"There are million files on here. It's like looking inside of his brain." -Hanna Marin
The five girls waited for Emily outside the pool room. Apparently, Mona had gotten her back on the team, and she had just won a race. Hanna was off sitting with Caleb (Isabel should start teasing her for that).
"Where are they?" Spencer scoffed, crossing her arms.
"How come you can come? Doesn't your mom have you on lockdown or something?" Isabel frowned at Aria.
"I told my mom we'd be studying at the library so that's covered," Aria shrugged. "You sure you wanna do this tonight?"
"Yeah, are you kidding?" Spencer huffed, staring at her. "We have to find out what this guy knows about Ali."
"And why his number was in Ali's- Vivian's coat," Isabel added.
"And we finally got this meeting set, so it's gotta be tonight," Spencer agreed, and turned to Aria. "Look, we're gonna have your back the whole time."
"I know," Aria muttered. There was a pause, but she spoke up again. "It's been a whole week. My mom just wants to know why you're not going home."
"I just- I can't deal with my family right now," Spencer sighed.
"Which one?" Isabel mumbled so only Spencer could hear her.
"Isabel," Spencer warned.
"Can I help?" Isabel asked, trying to redeem herself.
"Talk to Jason for me?" Spencer begged.
"I'm not complaining, but you should talk to him yourself," Isabel said quietly. Suddenly, the swim team burst out the doors, and everyone cheered. Isabel, Aria, and Spencer walked over to Emily, who was beaming and holding a trophy.
"Way to go, champ!" Spencer grinned.
"Em, my mom said that we could have the team party at my house," Hanna said, and Emily smiled.
"That's great!" She replied.
Suddenly, Garrett walked into the school with a couple other officers. Isabel frowned and followed him.
"Caleb Rivers?" He called, and Isabel's eyes widened in panic. He stepped in front of Caleb, holding a piece of paper. "I got a court order here to impound your laptop."
"What for?" Caleb frowned.
"Someone's been hacking into secure school files," Garrett explained, and Isabel knew what he was talking about. 'A'. "I traced them back to your IP address."
"You think if I did something like that I'd be stupid enough to leave a trail?" Caleb scoffed.
"We'll find out. Come on. Hand it over," Garrett said, and Caleb gave him his laptop. "Any passwords we're gonna need?"
"Court order says you can take the machine," Caleb shrugged, getting up and crossing his arms. "It doesn't say anything about what's in my head."
Garrett gave him one last seething look and turned around. He saw Isabel there and sighed. "Sorry it had to come to this for your brother, Isabel." He walked off.
"What was that about?" Hanna demanded.
"Don't worry about it," Caleb sighed.
"'Don't worry about it?'" Isabel scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. "He took your computer."
"They couldn't get into it with a can opener," Caleb promised them.
Isabel and Hanna just walked over to the girls, quite pissed. Isabel knew this would happen.
"What just happened?" Spencer frowned as they came to a stop, looking upset.
"Garret took Caleb's computer. Court order," Isabel huffed. Suddenly, her phone beeped, and she checked it.
'Now it's Caleb's turn. -A'
-
Later, Isabel, Spencer, Emily, and Hanna all sat in a booth, waiting for the guy from the pocket phone number to show up. Aria sat in the booth next to them, as she was the one meeting him.
"So, you're a friend of Vivian's," some guy said, walking up to Aria.
"Yeah," Aria nodded, and he sat down.
"How much money does she owe you?" he scoffed bitterly.
"Vivian owes you money?" Aria frowned.
"She owes me a lot more than money," he huffed. "She owes me a job and she almost owes me a girlfriend thanks to you calling that number, he added, but he seemed only a bit annoyed with her. Isabel watched him closely as Emily handed Hanna and Spencer a pocket mirror so that they could see him.
"You said that she cost you a job," Aria repeated. "What did she do?"
"I worked at Allegheny Cellular," he explained. "Human resources. Your friend came in asking for a job, but she didn't want a job, she wanted information, and she said she'd pay for it."
"What kind of information?" Aria asked.
"I get it. You're Alison," the guy nodded. What? How'd he know about Alison?
"Vivian told you... about Alison?" Aria frowned.
"She said she had a friend named Alison that was getting texts from somebody," the guy replied, looking at her curiously. "The number was blocked and she wanted to know where they were coming from. She'd pay to find out."
"Did you find out?" Aria pressed, and Isabel sure hoped he did.
"Yeah, I found out. Then I made the mistake of telling your pal before I had the money in my hand," he scowled. "She dropped off the map and I got fired for accessing restricted information."
"What did you find out about the person that was sending those texts?" Aria asked.
"Are you listening? I did not get paid," the guy snapped. "I want what she owes me."
"How much does she owe you?" Aria asked, pulling out her wallet.
"$2,000," he replied.
"$2,000 dollars?" Aria scoffed, and Isabel swore under her breath.
"That's the price today," the guy nodded. "But it could go up depending on market conditions." He paused. "Don't ever use that number again. If you wanna do business, call me here." He wrote down a phone number on a piece of paper and got up.
"Oh, who do I ask for when I call?" Aria asked before he left.
"Tell 'em you wanna talk to Jonah," he said, and was gone.
-
Aria squeezed in next to Hanna after he left. "He thought I was Ali."
"That means he doesn't know she's dead," Isabel agreed. "And if he finds out there won't be enough money in the world to make him talk."
"If this Jonah had real information, Ali might've known who 'A' was," Emily added as Isabel tried to think of a way to pay him. "And that's why she was killed."
"We have to find out what he told her about those messages," Aria nodded.
"What are we supposed to do?" Hanna scoffed. "Throw a bikini car wash? Even if we talked Prudence Finn into a tube top, we wouldn't raise enough money." The girls were silent for a second as Spencer sat in thought.
"Spencer?" Aria finally sighed.
"My account's been on lock down since we were arrested," Spencer shrugged.
"So where are we gonna get the money from?" Emily frowned, and Isabel knew exactly who Spencer was gonna ask.
-
Later, Isabel texted Caleb at Hanna's. She and her mother were throwing the swim team a victory party, and Isabel was 'helping'.
'Caleb, what the hell are you gonna do about your laptop?' -Isabel
'Don't worry, I have a last-minute plan.' -Caleb
'Knowing you, it's probably stupid, and not well thought through.' -Isabel
'Well, that's what makes it a last-minute plan.' -Caleb
Isabel sighed as she put away her phone and walked up to Hanna and her mother.
"But Caleb's got a family now," Ms. Marin was saying. Hanna frosted another cookie and looked at Isabel for help. "If he needs legal help-"
"With all due respect, Ms. Marin, they're my family, too, and I would never ask them for help. They're not so much our family as a foster family," Isabel replied politely."Plus, he doesn't want them to know."
"He's barely talking to me about it," Hanna agreed, but then Ms. Marin's phone rang, and she walked off to answer it
"Han, he'll talk to you," Isabel promised, and Hanna just nodded warily.
"We've been called down to the station," Ms. Marin said, walking in. "Not, you, Isabel, just Hanna and me."
"What?" Hanna gulped, exchanging a nervous look with Isabel.
"I can finish those cookies while you're gone, Ms. Marin," Isabel offered as Hanna walked over to her mother.
"That would be great," Ms. Marin nodded, and she put her coat on. "Thank you, hon."
Hanna arrived back at her house, and not only was Isabel waiting for her, but so were Spencer and Emily.
"What happened?" Isabel asked, putting down the icing and rushing over.
"Wilden's back," Hanna huffed. "He still thinks we had something to do with Ali's murder. There's a photo of the three of us outside the coroner's office looking for page five."
"'A' was following us?" Emily gulped.
"No. Security cameras," Hanna replied. "There's an investigation going on; he said the copies of that page are missing."
"Copies? As in every copy?" Isabel frowned, tilting her head to the side.
"If the cops don't have it then it had to have been an inside job," Spencer realized, and Isabel grit her teeth.
"Garrett," she spat.
"Officer Two-Face is gonna open that laptop," Hanna panicked. "I mean, what if Caleb goes to jail? It's gonna be all my fault."
"It's not gonna happen," Isabel promised her, putting an arm around her slumping shoulders.
"What're you doing?" Emily frowned, and Isabel looked over at Spencer. She was pulling out her coat, about to put it on.
"Jonah knows something that could help us figure out what really happened to Alison," She explained, actually putting it on. "Wilden is just gonna keep on coming after us. So we need to find out who killed Alison so we can prove it wasn't us."
"Okay, unless you found $2,000 while I was out-" Hanna began, but Spencer went to the door. "Where are you going?"
Isabel smiled forlornly at Spencer, and answered for her. "Home."
-
Isabel was listening to music at her motel room, trying to calm her nerves about Caleb. Suddenly, her phone beeped.
'SOS' -Hanna
When Isabel got to Hanna's, she was pacing the room, and Spencer had her head in her hands.
"What's going on?" Isabel gulped.
"Caleb went to the police station, and now we gotta hack into his computer with no knowledge of hacking whatsoever!" Hanna snapped, and Isabel stared at her. "Sorry, I'm just frustrated."
"Well, do you know his password?" She asked, sitting down next to Spencer.
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Spencer replied. "Think, Hanna."
"Okay, it's the first initials of every city he's ever lived in," Hanna remembered. "Seattle, Wilmette, Salt Lake, Denver, Allentown, Rosewood."
"In that order?" Spencer frowned, writing them down.
"Yes. Oh, and he alternates capital and lower case letters," Hanna added.
"Wow this is almost as complicated as my password," Isabel muttered as Spencer fixed the password. "Any punctuation?"
"Yes! An exclamation point..." Hanna exclamined, still pacing. "... after the last four numbers."
"Last four numbers?" Spencer said incredulously. "There are four more numbers?"
"Okay, what are they?" Isabel asked calmly, looking back at Hanna.
-
"What else could it be?" Spencer groaned as Hanna tried to remember.
"I don't know!" She snapped.
"We only have one more try until we're locked out of the system," Isabel pointed out.
"Just think, Hanna!" Spencer added.
"I am thinking!" Hanna yelled. "This is me thinking! And molting!" She added as she pulled at her hair.
"You said, 1, 1, something, 5," Spencer repeated. "1, 1, something, 5. 1, 1, something-"
"That is not helping!" Hanna huffed.
"Is it a- a code? Is it a date?" Isabel asked, trying to refresh her memory. It worked for her all the time. "Or part of a phone number? Is it a birthday? Is it an anniversary? Or-"
Hanna stopped pacing and stared at Isabel. She ran over to the laptop and typed in, '422SwSLDaR1105!' She gasped when it worked.
"Oh, my God! We're in!" Hanna grinned, turing to them. "We did it!"
"Hanna!?" Isabel exclaimed.
"Yes?" Hanna asked.
"What do we do now?"
-
They were searching Caleb's files, looking for the cursed one.
"There are million files on here," Hanna complained, scrolling through them. "It's like looking inside of his brain."
"Which one is it?" Isabel frowned.
"It's gotta be 'Hefty,'" Hanna scoffed, opening the file. "That bitch." She clicked on it, and a thousand different numbers, information, and records appeared.
"This is it," Isabel realized. "Social Security numbers, credit card information. Student records."
"Isabel, how much is on here?" Hanna gulped, turning to her.
"Somebody who really wants Caleb out of their way," she replied darkly.
-
Hanna went in and individually deleted each file, but it was taking forever.
"We're taking too long, Hanna. Just Control, 'A'," Spencer sighed.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Hanna snapped, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
"It's not fast enough, Hanna! Just Control, 'A'," Spencer yelled. "Control, A!"
"What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" Hanna retorted, still clicking too slowly.
"No, hit Control, A on the keyboard!" Isabel shouted, pointing to ctrl: 'A' on the keyboard. Hanna punched the button, and successfully deleted all the files.
-
Isabel went to Spencer's house to let Hanna go talk to Caleb.
"You were literally yelling at her," Isabel laughed, sipping some water.
"So were you!" Spencer pointed out, and Isabel shrugged.
"It's my brother, Spence," she replied. At the word 'brother', Spencer hesitated. "Speaking of which, you need to talk to your brother, and I'm not doing it for you."
"I did, Isabel," Spencer muttered.
"Then why do you look hesitant about it?" Isabel scoffed. Then she realized something. "Oh, you haven't asked Jason for the money yet."
"Money? How'd you know?" Spencer frowned as Isabel sat down on her couch.
"He told me before he told you," she shrugged, and Spencer gave her the 'Really?' look. "What? We're best friends, we tell each other everything."
"Who happen to be dating," Spencer added.
"Yeah, and?" Isabel replied. "To speak your language, best friends who get married are 77% less likely to get a divorce than other people."
"Fair point," Spencer nodded. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and Isabel got up to answer it. Hanna had told her that Caleb was coming over, so she supposed it was him.
"Probably Caleb," Isabel sighed. "Thanks for helping us with that."
"Well, I mean, you'd do it for me," Spencer smiled.
When Isabel opened the door, she was face-to-face with Jason. Huh, he seemed to be everywhere.
Suddenly, her phone rang. That was Caleb.
"I'll be back," she said, staring at her phone. "Hey, babe," she added, smiling at Jason.
"Hey," he replied, and she kissed him before walking off.