Spencer Hastings stood on the apple-green lawn of the Rosewood Abbey with her three ex–best friends, Hanna Marin, Aria Montgomery, andEmily Fields. The girls had stopped speaking more than three years ago, not long after Alison DiLaurentis mysteriously went missing, but they'dbeen brought back together today for Alison's memorial service. Two days ago, construction workers had found Ali's body under a concrete slabbehind what used to be her house.Spencer looked again at the text message she'd just received on her Sidekick.I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. —A"Oh my God," Hanna whispered. Her BlackBerry's screen read the same thing. So did Aria's Treo and Emily's Nokia. Over the past week,each of them had gotten e-mails, texts, and IMs from someone who went by the initial A. The notes had mostly been about stuff from seventh grade,the year Ali went missing, but they'd also mentioned new secrets...stuff that was happening now.Spencer thought A might have been Alison—that somehow she was back—except that was out of the question now, right? Ali's body haddecayed under the concrete. She'd been...dead...for a long, long time."Do you think this means...The Jenna Thing?" Aria whispered, running her hand over her angular jaw.Spencer slid her phone back in her tweed Kate Spade bag. "We shouldn't talk about this here. Someone might hear us." She glancednervously at the abbey's steps, where Toby and Jenna Cavanaugh had stood just a moment before. Spencer hadn't seen Toby since before Alieven went missing, and the last time she saw Jenna was the night of her accident, limp in the arms of the paramedic who'd carried her down."The swings?" Aria whispered, meaning the Rosewood Day Elementary playground. It was their old special meeting place."Perfect," Spencer said, pushing through a crowd of mourners. "Meet you there."It was the late afternoon on a crystal-clear fall day. The air smelled like apples and wood smoke. A hot-air balloon floated overhead. It was afitting day for a memorial service for one of the most beautiful girls in Rosewood.I know everything.Spencer shivered. It had to be a bluff. Whoever this A was, A couldn't know everything. Not about The Jenna Thing...and certainly not aboutthe secret only Spencer and Ali shared. The night of Jenna's accident, Spencer had witnessed something that her friends hadn't, but Ali had madeher keep it a secret, even from Emily, Aria, and Hanna. Spencer had wanted to tell them, but when she couldn't, she pushed it aside and pretendedthat it hadn't happened.But...it had.That fresh, springy April night in sixth grade, just after Ali shot the firework into the tree house window, Spencer ran outside. The air smelledlike burning hair. She saw the paramedics bringing Jenna down the tree house's shaky rope ladder.
Ali was next to her. "Did you do that on purpose?" Spencer demanded, terrified."No!" Ali clutched Spencer's arm. "It was—"For years, Spencer had tried to block out what had come next: Toby Cavanaugh coming straight for them. His hair was matted to his head,and his goth-pale face was flushed. He walked right up to Ali."I saw you." Toby was so angry he was shaking. He glanced toward his driveway, where a police car had pulled in. "I'm going to tell."Spencer gasped. The ambulance doors slammed shut and its sirens screamed away from the house. Ali was calm. "Yeah, but I saw you,Toby," she said. "And if you tell, I'll tell, too. Your parents."Toby took a step back. "No.""Yes," Ali countered. Although she was only five-three, suddenly she seemed much taller. "You lit the firework. You hurt your sister."Spencer grabbed her arm. What was she doing? But Ali shook her off."Stepsister," Toby mumbled, almost inaudibly. He glanced at his tree house and then toward the end of the street. Another police car slowlyrolled up to the Cavanaugh house. "I'll get you," he growled to Ali. "You just wait."Then he disappeared.Spencer grabbed Ali's arm. "What are we going to do?""Nothing," Ali said, almost lightly. "We're fine.""Alison..." Spencer blinked in disbelief. "Didn't you hear him? He said he saw what you did. He's going to tell the police right now.""I don't think so." Ali smiled. "Not with what I've got on him." And then she leaned over and whispered what she'd seen Toby do. It wassomething so disgusting Ali had forgotten she was holding the lit firework until it shot out of her hands and through the tree house window.Ali made Spencer promise not to tell the others about any of it, and warned that if Spencer did tell them, she'd figure out a way for Spencer—and only Spencer—to take the heat. Terrified at what Ali might do, Spencer kept her mouth shut. She worried that Jenna might say something—surely Jenna remembered that Toby hadn't done it—but Jenna had been confused and delirious...she'd said that night was a blank.Then, a year later, Ali went missing.The police questioned everyone, including Spencer, asking if there was anyone who wanted to hurt Ali. Toby, Spencer thought immediately.She couldn't forget the moment when he'd said: I'll get you. Except naming Toby meant telling the cops the truth about Jenna's accident—that shewas partially responsible. That she'd known the truth all this time and hadn't told anyone. It also meant telling her friends the secret she'd beenkeeping for more than a year. So Spencer said nothing.Spencer lit another Parliament and turned out of the Rosewood Abbey parking lot. See? A couldn't possibly know everything, like the texthad said. Unless, that was, A was Toby Cavanaugh...But that didn't make sense. A's notes to Spencer were about a secret that only Ali knew:back in seventh grade, Spencer had kissed Ian, her sister Melissa's boyfriend. Spencer had admitted what she'd done to Ali—but no one else. AndA also knew about Wren, her sister's now-ex, whom Spencer had done more than just kiss last week.But the Cavanaughs did live on Spencer's street. With binoculars, Toby might be able to see in her window. And Toby was in Rosewood,even though it was September. Shouldn't he be at boarding school?Spencer pulled into the brick-paved driveway of the Rosewood Day School. Her friends were already there, huddling by the elementaryschool jungle gym. It was a beautiful wooden castle, complete with turrets, flags, and a dragon-shaped slide. The parking lot was deserted, the brickwalkways were empty, and the practice fields were silent; the whole school had the day off in Ali's memory."So we all got texts from this A person?" Hanna asked as Spencer approached. Everyone had her cell phone out and was staring at the Iknow everything note."I got two others," Emily said tentatively. "I thought they were from Ali.""I did too!" Hanna gasped, slapping her hand on the climbing dome. Aria and Spencer nodded as well. They all looked at one another withwide, nervous eyes."What did yours say?" Spencer looked at Emily.Emily pushed a lock of blondish-red hair out of her eye. "It's...personal."Spencer was so surprised, she laughed aloud. "You don't have any secrets, Em!" Emily was the purest, sweetest girl on the planet.Emily looked offended. "Yeah, well, I do.""Oh." Spencer plopped down on one of the slide's steps. She breathed in, expecting to smell mulch and sawdust. Instead she caught a whiffof burning hair—just like the night of Jenna's accident. "How about you, Hanna?"
