Pretty Little Liars: the next generation

Another Suspect on the List

27

Another Suspect on the List

On Tuesday afternoon, the girls all gathered together at Troian's house to discuss A.

"Oh my god," Lucy practically yelled. "Did your moms tell you too?"

The other girls nodded.

"Wait, so, your mom had a psycho twin sister?" Troian asked. Why hadn't she known this before?

"Yeah," Sasha admitted. "My family has a few skeletons in our closet. My grandparents used to always want our family to look perfect."

"Used to?" Troian asked. "What happened?"

"They got divorced. My grandma had a secret affair with your grandpa. Our moms are half sisters."

"What?!" Troian exclaimed. "Our grandparents had an affair?"

"Yep," Sasha said. "We're related."

Why hadn't anyone told this to her before? Frankly, she was tired of all the secrets, whispers, and lies.

"We should start making a suspect list," Shay said, grabbing a red notebook. "We can definitely put Kristen on it."

"And don't forget Dan," Sasha said.

"Sasha, I really don't think Dan is A," Ashley said.

"Oh shut up," Sasha said, teasingly. "It's just a list of possibilities, not people we're accusing.

Ashley, who looked hurt, fell silent.

"Okay, so we have Kristen and Dan," Lucy said, reading off of Shay's list. "Who else?"

"Well," Shay said. "What about Courtney?"

Sasha snorted. "Courtney's dead."

"How do you know?" Shay shot back. "What if our moms were lying?"

"About this?" Sasha protested.

"They lied about it for the last sixteen years!" Shay screamed in fury.

"Ugh, who else?" Lucy wondered, trying to break the awkwardness.

"We don't have to keep adding people," Troian suggested. "A short list is easier to work with than a long one."

"True," Lucy admitted. "But I don't want to leave anyone out."

"Hmm," Sasha said. "It could be this guy from my old school. I kind of got him suspended and permanently kicked off the football team."

"But why would he do it to us too?" Troian asked.

Sasha shrugged. "Maybe he figured you guys were part of it."

"Part of what?" Troian asked.

Sasha didn't answer. There an awkward silence.

"What was his name?" Lucy asked, breaking the silence.

"Tim," Sasha answered. "Tim O'Neil."

Shay scribbled down his name, just as the front door opened. Chase walked in, dropping his car keys in the ceramic dish on the mail table, by the door.

Troian left the den to go talk to him. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I got off work early," Chase answered. "I figured when Spence gets home, we can all go out to dinner at Rive Gauche."

"Um, sure," Troian said. They went out to dinner practically every Sunday night, but today was Thursday. "Why today?" she asked.

Chase shrugged. "Just a nice family thing to do."

Troian returned to the den. "Well, we certainly can't talk about A with him home," Troian said, shaking her head.

"Definitely not," Ashley agreed.

Since there was nothing more to do, the girls all left, and drove off. Troian thought about all of their A suspects. None of them made much sense. She hardly knew Dan, Kristen was one of her friends, and she hadn't even Tim. Troian ended up being even more confused than she had been before the meeting.