Pretty Little Liars #15: Toxic (30 page)

“Whose is that?” Aria cried.

Fuji removed her sunglasses and stared at them hard. There was no kindness in her eyes, which surprised Emily. Fuji should be grateful, shouldn’t she? “I think you know whose it is, girls. What
I
want to know is: Where’s the rest of the body?”

Everyone flinched. Emily’s heart began to pound. “The rest of
what
body?” Hanna asked.

“Isn’t Greg’s body by the creek bed?” Spencer piped up.

Fuji pressed her hand to her brow. “We know what you’ve been doing in Ashland, girls. We have witnesses attesting to you skulking around up there. Testimonies about the questions you’ve been asking neighbors and people at the mini-mart. And then we found your surveillance equipment. Saw your shoddy cleanup job for ourselves. Found your prints all over the house.”

Fuji’s words made sense to Emily individually, but not as a whole. She couldn’t even comprehend what the agent was saying. “Wait,” she blurted. “Our
cleanup job
? What do you mean?”

“You obviously did something last night, and then tried to clean it up. Badly, I might add.” Fuji scowled. “Throwing bleach haphazardly on the floor doesn’t eradicate blood, ladies.”

Bleach?
Emily’s heart stopped.

“
We
didn’t clean that up!” Spencer cried, getting it, too. “Someone else did! We were there, in the house, on the second floor. We heard everything, but we were too afraid to look and see who it was.”

“It’s true,” Emily said. “It was our surveillance equipment—we were spying, but it was in hopes of catching Ali. But we didn’t do
anything
in that house. We didn’t hurt anyone; we didn’t clean anything. We just happened to
be
there.”

“Are you sure about that, Emily?” Fuji’s gaze was unblinking. “So then you didn’t go up there yourself and trash the place a few days before, and then make a threat that you were going to
kill
someone if she ever returned?”

Emily could feel her friends staring at her. Her cheeks started to burn.

“What’s she talking about?” Spencer demanded.

“When did you say that?” Aria hissed.

“Emily, what’s going on?” Emily’s mother said behind her.

“The surveillance cameras store the last seven days of data,” Fuji said, a whisper of a smile on her face. “Three of them we found were smashed, but the fourth—the one that showed the inside of the house—was still intact, though no longer recording. We watched that video of you, Emily. Watched you tear things off the wall, smash anything in sight. Your prints were all over the cameras, too. We knew they were yours before you told us.”

“I . . .” Emily trailed off. She had no idea what to say. She
had
trashed the house. That awful day, after Jordan died, when she’d gone up there—she’d said all
kinds
of things. But . . .

She shook her head. “Okay.
Okay
. But we didn’t . . .
kill
anyone. It was
Alison
. I swear.”

“That’s impossible!” Fuji fumed. Her face was bright red. “The neighbors say they heard screams. Then came that call—from
you
. And what’s this about the boy at the creek bed?” She narrowed her eyes. “How did you know about that?”

Spencer’s chin wobbled. “I—I saw it on the news site.”

But Fuji looked furious. Emily’s mind continued to unfurl. What the hell was happening? Why did she suddenly feel so . . . accused?

“And then, girls, we found the diary,” Fuji went on. “Of all the things you did to her. All the
torture.
We found everything listed there. The knives. The chains. The ropes. The pliers and other tools.” She shook her head, disgusted. “And you thought you were going to get away with this?”

“What are you talking about?” Hanna cried.

Fuji gnashed her teeth together. “Yes, you were right about one thing—Alison
was
alive. She must have survived the fire in the Poconos, just like you said. But don’t play dumb about everything else. I am
sick
of it, okay?”

“What do you mean,
was
alive?” Aria asked in a quavering voice, tears running down her cheeks. And then, slowly, she looked down at the plastic bag she was holding. Fuji followed her gaze. The bag was open just slightly, blood smeared on the plastic. Fuji’s eyes widened.

Aria shut the bag tight, but it was already too late. Fuji had seen. And now, Emily knew, the agent was assuming all kinds of things. Things that weren’t true.

Veins popped out on Fuji’s neck. She glanced over her shoulder, indicating that the other waiting agents close in. “Because that’s
her
blood all over that pool house. And this is her tooth. And we know you are responsible.”

“Us?” Emily’s jaw trembled. “F-for what?”

She already knew the answer a split second before it came. The methods were clear, the strategy so precise and cunning and subtle it left her breathless. The pool house. The camera loop. Getting them all up to Ashland at that exact moment, waiting until they were upstairs and terrified. Messily cleaning up with the bleach, the bucket, the mop. And then that
tooth
.

Ali had set them up.
Spectacularly
.

Fuji rolled her eyes and said just what Emily feared. “You
know
, Miss Fields. For Alison’s murder.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks, as usual, to my stellar team at Alloy, including Josh Bank, Les Morgenstein, Sara Shandler, Lanie Davis, and Katie McGee—without you this book wouldn’t be nearly as compelling (nor would I know what it means to “White Fang” someone). Thanks to Kristin Marang and Theodora Guliadis in Alloy Digital for all their smart ideas to garner even more PLL fans. A huge thank-you to Kari Sutherland, Sarah Landis, and Alice Jerman at Harper for their smart insights and never-ending support. My usual gratitude to the amazing writers, producers, and actors on
Pretty Little Liars
on ABC Family: I draw inspiration from you guys, and sometimes it is incredibly frustrating NOT to use your plot lines in the books!

Thanks as well to my parents, Bob and Mindy Shepard; to Ali and Caron, who opened their lovely Upper East Side home to us several times during the brainstorming process for this book (and who wrangled a certain Bumby during meetings!); and love to Michael, for many things including being patient and understanding about ice cream. Thanks to the many fans on Twitter and to all those who answer my random questions when I throw them into the Twitterverse. And of course a big hug to Kristian, who is the best little man ever.
Choo choo!

Also, this book is dedicated to Volvo, my loyal friend. For drooling on me through a cross-country move, a cross-town move, and then a cross-state move; for being my longtime running partner, a reliable vacuum cleaner, and a steady guardian. Always smelly, always sneaking onto a bed, and always the most-loved at parties, you’re the best dog anyone could ask for. Now go outside and catch some squirrels.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Austin Hodges

SARA SHEPARD
is the author of two
New York Times
bestselling series, Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Brooklyn College. Sara’s Pretty Little Liars novels were inspired by her upbringing in Philadelphia’s Main Line.

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CREDITS

HAND LETTERING BY PETER HORRIDGE

MODEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALI SMITH

DOLL DESIGN BY TINA AMANTULA

DOLL PHOTOGRAPHY BY HOWARD HUANG

COPYRIGHT

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

T
OXIC
. Copyright © 2014 by Alloy Entertainment and Sara Shepard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or here in after invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Produced by Alloy Entertainment

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934802

ISBN 978-0-06-228701-4

EPub Edition April 2014 ISBN 9780062287038

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