CHAPTER NINE

"What do you mean she's gone!" Peter Hastings yelled at a teary-eyed Toby.

Less than 10 minutes ago, Toby had called Emily and told her to get everyone down to Bocelli's. He was standing out front when they arrived. Spencer's gone he had choked out the minute her parents were in front of him.

"The press." Toby stammered. "We went to get the food from here." Toby gestured to the restaurant behind him. "But it wasn't quite ready, so we went to get dessert. On our way back to Bocelli's as soon as we walked out of Lucky Leon's, reporters were everywhere blocking us. We had to push and shove our way out, but we were finally able to get back inside the car. I drove us around the block and waited a little while before driving behind Bocelli's." Toby stopped and shook his head. "I swear I was only gone five minutes."

"You left her alone!" Peter bellowed.

"The reporters would have seen her if she went inside, Peter." Veronica defended but Toby shook his head.

"No this is all my fault. I shouldn't have left her."

"Toby, you couldn't have known." Emily also defended but Toby was still shaking his head.

"What happened next?" Veronica said.

"Like I said, I wasn't even gone five minutes. So as soon as I saw my window smashed and she was missing, I ran out of the alley looking to see if I could catch up to who took her. When I didn't see anything, I was about to call the police but then I got her text."

"She texted you?" Caleb said excitedly.

"Not her." Toby held up his phone. The message on it said.

Call the police and she's dead.

The tears started to spill after reading that. Some of them didn't want to believe that she was really kidnapped. Hannah was hoping Spencer just ran when she saw more reporters coming and one of them accidentally broke Toby's truck window.

The sound of another text alert drew everyone's attention. For once it wasn't the simultaneous beep of Aria, Hannah, and Emily's phones causing panic. The alert came from Peter Hastings' phone. The color immediately drained from the lawyer's face upon reading it. The message said.

Your daughter is beautiful. I don't know if I'll be able to control myself much longer. 10 PM tomorrow you will transfer 3 million dollars to an account. If it's done right, I'll then tell you where to pick up your daughter. If not, I'll tell you where to pick up her body.

They all returned to the Hastings house after that. Peter and Veronica were in their offices on their computers putting the money together while the rest of adults discussed who could have taken Spencer and what they could do about it.

"It's gotta be the cop on the inside." Byron stated.

"Or it could have been Ian." Ella contributed

"Either way we've got to figure out where she is." Byron said. He then lowered his voice. "I don't believe for a second, they'll give her back alive once they get the money."

"How are we going to find her without the cops?" Pam wondered out loud.

"Pam, do you think Wayne can help with this too?" Ashley asked.

"I'll call him."

Hannah grabbed Caleb's hand and then Aria's and started backing out of the room. She heard enough. She then shot Emily and Toby a look that they saw and so followed her out too.

"What's up, Hannah?" Aria asked.

"We can't wait for Mr. Fields. We've got to figure this out and help Spencer now."

"Okay but how?" Aria wanted to know.

"We ask A." Hannah stated confidently

"What!" Everyone else shouted at the same time.

"Come on you guys, A see's all. A's our best bet." Hanna explained.

"We haven't heard from A in weeks. Do we really want to wake that sleeping dragon?" Aria asked

"A helped us. They may still be able to and they may want to if they knew about Spencer." Hanna defended.

"We still don't know who A is." Toby complained. "How the hell are we going to contact them and ask for help." He finished in frustration, still a wreck over losing Spencer.

"Simple." Hannah replied calmly. "We make sure A knows we need help."

"How Hannah?" Emily asked

"We let A listen."

"Your phones!" Caleb caught on. "Hannah you're a genius."

"With Spencer gone, we're down one and someone had to step up." Hanna smirked. "I say we go back to Bocelli's with our A tapped phones and reenact our conversation from earlier."

"And we can also ask around." Emily added. "Who knows maybe someone saw something or heard something."

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Five weeks earlier

A had been quiet because there was a new mission. Tormenting the girls was no longer it. Instead A wanted to bring down that disgusting N.A.T. club. Finding out what they did, made A feel a little sick that the spying as A wasn't much different. What NAT was doing was truly reprehensible, no good could come of it. Good could come from what A was doing now.

Finding the last account holder was the new priority. It was a cop and their first or last name started with D. Listening to the recording of Ian and Garret over and over had given that clue. It took a while, but A was able to narrow it down to two possibles. Darren Wilden and Jeff Duncan. Both were friends with Eric Kahn. Wilden was undeniably corrupt. He had a creepy thing going with Ashely Marin and he was constantly harassing Hannah. But Duncan was a whiz hacker so making and maintaining a site on the dark web would have been no problem. It was inexplicable why he became a cop. He could have had a lucrative career in something like I.T.

Two weeks earlier

A was pouring over past footage from the police station when Darren Wilden revealed himself. The cameras inside the evidence room had been disabled for months but the one right outside was working fine. A slowed down and zoomed in to Wilden's hand when he exited the evidence room the day after what happened at Jason DiLaurentis' house. With the new perspective A was able to see the red flash drive Emily had taken from Jason that Wilden slipped into his pocket.

1 week ago

A parked outside Wilden's apartment waiting for him to fall asleep. A waited until just before 3 AM to make a move. In less than five minutes, A had snuck into the cop's apartment and swiped his cellphone. It took another ten minutes to upload the software that would not only track the phone but allow A to hear and record all conversations. After silently returning the phone to his nightstand, A made it home in time to get a good six hours of sleep.

Present

While Hannah's plan was great, the problem was that A had stopped listening to the girls' conversations. When A had been following Wilden's movements and saw the red dot of his phone tracker sitting outside of Bocelli's, A was very confused to see Spencer's phone not only join the exact same location but then both dots traveled together to a new location miles outside of Rosewood. When A saw the dots stopped there, the curiosity caused A to get hooded up and follow. A was still a long way from the location when the dots separated. Wilden's headed back to Rosewood while Spencer's went further away.

A decided to follow Spencer's dot.