Chapter 9.
Rosewood city limits.
Emily pulled into the city and immediately pulled over to the curb, "Okay, where to? Do you want to go home or to the police station?"
Alison just smiled and shook her head, "I don't want to go anywhere. I want to talk to you. I can't believe you spent the whole trip silent. That's not really very mature you know."
"I asked you a question." Emily said, trying to ignore Alison's adorable smile, "Either answer or me or I'll drop you off here and you can walk the rest of the way."
"Would you stop the bitch act, because that's not you. I said I was sorry. I know it's not enough, but I can't make it up to you if you keep acting this way."
"I don't want you to. You can do whatever you want now. You can go pretend you're dead again if that's what turns you on, but I don't care. Now, where do you want to go?"
"Fine, I'll go home for now." Alison answered, knowing it was the only way to keep things moving, "I need to talk to Mona and Lucas first, because we need to get our stories straight before I go to the police."
"Why would you trust them? I don't get it. Mona never liked you and Lucas hated for you what you did to him every day, so how did they become your friends of all a sudden?"
"Friends?" Alison laughed, "No, they both wanted me dead, so I convinced them that this was a good way to revenge, you know, without actually killing me for real. They got rid of me and I got to disappear. I just never thought it through very well."
"That's pretty clear." Emily said, almost smiling at Alison's predicament, "Anyway, I'm seeing someone now, so please just leave me alone and we won't have any problems."
"I can't do that. I don't give up Emily, you know that." Alison said, doing her best to make eye contact with Emily, "I've owned my mistakes and I'll pay for them for the rest of my life, but I will make you change your mind about me. You know I'm not all bad. You saw the good in me so I'm asking you to see it again."
"Stop doing that." Emily snapped as she caught Alison smiling at her seductively, "You can't seduce your way of this. I'm not the same Emily who used to fawn all over you. That is the past. I see you for who you are and I don't like person one bit."
Alison smiled and nodded, "Okay, that's something, so I will take it and prove to you that we are meant to be together."
"I didn't say we would ever get together, so you can stop thinking that right now."
"Oh Emily, you can't control what I think, nobody can." Alison said with a calm, confident smile, "You don't have to believe it, but I know it. I just have to become the person I was when we were together, because I know you loved her."
"Stop it." Emily yelled, refusing to look at Alison, "I don't want to talk about this. Where to?"
"You sure have a lot of anger in you. I told you I'd go home, so I'm ready if you are."
Emily didn't say a word, she just slammed her foot on the gas and tore off down the street, looking straight ahead and ignoring Alison for as long as she could.
Rosewood High School.
Lucas walked into Mr. Fitz's room, closed the door and stood in front of his step brother, "What did you find out from Mona?"
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." Ezra said, turning in his chair to face Lucas, "Suffice it say, I have enough information about Alison to make sure she keeps quiet."
"That's good." Lucas said with a relieved nod, "Is there any way you can get Aria back? I hate her being with Hannah. I really hate it."
"What? What do you mean with Hannah?"
"I mean they are like a couple. They have sex and are in love."
Ezra laughed, "That's ridiculous. Aria is not into girls. She was all over me and if things hadn't gotten messed up she would've been in my bed by now."
"You're wrong, because I just saw them together in Aria's bed having sex." Lucas stated boldly, "Through it all they must've said I love you a hundred times, so whatever you think you had with her, it didn't seem to have the same affect on her."
"You watch your mouth Lucas, we may be related but that doesn't mean I have to listen to your insults."Ezra stepped away from Lucas just before he let his temper get the better of him, his scowl turning into a smile in a matter of seconds, "This might actually work for us. If you were close enough to watch them have sex I'm guessing you have some pictures to prove it?"
"Of course I do." Lucas said with a proud smile. He handed Ezra is phone with the first picture of Hannah and Aria kissing staring him right in the face.
"That is perfect." Ezra said, grabbing the cell phone from Lucas, "Well, I'll be damned. I just never got that vibe from her. Oh well, it's probably just a phase, but I kind of overstepped my bounds with the girls and I need something to keep them in line and this should do quite nicely."
"That's not enough. I want them broken up." Lucas yelled, exhibiting the same temper that Ezra was famous for, "I've spent a lot of time trying to get close to Hannah and I'm not going to lose her to some girl. It was bad enough she was with Sean, but he's so dumb he put himself out of the picture, but I was supposed to be in bed with her not Aria. You need to get her out of the way, work that so called charm of yours on her again."
"It's too late for that." Ezra said with a sigh, "I raised my voice with them because of this Alison mess and I saw the way Aria looked at me, it wasn't good. Just let it run its course, they aren't going to be together for long. Just keep hanging around Hannah and eventually she'll let you in."
"That's easy for you to say." Lucas groaned, "Are you sure we can't get into trouble for helping Alison fake her death? Isn't that a crime?"
"Probably, but that's not what happened. Alison needed to get away and the police assumed she was dead. They assumed that body was Alison's and that's their mistake. All she did was leave without telling anyone."
Lucas gave Ezra a perplexed look, "What are you talking about? We helped make it look like that body was Alison's. We put the bracelet on the corpse. You paid off the medical examiner to lie about the dental records."
"Well, nobody can prove we put the bracelet on the corpse." Ezra said calmly, "The medical examiner no longer works here. He's retired and living the good life in Barbados, the last thing he wants is to go down with us and he would for doing all this stuff, so don't worry about that. This will all blow over in a few weeks. Trust me."
"I don't have much choice." Lucas growled as he walked towards the door, "Oh, Jenna was looking for you. How do you know her?"
"I know a lot of pretty girls. She's just another student in the school, so again, I wouldn't worry about it. She doesn't know we're related, but she shouldn't be asking anyone where I am, so I'm going to have to talk to her about that."
"How well do you know her? She's not exactly stable you know."
"Who is these days?" Ezra said with a laugh. He put his arm around Lucas's neck and led him towards the door, "Just go home and call Hannah, make sure you don't let her forget you. Do not let her see you upset or you'll never have a chance with her. That goes for Aria to, be nice to her. Don't give Hannah any reason to turn on you."
"I'll try, but it's not going to be fun." Lucas said, but Ezra had closed the door on him before he'd finished talking, leaving him frustrated and alone yet again.
Aria's home.
Aria walked into the living room to see her mom and dad standing waiting for her. She took a deep breath and walked up to them, "I can explain."
"Really? You can explain why naked pictures of you and Alison are being sent to us? She's dead. There's a murder investigation going on and we got this note with the pictures." Her mother handed Aria a piece of a paper.
Almost afraid to open it, Aria finally lowered her head and began to read, "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but you're daughter is a murderer. She killed Alison because she rejected her. Here's some proof that they were in fact together. I'm sorry for the explicit nature of the pictures, but you need to know what kind of slut your daughter is, but what's worse, is she's a murdering slut. Your truly, A."
"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" Mr. Montgomery asked loudly.
"You can't possibly believe I killed Alison? Just for the record, I didn't and never would, but she's not dead. Soon everyone will know that."
"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Montgomery asked.
"It's a long story, but I have it on good authority that Alison is alive. That's all I know. I still wouldn't kill anyone."
"Then I guess you can explain these pictures and my goodness Aria, there are a lot of them." Mrs. Montgomery said, dumping an envelope worth of pictures onto the coffee table.
Aria's eyes grew wide as she knelt down and flipped through the countless pictures of her and Alison, Hannah, Emily having all kinds of sex. She turned all of the pictures upside down and slowly got to her feet, "Okay, I know this doesn't look good, but we were just fooling around. We're young and curious and even if you don't understand, there's nothing wrong with having sex. Young people do it all the time. We're all the same age, we did it willingly and it's not a crime."
"I thought you told us you were in love with Hannah?" Her mother asked, but kept right on talking, "How is that possible if you are out there doing those things with your other friends? I don't know if I like the idea of you being friends with girls who do that for fun. That's now what sex is supposed to be about."
"Mom, I know this looks horrible and I wish you had never seen those pictures. It's so embarrassing. I'm not proud of what I did, but I'm also not ashamed of it. That part of my life is over and I do love Hannah now and she's the only one I want to be with, so the past doesn't matter now. Whoever sent this is going to pay."
"Now you're sounding like a killer." Her dad said
"I didn't say pay with their lives, god, stop being so silly." Aria said, trying not to laugh at her dad, "But they need to pay somehow, because this was just wrong. Since you know about this person claiming to be A, which is of course short for Alison, you should know that this person has been tormenting us for a year now. Maybe that's what you should be worried about."
Aria's mother continued to shake her head in disbelief, "Just what kind of girls are you hanging out with? I thought your friends were good girls. I'm stunned by these pictures. I don't want you spending time with them anymore. That means Hannah to."
"Mom!" Aria yelled, "I can't believe you're saying that. I would expect this from dad, but not you. My friends are good people. Sure we let Alison talk us into some things, but it's not the end of world. I thought you were the understanding one. What happened?"
"Don't you point your finger me young lady." Mrs. Montgomery said, still fuming at everything she was hearing, "I did not raise you to take part in some kind of sick sex party. You were never like this until you started hanging out with those girls."
"You're overreacting. I told you that part of my life is over. Let it go. God." Aria said, still not understanding her mother's anger, "I'm the one embarrassed here. Do you think I like knowing the world is going to see me like that? That my parents have seen me like that? I just want to hide forever."
"That's good, because you're grounded forever." Mrs. Montgomery said. She then pointed upstairs, "Now go to your room."
"Mom. I'm not a kid anymore."
"To your room now!" Her mom yelled even louder.
Knowing that she was on thin ice, Aria chose not to make things worse and unwillingly marched upstairs and slammed the door to her bedroom and fell onto her bed, wishing she could undo what had just taken place.
Rosewood Police Station.
Alison waltzed into the police station with two of her lawyers following closely behind her. She walked up to the main desk, happily smiled at the receptionist, "Hi, I'm Alison DeLaurentis and I believe there's been a misunderstanding about my death. As you can see I'm not dead and I just wanted to clear that up for everyone."
The woman looked at Alison closer, then turned to her left to see the poster of Alison on the far wall and then got to her feet in a flash, "Are you okay? What happened to you?"
"That's what I'd like to explain. If I could talk to someone in charge we could straighten this out."
"Stay there. I'll get the detective in charge." The woman rushed into the back of the station, down the hall and knocked on the door of Detective Stan Bertram. After being told to come in, the woman walked up to his desk, "A young woman claiming to be Alison DiLaurentis is at the main desk. I think it's her and she's alive."
Detective Bertram lifted his head from the file on his desk, "Is this a joke?"
"No sir. She's out there now. She says she wants to clear things up."
He got to his feet and marched past the receptionist and walked out into the main office and shook his head when he laid eyes on Alison. He walked around in front of the main desk, "You have a lot of explaining to you Miss DiLaurentis."
"Yes, well, I'm as surprised as anyone that people thought I was dead. I needed to get away and I admit I didn't tell anyone about it, but that's because I wanted to be alone, but I still don't see how that made people think I was dead."
"We had a body of young girl fitting your description turn up with some of your possessions on her and who's dental records matched yours completely. How do you suppose that happened?"
Alison shook her head in mock surprise, "I'm not a police officer, so I wouldn't know how you could make such a horrible mistake, but that has nothing to do with me needing time to myself."
"Dental records don't lie, unless someone was paid to lie about them. So what do you know about that Miss DiLaurentis?"
"Again, I know nothing of this. I've been away and I've had no cell phone, no email, no contact with anyone from Rosewood for almost a year. It was a very helpful time, but I was ready to come home and the minute I got here I heard from everyone around that the police thought I was murdered. I'm astounded at this and just wanted to show you that I'm very much alive, so I hope you find out who that other victim was, because that's the real crime I guess."
"Something doesn't fit Alison. Why did you have to get away for so long?"
"That's a private matter. It's just family issues, friend issues and school issues. I didn't like the person I'd become and I needed to find myself again, so that's why I had to eliminate all contact from my old life in Rosewood. Anyway, I'm really sorry that you jumped to such a conclusion. I do hope that now that I'm back you can get to work that poor girl who you thought was me."
"Well, for now we will be looking into that, but the investigation into what happened with you is not over. If we find out you had anything to do with faking your own death you will be prosecuted. You have a nice day now."
"I always do." Alison said with a big smile. She turned and walked out the station and waited until they were far enough away from anyone before she stopped in her tracks, looking up at her high priced attorney's, "Do I have anything to worry about here?"
"It really depends on the people who knew what your original plan was. If they tell the police what they did, then you are in some serious trouble. While we can't advise you to do anything illegal, it might be wise to look into this and find a solution to the problem before this gets out of hand."
"I'll make sure nothing ever gets out, but I need you to have our PI dig up some dirt on that detective and anyone else connected to this case and make sure we still have some judges on the payroll, because I'm not going to prison for this. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Miss DiLaurentis. We'll get right on it."
"I knew you would." Alison said with a confident smile. She waved to the two lawyers and then slid into the back of her limo.
As it pulled away, Alison reached into her purse and punched in Ezra's number and crossed her legs and lay down on the soft back seat of the limo.
"Hello?"
"Hi there teach. Screw anymore kids lately?"
Ezra sat up in his chair and smiled, "Alison, I was wondering when we'd get a chance to talk again. I'm guessing your back in Rosewood again, how very unexpected."
"I'm sure it is, but here I am and now it's time for us to have a nice little chat about your new job."
"I don't need a new job, I like this one just fine."
"Well, you can either go willingly or go to jail, your choice."
"So we're at the threat part already?" Ezra asked with a smile, "I thought we could work something out, but if you want to play hardball, I'm all for that. Thankfully, I know some things about you as well, things that even your four little friends don't know, so if you want to play that care you better be ready for some major repercussions."
Alison sat up in the limo, taking a few seconds to process Ezra's threats, searching her mind for what he might have on her, but when she couldn't think of anything, she did what she always did, went back on the attack, "You always were way too over confident. I never really cared for that attitude, it's no wonder I said no to you."
"Yes, you did say no and I haven't forgotten that either, but I was willing to call a truce, but if you want to turn this into a war I can do that to."
"You don't have anything on me." Alison said confidently, "You tried to have me killed, that is a crime. It doesn't matter that they failed, it's the same as if they had succeeded, so I think attempted murder trumps anything you think you have on me."
"Perhaps, but did you know your brother was gambling with your half of the inheritance and lost? He owes me close to 5 million dollars and if he doesn't pay up not only is he going to lose everything he owns, you're going to lose everything you've come to love about living the life of luxury."
"You can't hold him responsible for some private gambling debt. It's not legally binding, even I know that."
"Oh but that's where you are mistaken. He didn't gamble with me personally, but he did gamble with my casino. Well, not mine personally, a very good friend of mine's, so there is a record of it and he is on the hook for it all."
"Fine, but I don't care about my brother. Not like we ever talk or he's ever done anything for me. My half of the inheritance can't be touched to pay for his debt."
"This is where you again haven't thought things out very carefully, because who knows more about you than anyone? Yep, your brother. Now he's been very accommodating with me about giving information in exchange for lowering his debt. One of the most intriguing pieces of information he gave me was a juicy little tidbit about you and Spencer."
Alison fumed under her breath and squeezed the cell phone so hard it actually cracked. She stomped her feet on the floor and wanted to scream, but quickly pulled herself together again, "I'm not sure what he could know about Spencer. He was rarely around."
"You weren't very subtle about your little sex games were you?" Ezra said, relishing this moment more than was humanly possible, "No, you weren't and even though I'm sure it was upsetting to see his annoying little sister in such compromising positions, he's still a guy at heart and he couldn't help but video tape it all. I heard that you loved Emily? Is that true? You had sex with Spencer? Is that true? Maybe you don't mind this information coming out, but there's so much more and with video proof it's going to be hard to deny it all."
"You think you've won don't you?" Alison asked, gritting her teeth and squeezing her cell phone tightly, "You think I'll just bury my head and run away crying? You don't know me very well. All you've done is piss me off and if you knew anything about me, you'd know that the people that piss me off always regret it forever."
"Nobody has to win or lose Alison, we just need to call it a draw. We both have secrets and even if yours are common knowledge, I just don't think you want the whole world seeing all your friends online in all their naked glory. Sure it's illegal, but do you think that'll stop people from watching? It will follow you forever and your friends will blame you for letting it all out, so you think about that before you come after me."
"I want the copies of those videos. I'll keep quiet about you and your teenager girl fixation, but only if I have the videos. You are not going to hold them over my head forever."
"Once you have the copies there's no reason for you to hold up your end of the bargain. I promise I won't watch them too much. You were really one dominant little force weren't you? I thought I had moves, but you are a master manipulator and I respect that."
"Oh shut up you sicko." Alison said, hating that she was on the defensive, "For now your secret is safe, but I'm telling you right now that keeping those videos is a sign of war to me and I always win. You think about that and ask yourself if a trip to prison for molesting young girls is worth the tiny bit of power you have now."
Ezra didn't get a chance to respond as Alison had ended the call. He got up from his chair, pondering Alison's last threat and couldn't get it out of his head.
End of Chapter 9.
