Chapter 2 – Secrets and Snitches

Emily knocked fervently against the large white door, glancing over her shoulder to make certain that no one was watching her. She'd waited until both cars had left the driveway before even considering the idea of walking over. Usually the neighborhood would sleep in on weekends, but this was Rosewood; anything could go wrong. Finally, the door swung open and a dazed Toby Cavanaugh stood before her.

"Emily?" He groggily rubbed his eyes.

"Sorry, Toby, I know it's early, but this is an emergency." She breezed by him without waiting to be invited in.

Perplexed, Toby slowly closed the door. "What's going on?"

Emily fidgeted nervously with her hands. "Is Jenna home?"

Surprised, tired, but mostly just confused, Toby led Emily through the Cavanaugh-Marshall household. He knocked softly on Jenna's door and waited for a response. Cracking open the door, he said, "Emily Fields is here. She wants to talk to you."

"Why?" The tone of Jenna's voice resembled the expression on Toby's face. Despite being stepsiblings and having only known each other since Jenna moved to Rosewood freshman year, the two were incredibly close and protective of one another.

"I don't know." He answered through the door. "But it sounds important."

After a few awkward moments of standing silently in the hallway with Toby, Jenna finally called back, "Send her in."

Emily entered Jenna's bedroom as Toby left them to speak privately. Jenna was sitting on the edge of her bed, expectantly facing the door with her sunglasses in place.

"Hi, Jenna." Emily tried her best not to sound as uncomfortable as she felt.

"Hello, Emily." She was expressionless, her voice balanced and even. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your company this early on a Saturday?"

Knowing it wouldn't do any good to beat around the bush, she decided to just get on with it. "I came to warn you. A few hours ago I got a text from a blocked number. It mentioned you. It mentioned the night …the night you, uh…lost your vision."

Jenna forced a smirk. "You mean the night I was blinded?"

Emily nodded, quickly feeling foolish upon realizing what she was doing. "The point is that whoever sent me that text knows the truth about what happened. They know it wasn't an accident."

She shrugged. "And why should I care?"

Emily took a deep breath. "If they know Ali's the one who threw the firecracker, they might know what she used to blackmail you into staying quiet with."

Understanding dawning on her, Jenna pursed her lips as she took a moment to think. "What exactly did the text say?"

"For me to stay away from Maya St. Germain or else everyone would know the truth about what happened."

"You and Maya St. Germain?" Jenna chuckled. "I wouldn't have seen that one coming even if I could see."

"It's not like that." Emily blushed. "I mean, maybe it could have been like that. I don't know. We were at the same party last night. It was just a dumb seven minutes in heaven dare. I don't even know Maya that well. I don't understand why someone is threatening me to stay away from her."

After a few contemplative moments, Jenna asked, "Since you're here, I assume you're going to stay away from her?"

Despite the fact that Jenna couldn't see her, Emily found it hard to look at the girl. "I guess I have to. I don't know how much this person knows. They might have the video of you that Ali had."

Jenna's hand slowly reached out toward her. Hesitantly, Emily took it and allowed Jenna to stand and pull her into a hug. "Thank you."

Uncomfortable in the embrace, Emily weakly returned to the hug. "It's the least I can do."

Across town, Spencer was just finishing her second cup of coffee. Sitting alone at a secluded table in The Brew, she was busy typing away on her laptop. She checked the time again; her friends were running late. Just as she was about to send out another mass text asking where they were, Hanna came stumbling in. She plopped down across from Spencer, removing her sunglasses to reveal dark bags under drowsy eyes.

"I'm running on two hours of sleep." Hanna groaned as she massaged her temples.

"At least you managed to actually get any sleep. I never went to bed." Spencer answered distractedly. "Have you heard from Aria or Emily? They said they would be here."

"Maybe they fell back asleep." Hanna suggested. Her eyes fell to Spencer's empty cup. "I'm going to need a truckload of caffeine to stay awake."

By the time Hanna returned to the table with her beverage, Aria and Emily had finally arrived. Spencer closed her laptop, glancing around The Brew to make sure they wouldn't be overheard.

"Alright, Spence. What gives?" Hanna asked bluntly. "Why are we having an urgent meeting on a Saturday morning?"

Spencer placed her phone on the table. "After the party a blocked number texted me. They signed the message with the letter A. Whoever it is, they're trying to blackmail me. And judging by the looks on your faces, I'm assuming I'm not the only one?"

Aria shifted in her seat uncertainly. "Uh, yeah. I got one too."

"Same here." Hanna grumbled, sipping on her coffee.

All eyes turned to Emily. She nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

Spencer sighed. "I think honesty is the best policy here. If we get all the facts together, we might be able to figure out who is trying to blackmail us. Right now, I'm thinking it was someone at the party last night. My text references the truth or dare game."

Emily cleared her throat. "My text mentioned Maya."

Spencer keenly looked at the other two girls. Hanna shrugged. "Mine didn't say anything about the party, but whoever sent it was in the girl's bathroom yesterday morning the same time as me and Kate. The asshole took pictures from inside a stall. They want me to tell my dad's fiancé Isabelle that he slept over at my mom's house last night. If I don't, they'll see a picture of me and Kate hooking up. Turns out that Kate, by the way, is Isabelle's daughter."

The girls stared at Hanna in awe for a few moments before Spencer decided to follow Hanna's lead. "Since we're sharing…they want me to spread a rumor about Mr. Fitz."

"What?" Aria snapped, checking over her shoulder to ensure that no one was eavesdropping. "What rumor?"

Reluctantly, she answered. "Well, uh, a rumor that Fitz is involved with one of his students." Spencer glanced around the table. "They know where I was the night Alison was murdered. They're threatening to tell people if I don't gossip about Fitz."

The girls shared a puzzled look as Emily said, "You were with us. We were all in the barn, sleeping."

Knowing the truth was the best way to proceed, Spencer divulged what she could. "When Ali got up to go meet with Ian, I followed her. Or at least I tried to. I lost track of her in the woods and had to turn around. On my way back to the barn..." She paused to choose her words carefully. "I met with someone. In their car. Briefly. Then I snuck into my house for a minutes, but after that I went straight back to the barn. I never saw Ali again that night."

"Who did you meet with?" Aria asked. Upon noticing Spencer's hesitation, she added, "Look, you're the one who said honesty is the best policy."

"Okay." Spencer inhaled deeply as she prepped herself. "I met with Andrew Campbell."

Hanna raised a skeptical eyebrow. "That dorky guy on the decathlon team?"

"Yes." Spencer avoided eye contact with Aria the best she could. "That summer I started getting a little overwhelmed with the college level classes I was taking at Hollis. I was taking pills to help me concentrate and stay awake to study. My prescription needed to be refilled, and I had a final coming up the next day, so I called Andrew to see if I could buy some from him. I didn't have enough cash on me at the time…so we struck a deal."

"Oh my god." Hanna gasped, covering her mouth in surprise. "Tell me you did not whore yourself out for fucking Adderall."

Lowering her voice, Spencer replied, "His going rate at the time was a handful for a handjob. I was desperate, okay? It's not something that I'm proud of."

"Desperate?" Emily questioned.

Spencer chewed nervously on her bottom lip. "I, um…I started abusing the pills that summer. It got worse after Ali died. You guys remember how sophomore year my family went to New York City for Thanksgiving? Well…they went to New York, I went to rehab."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Aria asked. It was clear from the hurt look on her face that she was really asking why Spencer never told her specifically.

"My family went through a lot of trouble to keep it quiet. And with everything that happened with Ali, I just couldn't bring myself to tell you guys. It wasn't even that bad of an addiction."

"Not that bad of an addiction?" Hanna nearly spilt her drink. "If a handjob for a handful isn't what you would define as bad, I'd like to see what is."

Before Spencer could throw back a harsh remark, Aria cut in. "Hanna, chill. This is a judgment free zone right now."

Hanna and Spencer stifled their comments as the attention shifted to Aria and Emily.

"Alright, well, what do they want from you two?" Hanna asked.

Emily and Aria shared a glance, silently asking for the other to go first. Emily caved. "They want me to stay away from Maya."

Hanna's face fell in honest heartbreak. Seeing Emily get excited over a girl had made Hanna so happy for her friend. It had taken two years for Emily to get this far, and now someone was trying to take it all away from her.

"Why?" Aria asked the question at hand.

Emily shook her head. "It didn't say why, but if I don't…they're going to tell people that Alison is the one who blinded Jenna Marshall."

The girls gasped audibly as dozens of questions came to mind. Spencer lowered her voice. "You knew this whole time?"

Guiltily, Emily nodded. "I was there."

"You were there?" Hanna whispered. "What happened?"

"It's complicated." They waited eagerly for Emily to go on. "It was around the time that I found out Ali was seeing Ian. I felt betrayed—hurt, mostly. Jenna had just moved into Toby's house, her and Ali were already butting heads...and I wanted to hurt Ali back."

Tentatively, Hanna asked, "Did you hook up with Jenna Marshall?"

Emily stared at the table, avoiding all eye contact. "Yes, and when Ali found out, she told Jenna to stay away from me. We were both angry at her for different reasons, but we shared that feeling. We made plans to meet up in her garage. Her parents weren't home, but we couldn't risk Toby seeing us. Ali found out somehow. She showed up, and as a prank she lit a firecracker and threw it inside the garage. That's what started the fire…that's what blinded her. After I helped Jenna out of the garage, Ali convinced me that we had to leave before anyone saw us there. She blackmailed Jenna into saying it was an accident. She had an incriminating video of her. I was in shock at the time…I was so scared…and I let Ali lead me away." Despite her efforts to hold it together, stray tears fell from Emily's eyes. "We left her there all alone. We didn't even call for help. We just sat in the bushes and watched. Eventually Toby smelled the smoke and called 911. He found Jenna in the driveway, right where we'd left her. She'd fallen unconscious, and from where we were it looked like…like she was dead. He started screaming for help and we just…we just watched. We stayed there until after the fire truck and ambulance left. I was freaking out—we had to tell someone, we couldn't keep something like that a secret! But Ali said we had to. She said if we told anyone that she would go to jail. She said my parents would find out what I was doing in there with Jenna. I wasn't out to them yet, and at the time it didn't even feel like a threat, but I realize now that Ali wasn't looking out for me; she was blackmailing me to stay quiet just like she was blackmailing Jenna."

The table was quiet as she wiped away her tears. Offering Emily a napkin as a tissue, Hanna said, "I never thought I'd feel bad for Jenna Marshall."

"She's not as bad as Ali made her out to be." Emily sniffled.

"What was on the video?" Spencer asked curiously. "The one Ali used to keep her quiet, what was on it?"

All eyes back on Emily, she scrambled to find a decent response. "I-I can't say. Jenna and I made an agreement when she came back to Rosewood from that school for the blind. If I kept her secret, she wouldn't say that Ali started the fire."

Hanna sipped her drink. "Well, let's be real. Now that Ali's gone what does it matter if people find out she started the fire?"

"No one can know." Emily's eyes pleaded desperately with the girls. "This person might know what Ali was using to blackmail Jenna with. They might have the video. I can't take that risk. I can't do that to Jenna. She's been through enough as it is."

Spencer, Hanna, and Aria agreed to keep the secret. It was obvious to them that Emily wasn't protecting herself or Alison; she was protecting Jenna in order to appease a guilty conscience.

Emily turned to Aria. "Your turn."

Aria sighed. "They're threatening to tell everyone about me and Ezra."

"What do they want you to do?" Spencer asked.

Rather than say it out loud, Aria opened the text message she had received and slid the device across the table. Angry, upset, but mostly embarrassed, Spencer passed the phone over to Hanna and Emily. The group remained silent on the issue. This was neither the time nor the place for another one of Spencer and Aria's love debacles.

"What are we going to do?" Hanna asked, breaking the awkward silence. "This creep knows stuff about us that we didn't even know about each other."

Aria shrugged. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think it was Ali."

Emily nodded. "That was my first thought, too. I just can't believe she actually told someone about the Jenna thing."

"So is that who we think this is?" Spencer asked the table. "Someone Ali knew? A friend of hers messing around?"

"This isn't just messing around." Aria replied. "This is serious. Ezra could get fired if our relationship gets out. He could do actual jail time."

Before Spencer could make a snide comment, Hanna cut in. "Look, if this is asshole plans on using our secrets against us, maybe we should beat them to it."

"What do you mean?" Emily asked.

Hanna chewed on the end of her drink's straw. "Maybe we should spill everything. Right here, right now." The other girls shared a reluctant look. Hanna rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll go first. Let's see, last year I paid Lucas to Photoshop a few yearbook pictures to make them uglier. Just some bitchy student government kids, no one important. Uh, I always forge my mom's signature. On everything. One time I got drunk and made out with Mona. Speaking of her, we used to shoplift stuff together for fun. Hmm, Ali was the first person I ever kissed…back during the…Hefty Hanna years." Her humor sputtered out as a serious topic came to mind. "Freshman year I had, uh…I had an eating disorder. Ali knew about it. She helped me deal with a lot of my issues with that. She helped me get better, taught me how to eat right and showed me her exercise schedule. All that is just off the top of my head, though. I'm sure there's more."

Emily placed a comforting hand over Hanna's on the table.

Glancing around to see who would go next, Spencer found the courage to spill a little more of her own dirt. "Junior year I plagiarized one of Melissa's old essays. It was the paper I won the Golden Orchid for. No one ever found that I didn't write it."

Hanna laughed. "Somehow that's both hard to believe and not surprising at all."

Worried that she would chicken out, Aria blurted, "Before my mom found out about my dad's affair with that college student, Ali was extorting money from him. I knew, but I never did anything to stop her. I don't even know what she used the money for."

The attention turned to Emily, who shook her head dumbly. "I don't really have any other big secrets. I mean, one time I saw Mike out on a date with Noel Kahn—"

"What?" Aria exclaimed. "Hold up. My brother Mike on a date with Noel Kahn? Are you sure? They weren't just hanging out as friends?"

"No, I'm sure." Emily answered quietly. She felt bad about telling Aria the truth. It was no secret that Mike liked boys just as much as he liked girls, but the notorious Noel Kahn had some rough history with their clique. "It was a romantic setting, definitely a date. But this happened last winter. I'm pretty sure they've gone back to being just friends."

"So that's it then." Hanna glanced around the table. "All the big secrets, out where they can't hurt us."

"I don't know about that." Spencer replied. "Telling each other our secrets is completely different than telling them to other people."

Aria narrowed her gaze pointedly at Spencer. "Wait, you're not actually going to spread that rumor about Ezra, are you?"

"I have to." She answered as if it would be crazy to assume she wouldn't. "We told the police that we were in the barn all night. If this gets out, they'll know I lied about what I did that night, Andrew will get in trouble for selling prescription meds to me, and everything my parents did to keep my visit to rehab quiet would be for nothing. So, yeah, I'll spread some gossip about Fitz seeing a student. They'll eat it up for a while, but just lay low until it dies down. No one will figure out who it actually is."

"What if a teacher hears about it?" Aria asked. Her demeanor shifted completely, morphing from concerned to panicked. "What if the police hear about it? They could investigate him. They might find something that proves it's not just gossip. This puts a target on him."

Spencer crossed her arms defiantly. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."

"I cannot even believe you right now." Aria scoffed.

"What about you, huh?" Spencer defensively redirected the focus. "How are you supposed to pull off 'making me think I still have a chance with you'? If you don't, our good friend A is going to tell everyone about you and him anyway!"

"Keep your voice down." Aria warned. "We don't know who this person is. They could be watching us right now for all we know."

Confused, Hanna raised a finger as if to gain permission to ask her question. "I thought we agreed it's someone Ali knew? Someone she told our secrets to?"

Spencer half-shrugged. "Emily's the only one who is getting blackmailed with something that happened before Ali died. Ali was in the woods with Ian when I met up with Andrew. I mean, neither of their bodies were in the DiLaurentis backyard yet when I walked back to the barn, but there's no way Ali could have seen what I was doing and told someone before Ian killed her."

"It's probably someone who goes to school with us." Aria suggested. "That picture of Hanna and Kate was taken in the bathroom."

"Mona!" Hanna gasped. "That bitch, it has to be her. I mean, come on, who else would fuck with us like this?"

Spencer looked around at her friends warily. "I agree that Mona is the most likely suspect, but she's not the only person in the school that doesn't like us."

"Noel Kahn." Aria nearly spat the name.

"Paige McCullers." Emily proposed.

Hanna chuckled darkly. "Well, fuck, I can't even count how many girls that are mad at me for not calling them back."

Spencer rubbed her tired eyes. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up to her. "I think this is a good start. We can talk about it more later. Right now I just really need a nap. I still haven't written my paper for Fitz yet, I'll have to do that tonight."

Hanna groaned. "I've got that stupid dinner with my dad, the fiancé, and Kate. As if I wasn't dreading it enough already."

Aria gestured to Hanna's phone on the table. "How revealing is the picture of you and Kate in the bathroom?"

"It's not revealing, like our clothes are on, but that doesn't mean I want my dad to see it." Hanna griped. "And I don't even know if Kate is out to her mom. I'll probably pull her to the side first and let her know what's up. But if I do that, she'll probably go tell her mom that my dad is cheating on her. Either way it's best if I play along and put the cat in the bag."

Spencer shook her head disbelievingly, too exhausted to even bother correcting her.

That afternoon, Aria was driving through downtown Rosewood with her brother Mike in the car. She wanted to ask him about the secret Emily had revealed during the morning's emergency meeting. She had no reason to doubt her friend, but something about the idea of her brother being romantically interested in Noel Kahn seemed fishy.

"Guess what I heard about you this morning." She tried to play it casual. Mike was a very confrontational person, keeping things calm was a necessity when trying to get the truth out of him.

"What?" His apathetic answer was exactly the tone she expected.

Preparing herself for the inevitable backlash, she said, "That a while back you went out on a date with Noel Kahn." She glanced to the passenger seat. Mike was expressionless, something she hadn't predicted would happen. "Is it true?"

"So what if it is?" He fired back, quickly returning to a stoic position. "You can just drop me off here."

"Wait, Mike, let's talk about this for a second, okay?" She had to choose her words quickly but more importantly she had to choose them carefully. "Listen, I know my friends and I aren't on good terms with Noel, but if you like him—"

"I don't!" Mike snapped. His irritation was rising. "I don't like him like that. We're just friends. But it's none of your business anyway."

"You're right." Aria allowed, pulling the car over and placing it in park. She turned her full attention to her brother. "You're absolutely right. It's none of my business who you see. I was just wondering if it was true…did you go out with him?"

Mike shifted uneasily in his seat. "Yeah, a few times. It wasn't anything serious."

"Why'd it end?"

"It wasn't working out."

"Did he treat you badly or—"

"No! He's my friend, okay? Let's just leave it at that."

"Okay. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get all the facts here. Why didn't you tell me about this when it happened?"

He scoffed. "You know why. You and your friends hate him."

"Well, he's done some pretty terrible things." Aria muttered.

Mike shook his head doubtfully. "Terrible like what? What has he done that's so bad you can't forgive him?"

Unsure of what to share and what to keep quiet, Aria decided it would be better to give him a little bit of the truth than nothing at all. "Noel used to be really close with my group of friends. Him and Toby Cavanaugh were practically inseparable in middle school. When high school came around, they got into a really big fight over which one of them would ask out the new kid Caleb. While they were fighting, everyone took sides—Toby's side. Noel got really pissed off and blew up at everyone. He said a lot of awful things, and he did a lot of stupid stuff. He's the one who told Spencer's parents that she's gay, did you know that? He's the reason she nearly got shipped off to some backwoods gay conversion camp in the middle of nowhere. He broke our trust. He never even apologized."

Mike stared out the window thoughtfully for a few moments before saying, "He's changed."

The passenger side door opened and slammed shut as Mike escaped the tense conversation. Aria tapped the steering wheel. For Mike's sake, and potentially for her own sake, she hoped that he was right about Noel. If Noel was the one sending anonymous threats, they would be in deep trouble. The boy had a temper and a ridiculous sense of entitlement.

Across town, Spencer was staring at her computer screen. Halfway through Fitz's paper, and still running on zero sleep, she was finding it hard to stay concentrated on her book report when there were much more pressing issues at hand. To further her procrastination, she went downstairs for a snack.

"You're looking rough." Melissa commented as Spencer rummaged through the fridge.

"Thanks." Spencer said dryly. She decided on an apple. After a quick rinse in the sink, she leaned against the kitchen counter as she watched her sister endlessly scroll on her handheld tablet.

Noticing Spencer's gaze on her, Melissa smirked. "Is there a reason you're just standing there like some brain-dead zombie?"

"How well did you know Ian?" Spencer's question surprised the both of them.

Melissa sat down her tablet, looking curiously at her. "How well did I know the man I was planning on marrying?"

"Obviously not all that well, what with his taste for underage girls and all that." She took a bite of her apple. "But were there any signs that he was a psychopath?"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"Just curious. I mean you think you know a guy and then bam. Turns out he was crazy all along."

"Enough games, Spencer. If you have something to say, spit it out already."

She shrugged. "I was just thinking about the night your fiancé killed one of my best friends, buried her in her own backyard, and then hung himself." She laughed in a deprecating manner. "Isn't is weird that someone you think is so normal is actually capable of murder? Capable of being a huge liar? I just find it really interesting, that's all."

"Interesting." Melissa repeated sarcastically. "You're right. It's so interesting that the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with ended up being a lying scumbag who preferred fourteen year old girls. It's so interesting that he would have rather killed her and then killed himself than stop seeing her. It's all just so interesting!"

Chewing pensively on a bite of apple, Spencer replied, "Everyone says it was a hate crime."

"I know what everyone says." She retorted indifferently. "It wasn't some hate crime. He knew all along what Alison was."

"You gave him an ultimatum." Spencer said, more to herself than to her sister. "He killed her out of some crazed obsessive passion, knew he was screwed, offed himself too." She glanced to Melissa. "Or maybe he picked her over you, so you killed them both and set the whole thing up to frame him."

Melissa wryly said, "If I had been the one to kill them, trust me, there wouldn't have been any evidence." Grabbing her things, she promptly left the kitchen.

Later that evening, Hanna was sitting across from her father at a busy restaurant in downtown Rosewood. The place was a nice balance of classy and casual. The décor was wonderful, the lights were pleasant, and the food smelled delicious. But all of the good smelling food in the world couldn't ease Hanna's nerves as they waited for the rest of their dinner party to arrive.

"Dad..." Still conflicted on how to handle the situation, Hanna struggled to find the right words. "We need to talk about something."

"Yeah? Like what?" Her father was an easy man to read. His body language revealed all; especially when he was anxious about something.

"When I got home this morning, and you were leaving—"

"Now, hold on a second." He interrupted, his eyes darting around the quiet restaurant. "Tonight is about you meeting Isabelle and Kate, right? Let's just enjoy a nice evening out."

Annoyed with his aversion tactic, Hanna crossed her arms. "Does she know you're cheating on her?"

"Wha—I-I…I don't know what you mean."

"Dad, come on, I'm not a little kid anymore. I know when you're trying to hide something. You've been acting sketchy ever since I saw you leave the house earlier. Are you and mom thinking about getting back together?"

"No." He said, his voice nearly a whisper. "I…Hanna, you're still young. There are things going on right now that you just wouldn't understand."

"I think I understand just fine." She shot back.

His eyes grew wide; Hanna had never talked back to him this way before. "What has gotten into you lately?"

"I'm growing up." She answered nonchalantly. "One of us has to."

At a loss for words, his face drained of color as he spotted Isabelle and Kate walking through the restaurant toward them. "Hanna, please, let's talk about this later."

With an uneasy feeling in her stomach, Hanna replied, "Tell her. Tell tonight. Right here, right now. She has to know. If you don't…I will."

"Hanna…" He begged.

"I'm serious." Hanna warned quietly as Isabelle and Kate reached the table.

When Kate locked eyes with Hanna, a noticeable panic set in for both girls. Hanna stood, holding out her hand to shake with Isabelle. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Likewise." She smiled brightly at the polite greeting before taking a seat beside Hanna's father.

"I'm just going to visit the little girls' room. Kate?" Hanna offered, hoping the girl would take the bait.

Unsure of Hanna's intentions, she replied with a simple, "Sure."

The girls entered the restroom in a rush. Hanna quickly began checking the stalls to ensure they were alone.

"Did you know?" Kate asked.

"No." Hanna scoffed. "Did you?"

"Obviously not!" She exclaimed.

Knowing it would be wrong not to tell Kate about the anonymous text message, she sighed. "Listen, I got a picture sent to my phone this morning from a blocked number. It was a picture of us in the bathroom at school. I don't know who took it, but they're using it to blackmail me." She waited for a response but received only a frightened stare. "I'm guessing you didn't get a text like that?" Kate shook her head. "Okay. Well. Here's the deal…my dad has been doing stuff that he shouldn't have been doing. If your mom doesn't find out the truth tonight, both of them are going to see that picture of us."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Kate asked. "How do I know you're not just trying to break them up?"

Hanna rolled her eyes. "I honestly don't even care if they're together. This is way bigger than any issues I might have with my dad."

"Is he cheating on my mom?" Kate asked hesitantly.

"Um, yeah." Hanna nodded. "I'm pretty sure. Last night I went to a party, and when I got home he was leaving my house."

"I had a feeling." Kate admitted. "This was all way too good to be true."

For lack of anything better to say, Hanna replied with a simple, "I'm sorry."

Kate abruptly turned and left the restroom. Hanna followed but quickly bumped into the back of her almost stepsister as they watched Isabelle angrily dump a full glass of water on Hanna's father.

Meanwhile, Emily Fields was walking home from a tiring day at work. She was nearing the old DiLaurentis home, now the residence of Maya St. Germain. She passed by the house quickly; it would be just her luck if Maya were home and saw her walking by. Ignoring the girl she had been making out with in a closet not even twenty-four hours ago was going to be a difficult task for Emily. Maya had sparked something inside her, something she hadn't felt since Alison.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, distracting her from thinking about cute girls she'd never be able to kiss again. Opening the new message, Emily froze on the sidewalk. "You four can't solve the puzzle if you don't have all the pieces. Here's a clue: Ian Thomas didn't kill Alison DiLaurentis, but I know who did. Sleep tight, don't let the neighbors bite. – A"