~*FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER - OUTSIDE OF CHURCH*~
Hanna sat on the bench in front of the church just taking in the surroundings.
She was thinking about the day she almost turned herself into the cops after erasing the security footage.
~*SOME TIME AGO - POLICE STATION WAITING ROOM*~
Hanna couldn't believe the good news. Well, bad news for them, but not for her.
The Radley back-up drive was missing! Which meant she wouldn't get in trouble for erasing that footage of Aria from the computer.
"You didn't do that did you?" Jordan asked her.
"No," she replied.
She looked into the glass and saw Lorenzo looking at her. The distaste in his eyes, she could deal with, but his suit...
It reminded her of someone who was long gone from her life...
Hanna swallowed before the memory of Gabe Holbrook could take over completely.
"Let's get out of here," she quickly told Jordan.
~*PRESENT DAY-CHURCH*~
She rubbed her hands together out of nervousness.
"Hanna?" Gabe's voice asked near her.
"And here I thought you would never find me," she said out loud bitterly.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Hanna shuffled uneasily in her seat.
"I'm fine."
"I don't think you are."
"Yeah, well, first I find out you're an idiot, and then I find out you're a hypocrite. I'm not sure which one is worse."
He sat down.
"I know. And I'm sorry about that."
"You know it's funny how much of a hard time you gave me that night. All because you thought I was working with Alison and setting you up. Even though you were doing the same thing with Melissa."
Hanna turned to face him.
"Tell me. What would you have done if you were never caught? Would you have gone on pretending to like Ali?"
"I don't know."
"Well, would you have dumped her as soon as it looked like she wasn't guilty?"
"I don't know."
"Even if it meant that she had actually started to like you for real?!"
She was practically screaming now.
"I don't know!" He snapped at her. "I...I don't know what I would have done."
"Well..." she breathed in and out. "This is something that's gonna take me a very long time to forgive."
"I never asked for your forgiveness. I just wanted you, all of you, to know the truth."
"Oh, I'm glad we do. And I can't wait to tell Ali your little story."
Gabe swallowed nervously, but didn't protest.
Hanna put aside her anger.
"So what now then? How exactly does your honesty help us out with whoever's after us now?"
"I'm not sure yet."
Hanna pursed her lips, annoyed.
He put his arm around her on the bench. "You know sooner or later, I think you'll find out how much of a good team we can make, Han."
She laughed and crossed her arms. He put his arm away from her and put them in his lap.
"So what do we do about that box? What did Tanner say?" She asked him.
"I can't tell you yet."
"Right. And here I thought you were helping us," she told him disgusted.
"Hey, I've gotta keep this job, okay? If I lose it again, then I can't help you. So after this, I'm gonna go back to the station and look over Charlotte's file. Pick up on anything I may have missed."
"And what do I do? Stay here until you come back?" Hanna asked him dryly.
"No, you're gonna go back and talk to your friends. The file only helps me with records, but I need you guys to think about Charlotte. What she did to you, and who could have a vendetta against you four."
"You mean besides her?"
~*FOUR HOURS LATER-STREET IN ROSEWOOD*~
Hanna was walking down the street thinking about the events of the day. The strange box, Gabe's confession, all of it.
She came to a red light and hit the "walk button." As soon as it was okay to walk, she began crossing the intersection.
All of a sudden, she heard the roar of an engine come up near her.
A car was speeding up to her and she dodged out of the way just in time. There were only a few cars in the street, but a couple of them honked their horns at the maniac who was clearly on the streets.
Hanna put her hand on her heart as she tried to catch her breath.
"Damn. Will it ever end?" She thought as she tried to get to the other side of the street.
~*THE NEXT MORNING- SPENCER'S HOUSE*~
"Are you okay?" Spencer asked Hanna with concern.
"Oh yeah. Just great! I love getting hit by cars," she replied sarcastically.
"Okay. So we go into the basement of The Radley and find evidence that will tell us who this 'A' might be," Spencer told them.
"We already tried that remember? We lured 'A' out and I almost got killed over it," Hanna told her.
"Well, let's take it slow. We need to find out who these people are and fast. The way we can do that is by checking out the people that we know. That Alison knows."
"There's her husband, Dr. Rollins," Emily said.
"And Charlotte," Spencer said.
"Lucas knows Ali too. She wasn't very nice to him in high school," Hanna told her matter-of-factly.
"Well so far the only thing those people have in common are Alison. Charlotte's dead so we can rule her out," Emily told them.
"We can rule out Elliot too," Aria said.
The others looked at her with confusion.
"Well...I mean he seemed so concerned about Ali after she got into that hospital."
"Well either way, we have two suspects. Rollins and –"
"No." Spencer interrupted Hanna.
She opened her mouth in shock as if she were remembering something.
"The night you were kidnapped...we saw footage of Ali's mom on surveillance footage. But when we checked it again, it was gone. We thought it might have been old footage from years ago but now..."
"Spence. You're not seriously suggesting that Mrs. D came back from the dead are you?" Hanna asked her amused.
"No, of course not, but...What if it wasn't a glitch?"
"You think she faked her own death?" Emily asked her curiously.
"Maybe? It happened to Ali. Everyone thought she was dead but it was really Bethany Young all along. It's possible that it could happen. God knows this town has had its fair share of strange happenings."
"Unless it's not really her. It's her twin," Hanna told them.
"A twin? Come on, Hanna," Aria laughed at her theory.
"As far as I know, we can't bring back the dead...but twins are very possible."
"Actually she may be on to something," Spencer told her. "I found a Radley file with the name Mary Dilau- sorry, Mary Drake on it. Maybe that was her?"
Suddenly, Hanna's cell phone rang. She immediately picked it up and answered it.
"Gabe? Did you find anything?"
"Hanna, you will not believe what I've found. I can't tell you over the phone, but we need to meet somewhere."
"I'm at Spencer's."
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
~*FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER-SPENCER'S LIVING ROOM*~
"Okay, so what did you find out –"
Gabe put his hand up to silence Hanna as he walked through the door. He slowly made his way over the kitchen and took out a notepad from his jacket pocket.
He wrote something on it.
CHARLOTTE AND DR ROLLINS.
Hanna frowned.
"Okay? We know he was her..."
She wrote on his paper.
THERAPIST
"So? How does that help us? He's Ali's," she whispered, "Husband."
"Are you sure about that?" Gabe asked her in his normal speaking voice.
The other girls looked at him curiously.
"When I was going through the files, I noticed something strange about the good doctor. Over the course of two years, he clocked out an hour later than he was supposed to during every other appointment. And then it hit me. Who was the last person to see Alison before she fell off those stairs?"
"Elliot," Emily told him.
"And before she got sent to the hospital?"
"No one. We didn't get to her until later because Ali thought she was hallucinating." Aria told him.
"And where was Rollins?"
"Ali said he was...Out of town," Aria said slowly.
"Wait, so you think Rollins killed Charlotte?" Hanna asked him skeptically.
"Oh no! No, I actually think he had a bit of a thing for her."
"What?!" The girls all cried at once.
"That's completely...that's too much even for us," Spencer told him.
"Doesn't mean it's impossible. The person who wants revenge for her death might be closer than you guys think–"
RING! RING! RING!
"Oh!" Gabe whipped around. "That's my phone. It's probably Tanner telling me to come back to the station," he laughed as he finished the sentence.
But as soon as he took one look at the phone in his hands, his expression began to turn serious.
"Um...on second thought, I should probably take this outside. Do you guys mind if I...?"
They nodded their heads in understanding. As soon as he was out of the room, Aria began to whisper.
"Rollins? Do we really believe that?"
"But what about Mrs. D?" Hanna questioned Spencer carefully.
"Well first we need to confirm that she actually had a twin and –."
Spencer never had a chance to finish her reply because Gabe walked back into the room.
"I'm sorry to cut this short, but I gotta go. I'll see you guys tomorrow," and with that he turned around and walked right over to the door.
Hanna ran after him before he could open it.
"Gabe! What is it?" She asked him concerned.
He gestured for her to follow him outside.
Once they were out of ear-shot, he began to speak.
"Tanner needs to speak to me about something important. She said it had something to do with all the murders in town. She doesn't usually talk about this kind of thing over the phone."
He gave her a quick smile, turned around, and began to walk away.
As she watched him walk away, an uneasy feeling began to creep over Hanna.
~*TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER-ROSEWOOD POLICE STATION*~
"Gabriel, I want you to meet someone," Tanner ushered Gabe over to the front of the precinct. Suddenly, an older man turned around and smiled at him.
He extended his hand for him to shake.
"Hi! My name is Marco, but I go by Marc. Marc Furey."
Gabe took his hand and shook it firmly.
"So what brings you here Mr. Furey? Are you here to recruit me for a spot in 'the avengers'?" Gabe asked him jokingly.
Marc look confused, but then he understood his joke.
"Oh! Ha ha! No, I'm just here because I'm going to be looking over the homicides in this town."
Now it was Gabe's turn to look confused.
"Wait, what?" He turned to Tanner. "Linda, what is he talking about?"
"I'm sorry Gabriel, but I'm taking you off the cases here. I'm sending you back to Pittsburgh."
Gabe looked shocked. Not out of anger, but out of desperation. He walked over to a corner, and she followed him while Marc stayed behind.
"I don't understand. You need me on this case. I was there when we first arrested Charlotte for Wilden, I can go through the files and –"
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you on this case anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because you're too emotionally invested. I saw you going through Charlotte's file - the one that was in my office. You had that desperate look on your face like you were protecting someone, and I don't need that right now. I need someone unattached who can sort through all of these murders," she told him quietly.
"But Hanna..." he started sadly. "What if Furey never solves this case?" He asked her urgently.
Tanner noticed how distraught he looked and put her hand on his shoulder.
"He will. Sometimes we do our job pretty well," she told him gently. And with that, she began to walk away from him.
"Wait!" Gabe called out.
"Yes, what is it?"
He walked over to her.
"I want to stay in Rosewood. Even if I'm not allowed to look into this anymore, I'd still like to help."
Tanner thought about it for a moment.
"You're part of the state police, Gabriel. Your job is over in Pittsburgh, not here. But if you want to continue living here, who am I to stop you? Just know that you'll have to drive out to Pittsburgh when I tell you –"
"I don't care. I'm staying here."
Tanner could tell that he was determined to stay and smiled.
"Very well. Is there anything else you wish to tell me?"
Gabe remembered Charlotte and Dr. Rollins.
"Actually yeah. When I was looking through the files, I noticed something strange about Rollins and Charlotte. I think he wants revenge for her murder, and is the one who kidnapped Hanna that night."
"Really? Hmm...Alright, I'll tell Marco about it."
Gabe nodded and smiled gratefully.
"Thank you."
~*ONE HOUR LATER-SPENCER'S HOUSE*~
Emily had just left to go visit Ali at the hospital while Spencer, Aria, and Hanna stayed behind to try and figure out whatever the hell was going on in Rosewood.
"Okay guys, we don't even know if it was actually Mary or not. But we know next to nothing about this Rollins guy. I mean how long were he and Ali dating for?" Spencer asked the two of them.
"Two days," Hanna said sarcastically.
"Either way, we need to be careful around him."
"But guys, we still don't even know if he's bad or not. So far he's kept his hands clean," Aria told them nervously.
Knock knock!
The girls turned around and saw Emily through the door.
Spencer rushed over and opened it for her. Emily started breathed heavily as if she had just run a marathon.
"Guys...Guys...Ali is..." She tried to catch her breath. "Ali had some violent episodes in the hospital today."
"What do you mean by 'episodes'"? Aria asked her.
"I mean...When I went to go see her today, she was thrashing about. I saw her, and I couldn't believe it. And then I saw Elliot, he and a bunch of other nurses were trying to hold her down. And then they stabbed her with a needle and she was fine. She never even knew I was there."
"Do you know how long this has been going on?"
"I don't know. The nurse wouldn't tell me. But if Rollins is after us, then maybe he's after Ali too."
The girls looked at each other nervously.
"Ali's not safe anymore is she?" Aria asked them cautiously.
~*THE NEXT MORNING- THE MARIN HOUSEHOLD*~
Hanna saw him through the door. She got up and went to go open it for him.
"Hey!" She said smiling as she hugged him. But something was off about their hug. She let go.
"Gabe...What is it? What happened with Tanner?"
"I...well, it's not as bad it sounds but...I got pulled off the cases here in Rosewood."
"What?!"
"Yeah. They gave them all to this new guy named Marco Furey."
"So what does that mean? I mean...Are you leaving?"
"No! No. I mean, Tanner's moving my cases to Pittsburgh."
Hanna looked down sadly.
"But it's okay!" He assured her. "I can stay here and still help you out. I'll just have to drive down to Pittsburgh every weekend, but it's okay I can still help you guys with –"
"No."
"No?"
"I can't ask you to stay here and go there...It's too much."
"But it's no problem really."
His answer surprised her.
"It isn't? Why?"
"Well...I care about you, Han. I mean we are friends aren't we? Why wouldn't I want to stay here and help you?" He said kindly.
Hanna almost got the wind knocked out of her after he said that. She knew he was a good person, but to hear him actually admit that he would do something like that for her?
She swallowed nervously and sat down at the table. Gabe sat down after her.
Hanna folded her hands on the table before speaking.
"You have got to be the world's biggest idiot to actually believe Melissa and follow through on her plan," she began sternly, but then her expression softened. She unfolded her hands and grabbed one of his from across the table.
"But since you're staying here in Rosewood to help me out, I figured I might as well come clean and tell you everything."
He looked at her, puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
She was still holding onto his hand.
"I mean everything that Charlotte did to us. Including all of the other stuff that didn't make the papers..."
