even a suspect."
"He definitely did it." Emily stood back up. "Last night, when I told him I knew what he'd done, he got really panicked and begged me not to tell the cops."
Everyone looked at one another, confused. "So you think the cops are just wrong?" Hanna fiddled with the heart-shaped charm on her bracelet.
"Wait a minute," Emily said slowly. "Spencer, what was Ali blackmailing him about? How did she get Toby to take the blame for...for Jenna?"
"Spencer said Ali wouldn't tell her," Aria answered.
Spencer felt a tight, nervous feeling come over her. It's better my way, Ali had said. We keep Toby's secret, he keeps ours.
But Toby was dead. Ali was dead. It didn't matter, now. "I do know," she said quietly.
Then Spencer noticed someone coming around the side yard, and her heart sped up. It was Jenna Cavanaugh.
She was dressed in a black T-shirt and skinny black jeans, and her black hair was piled up on her head. Her skin was still a brilliant, snowy white, but her face was half-hidden by oversized sunglasses. She held a white cane in one hand and the harness to her golden retriever in the other. He led Jenna to the edge of the group.
Spencer was pretty sure she was about to faint. Either that or start crying again.
Jenna and her dog stopped right next to Hanna. "Is Emily Fields here?"
"Yes," Emily whispered. Spencer could hear the fear in her voice. "Right here."
Jenna turned in the direction of Emily's voice. "This is yours." She held out a pink satin purse. Emily took it very carefully, as if it were made of glass. "And there's something you should read." Jenna reached in her pocket for a wrinkled piece of paper. "It's from Toby."