My Life in Rosewood

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Jessie." I hear my name being called out through my headphones the night of the funeral, one ear covered while the other is able to listen to outside noise.

After the funeral I went to grab food with Aria, then we headed home for the night. I decided to put music on and do some homework, but I'm interrupted 20 minutes later by her half yelling my name.

I look overbat Aria when she calls me in confusion. She sounds scared. "What?"

"Emily found a clue from A."

My heart sinks, "Clue for what?"

"I don't know. They left her a map of the cemetery and want us to follow the plot number they circled." She gets up and starts to change out of her pjs, grabbing her bag and keys. Then she looks at me confused, "Coming?"

I stare back at here with my own confusion now as I pull off my headphones completely and set all my things aside. "You never want me to go on your A hunts."

She takes a breath, "Well obviously A has plans for you. They haven't set them up yet but we might as well have you close by so that you're prepared with all the information we get."

I don't like the concept of this person having a good enough hold on me that they can drop a bomb or make me do something I shouldn't but I see her point. So I get to my feet and switch into comfier pants and a hoodie before following her out to her car. It's amazing that her parents never notice when she leaves the house late at night.

When we meet the girls at the cemetery we follow Emily to the plot she says is circled on the map. They think A set them up by having them think Ian is who killed Alison, but they feel like if this person was helping then why would they also want to ruin their lives?

When we get there we can't find anything specific to help us pinpoint any importance other than it being Alison's grave site, or at least not until we hear the sound of an echoing voice and when we turn we see that there is something playing from what looks to be a projector. None of us have any idea where it's coming from but when we look over I see the face of Alison screened up against the wall of a mausoleum and she's talking to someone, as that person aims the camera at her. Then the camera the person has is given to Alison, which turns and shows Ian looking back at us. He smiles and leans closer and what sounds like a struggle is happening when the camera falls just before she is on the ground too. She isn't moving and all we see is her hand in view.

"What the hell is this?" I ask in fear because I don't understand.

When I look at the others they have scared looks, telling me this is the video that was sent to them ages ago and when they tried to show the police it got deleted from Spencer's computer. But before I can even grasp all the info they all make a loud collective gasp and when I turn my head back to the screen it shows Alison getting up from the ground after she was pushed and now she is holding the camera again. Ian smiles at her, kisses her (gross, another underaged relationship) and then he walks out of view of the camera.

"She was alive?" Spencer asks in shock, all us staring at each other in turn of being confused just before they start to walk away to look for where the projector could have been.

I chase after them in disbelief that not only was Ian framed, but A was feeding the girls false information to get him not just into trouble, but eventually as it seemed killed.

—

The following Friday I'm at work and Noel walks into the store as I'm getting ready to close up. I haven't seen him in a while from both of us being busy with sports and me having my mental breakdown. He noticed the shift in me when I came back to school and knew we needed some time to ourselves, so he wanted to pick me up and take a walk around town for a bit before going home.