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Of course her über-conservative mom would want her to live like a nun at college. Earlier in the week, when her mom had found out that Kelsey, the girl she’d been hanging around with, had a drug problem, she’d grilled Emily, figuring Emily was using drugs, too. Emily was surprised her mom hadn’t asked her to pee in a cup for an at-home drug test.
    While Mrs. Fields blathered on about the clean dorms, Emily picked up her cell phone again and scrolled through the previous texts she’d received from A, ending with the last one:
Dig all you want, bitches. But you’ll NEVER find me.
     
    She sucked in her stomach. In some ways, she almost wished A would just expose all of them and get it over with—the guilt and lying were too horrible to bear. She also wished that A would reveal herself as the person Emily knew she was—Real Ali. Her friends might not believe it, but Emily knew deep down in her bones that Ali had survived the fire at the Poconos house. After all, Emily had left a way for Ali to escape, opening the door for her before the house exploded.
    The pieces were starting to fit together. Ali and Tabitha were at the Preserve at the same time, and maybe that was why Tabitha had acted so much like Ali in Jamaica. Perhaps the two of them had been working together somehow—maybe Ali had gotten in touch with Tabitha after she’d escaped the fire in the Poconos. Maybe Ali even sent Tabitha to Jamaica to screw with the girls’ minds and drive them crazy.
    The whole thing broke Emily’s heart. She knew, logically, that their tormenter wasn’t Her Ali, the girl she’d adored for years, spent lots of time with, and kissed in the DiLaurentis’s tree house at the end of seventh grade. But she couldn’t help but dwell on that moment last year when Real Ali had returned, impersonated Their Ali, and kissed Emily with such passion. She’d seemed so . . . genuine , not like a cold-hearted psycho.
    “You know, you should probably sign up for a spot in the clean dorms now,” Mrs. Fields was saying as they drove up a hill past a large school playground. Several teenagers were sitting on the swings, smoking cigarettes. “I’d love to have this settled before your father and I go out of town on Wednesday.” Mr. and Mrs. Fields were taking a trip to Texas for Emily’s grandma and grandpa’s sixty-fifth wedding anniversary, leaving Emily alone in the house for the first time ever. “Want me to call the student living office tomorrow and ask?”
    Emily groaned. “Mom, I don’t know if I want to—”
    She trailed off, suddenly noticing where they were. SHIP LANE, said a green street sign. Up ahead was a very familiar little white ranch house with green shutters and a big front porch. It was on that very porch that she and her friends had left a certain baby carrier months earlier.
    “Stop,” she blurted.
    Mrs. Fields hit the brakes. “What’s wrong?”
    Emily’s heart was pounding so fast she was sure her mother could hear each valve flapping open and closed. This house had appeared in Emily’s dreams almost every night, but she’d vowed never to drive by it again. It seemed extra-creepy that the GPS had guided them here, almost like the computer knew this house held painful memories. Or maybe, she thought with a shiver, it was someone else who knew, someone else who’d somehow programmed the GPS.
    A.
    Either way, now that she was here, she couldn’t tear her gaze away. The dog bowl that said GOLDEN RETRIEVERS WELCOME was missing from the front porch, but the rocking chair was still there. The bushes in the front yard looked a little overgrown, like they hadn’t been pruned in a while. The windows were dark, and there were a bunch of wrapped newspapers on the lawn, a sure sign that the family was on vacation.
    All kinds of memories flooded back to Emily, unbidden. She saw herself staggering off the plane from Jamaica, nauseated and dizzy and exhausted. She’d figured it was just because of something