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Chapter 3

Rylee ducked out of the main office and paused for a moment, leaning her head against the wall and taking in deep breaths of air. She hadn't let herself think about her relationship with Jason DiLaurentis in a long time. Once she had moved to Virginia, it had been easy to put her old life behind her. But now that she was back…

She had a feeling it wasn't going to be so easy.

Rylee stood up straight and was just about to head off for her next class when her cell phone buzzed. She sighed, fishing it out of her bag. She had told her father not to text her during school. But when she pulled it out, she gaped down at the message.

"A FIFTH little liar? Looks like you're keeping just as many secrets as the rest. Good thing I'm around. –A"

Rylee stared down at the text, hardly breathing. A? Who the heck was A? The number that the message was sent from was blocked and there was no other way to tell the person's identity.

Had someone been listening in on her conversation with the police? A had to have been referring to Jason. And who were the four other liars?

A.

Rylee's mouth fell open and her heart skipped a beat. The only person who had known about Rylee's relationship with Jason was…Alison.

x

It was a super hot day at the end of June and the girls were sitting at a table at the food court in the mall, sharing two baskets of fries and gossiping. Well, Alison was gossiping. Rylee and the others were mostly listening. But it didn't matter. Ali was the one with all of the good info, anyway.

But it was Hanna who suddenly jumped and turned away, tugging on her t-shirt and shielding her face with her hand. "Oh my God, you guys."

Alison made a face, irritated at being interrupted. "What is it, Hanna?"

Hanna looked up, her face red. "Do you see that guy over there? He was totally just looking at us."

The girls all turned, Rylee twisting in her seat to get a better look. A cute, probably sixteen or so boy was standing at the smoothie stand, and sure enough, he was looking in their direction.

The girls all giggled, blushing and quickly turning away. Alison just rolled her eyes with a smile and leaned her elbows on the table, grabbing a fry from the basket.

"He's cute," Spencer commented, smiling down at the table.

"Yeah, I could go for one of those," Aria agreed, shooting another sly look over at the boy.

Rylee grinned, nodding, and Hanna smacked her on the arm. "You totally think he's cute, too! You should go talk to him."

Rylee felt the color drain from her face. "What? You guys, he's like, sixteen."

"Come on," Spencer urged. "I think it was you he was looking at, anyway."

Sighing, Rylee began to stand, and her friends all grinned. She might as well. It wasn't like she had anything to lose. And anyway, she was wearing one of her favorite dresses.

But Alison raised her eyebrows, smirking. "Sorry, girls, but Rylee's already taken."

Rylee dropped back into her seat in shock, as her friends all gaped at her. "You have a boyfriend?" Emily asked, her eyes wide. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," Rylee murmured, feeling her face light up.

"Oh, come on, Ryles," Alison trilled. "We're all friends, they deserve to know. And I mean, if I was dating an older boy, I'd want everyone to know."

The expressions of surprise on the others' faces turned to ones of absolute disbelief. "Oh my God!" Aria squeaked. "Now you have to tell us." Emily and Hanna nodded enthusiastically. Spencer had gone strangely quiet.

As she realized what Alison was talking about, Rylee paled, nervously fingering the black wallet in her lap. "Let it go, Ali," she whispered desperately. "Please."

But Alison's smile had disappeared, her eyes darkening. "Tell them, Rylee. Unless you want me to do it for you."

Rylee gasped. Would Alison really do that? She knew that Ali wasn't thrilled about her relationship (if you could even call it that) with her brother, but she wouldn't really spill that secret to the other girls, would she?

Hanna turned to Alison, gaping as she grabbed a handful of fries from the basket. "You know him?"

Alison smirked, folding her arms over her chest and looking directly at Rylee as she spoke, her words hard. "Oh, yes. He's practically my brother."

x

She stared down at the phone until her vision blurred. Oh my God. Rylee was confident that Alison had been the only person to know about her budding romance with Jason. She had been too careful for anyone else to find out.

Rylee shook her head and shoved her phone into her purse, trying to look unfazed as she made her way down the hall. There was no way that A could be Alison. Alison's body was found just a few days ago, Spencer just told her so.

Rylee wasn't sure which possibility scared her the most: That Alison was still alive, or that someone else knew her secret, too.

x

"Hey guys." Rylee set her purse down on the table and slid into the only empty seat, beside Emily and across from Aria. She glanced around the Apple Rose Grille. She hadn't been in here since before she'd left Rosewood, but she remembered it as one of their old favorite hangouts. It felt weird being here without Alison with them.

Thinking of Alison made Rylee's stomach pinch with nerves.

"Hey," her former friends all greeted, smiling, but Rylee noticed that Spencer was sipping nervously at her water, and Hanna kept tapping the table with her fingernails and glancing over at her phone. Everyone seemed tense.

Probably because none of them were really close anymore, Rylee figured, biting her lip and waving to a waiter so she could order a coke. Spencer had texted her that morning, inviting her to come to lunch with them so they could all catch up with her now that she was back in town. But no one really seemed in the mood for small talk.

"So," Rylee said after a long hesitation, clapping her hands together to break the silence, "what else has been going on around here?" The others all looked up at her, frowning, and she sighed. She shouldn't have asked. Alison's body being found was all anyone seemed to be talking about. "It feels weird being here without her," she confessed, her voice low.

"This is the same table where she gave us those friendship bracelets," Emily said quietly, fingering the faded purple bracelet on her wrist, with her name stitched into it.

Rylee looked down at her own bare wrist, remembering those bracelets. They'd all worn them every day that summer. She'd stopped wearing hers a few months after she'd moved to Virginia, but she was pretty sure it was still buried somewhere in her jewelry box. For some reason, she felt the strange desire to start wearing it again.

"I wish I could have been here for the funeral," Rylee went on, shaking her head and keeping her gaze focused on the table. "It still feels like she's not really gone." Instinctively, her hand moved to her purse, where her phone was nestled inside.

"Well, she is," Hanna said, a little sharply.

Rylee jumped, noticing the glare that Spencer aimed at Hanna. "I know she is, I'm just saying."

"I get it," Aria cut in, nodding sadly. "I think we're all still trying to wrap our heads around it."

A phone went off with a chime that sounded similar to Rylee's, and she jumped, her heart in her throat. The last time she'd gotten a text, aside from Spencer inviting her here, had been yesterday afternoon…from A. All of her friends from Virginia had been messaging her online, and she hadn't really connected with anyone in Rosewood yet. There was only one person who could be texting her.

Rylee was just reaching for her purse when Hanna pulled out her own phone. "Who is it?" Spencer asked, her voice tight. Rylee felt her muscles begin to relax. It hadn't even been her phone in the first place.

Hanna glanced up, her fingers frozen over the keypad. "Just my mom."
Rylee looked around the table, noticing the pale, wary expressions on the faces of her old friends. She was pretty sure they mirrored the expression on her own face. And she knew why she looked so anxious.

"What's wrong with you guys?" she asked, feeling a sudden chill that made the hairs on her arms rise. "Why do you all look so afraid?"

Spencer narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why do you?"

"Spence, I think we can figure that out," Emily said before Rylee could respond. "We need to tell her."

"Tell me what?" Rylee asked, even though she was pretty sure she already knew.

The four others all exchanged nervous looks. Finally, Aria spoke. "Have you been…getting texts? Anonymously?"

Rylee couldn't help her surprise, though she had been expecting this. "From A," she said, and her old friends all nodded. "I got one text, yesterday afternoon. After I talked to the police."

Spencer leaned forward on the table. "We've been getting them too, since the start of the school year. Right before Ali's body was found."

"What did yours say?" Hanna asked.

Rylee opened her mouth but paused, the words refusing to come out. The summer before last, she had done everything possible to make sure that her secret stayed hidden. It was bad enough that Alison knew. If anyone else found out, it wouldn't take long before the whole school knew. And then her parents.

The thought of her parents finding out about her clandestine relationship with Jason made Rylee's palms clammy, even now. She wiped her hands on her jeans. She couldn't tell them. Not now. They were barely even friends anymore. She wasn't even sure if she could still trust them.

But they were all watching her. Her skin hot, Rylee said finally, "Something that no one but Alison knew about me."

"Ali was the only one who knew my secret, too," Emily replied, and Spencer, Hanna, and Aria all nodded in agreement. "And the message I got almost seemed like it was from her."

"This is what A sent to all four of us right after Alison's funeral," Spencer went on, pulling out her phone and holding it out to show me the message from the blocked number.

"I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. –A"

Rylee wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering. "This is so creepy. But Alison can't be A, right? You can't send texts from beyond the grave."

"What matters is," Hanna said with a shaky deep breath, "someone knows all of our secrets."

Her throat suddenly bone dry, Rylee took a gulp of soda and frowned around at her old friends. "But guys, what I'm wondering is…what is A going to do with them?"