Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists Season 3

CHAPTER THREE: I Have a Case to Solve

HOSPITAL

MONA'S ROOM

"Haven't we gone down this road already?" Mona asked.

"We need to revisit it. Claire's the one behind all of this," Alison replied.

"Why would she kill her own son? She'd have no one left," Caitlin pointed out.

"Not necessarily. Claire knew that Taylor was alive and that I'd find her. That's part of the reason why I was hired at BHU."

"So what's her motive? What's this experiment for?" Ava asked. 

"Who knows? But it has to be her. Why would she come after us for everything that's happened? She wants us to snap. She came to my house once and we talked about Taylor. Claire said that 'people plan and God laughs.' Maybe she's trying to play God.

"Claire wants to test how much she can push people. See what it would take for us to snap," Dylan theorized.

"Could be. The point is that she wants to make us crack, and we can't let her. If she's the one doing this, it'll take time to stop her. We'll need someone on the inside," Mona said.

"Taylor! She works with Claire for Hotchkiss now!" Ava exclaimed.

"No. Taylor can't know about this. Not yet," Alison said.

"Why not? I thought you trusted her?" Caitlin asked.

"I do. But Taylor's around Claire all the time now, and Claire's smart. She'd know that Taylor is up to something. And honestly I'm not too convinced that Taylor would be able to handle this right now. She'd spiral knowing that Claire tried to kill her and might've killed Nolan. Hell, she'd probably start thinking that Claire killed her husband, too."

"Stranger things have happened in our lives," Mona said.

"So we're all in agreement? Claire's the Professor?"

Almost everyone nodded, and the people who didn't didn't object, either.

"If Claire's the Professor, wouldn't she know that we killed Dana?" Ava asked.

"I doubt it. You weren't in town and we made enough of an alibi for this to work," Alison replied.

"Or at least we hope so," Mona added.

30 MINUTES LATER

CAITLIN'S HOUSE

Caitlin was sitting on her couch, flipping through flashcards as she studied for her upcoming Latin quiz.

" A posteriori, after the fact," she said, flipping the card over to make sure she was right.

She was, of course. 

Caitlin moved onto the next one.

"A priori, before the fact."

Right again. Next one.

"A verbis...dammit! I hate Latin!"

She almost threw her flashcards across the room, but instead took a deep breath and moved on. She was about to move onto the next card, but then her phone rang.