Previously: A was reflecting on what Mona-as-A had done, and how she would set her up as the killer. She wanted the girls to start searching for the truth, but was going to divert them so they didn't find the truth too easily.

A/N: Some of the stuff I mention in the coming chapters will be stuff you may have already read, but please bear with me-it's necessary so I can build up to my version of events.

Chapter 11

Emily POV

Start searching for the killer. Well, I'd combed through all my old photos to try and find out what had happened. So far, there were no clues. Maybe the old notes I'd passed to Ali, or the notes she'd passed to me in class, would tell me something.

The notes filled me with nostalgia. Reading them again was typically something I only did on a rainy day, because they brought back so many memories. Memories of Ali, alive and beautiful. It was still hard to accept that she was dead. Even so, it had only been a couple of months since I couldn't get over things that quickly, and I doubted the others could too.

Regardless, I had to do what A said to do. I didn't want to anger her and run the risk of her outing me to the entire school. No doubt she knew I was on the swim team-she would easily be able to find out when and where the meets were being held if she was so inclined.

With no clues in front of me, I decided to go through all the photos again, looking closer to see if there was something I'd missed. After another hour, there was nothing. I was none the wiser.

Going to put them away, a slip of paper-stiff and glossy, like a photo-fell from the shelf in my wardrobe. If I didn't know better, I'd think it had been rigged to fall just as I was putting things away.

I picked it up, noting the frayed edges and faded colours-as if the photo had been bleached, then sat under the sun for a long time. The date was near illegible, and I could only just make it out. The night of the sleepover at the end of seventh grade. That still didn't tell me anything. Unless, of course, I was supposed to take it as confirmation of when Ali had gone missing.

I threw the photo on my desk and sighed. My photos had revealed nothing-A must have just told me to look at them as a distraction. Probably she knew they would reveal nothing, leaving me frustrated and upset.

If that was the case, it had worked.

APOV

While Emily was looking through all her old photos, I went through some photos of my own. My mentor and I had collected photos from sixth and seventh grades. It hadn't been hard. The photos had just been lying in boxes, fading more and reflecting not much more than memories, outside the DiLaurentis' old home. Once we were in Rosewood and saw the boxes, we took the opportunity.

Now, I sifted through, looking for the ones that I could take to Emily. They would provide a further distraction.

Seven photos really stood out as useful diversions. I selected them and wrote in plain handwriting on the back a question or note to Emily that would get her thinking about the photo. At the least, trying to think more.

Delivering them to her house would be a risky move in broad daylight, so it would have to be a night task.

My mentor appeared, pulling out a few pieces of paper.

'When I left each of their houses, this is what they were doing. I'm assuming you sent them each a message explaining what you wanted done?' she asked.

I nodded and reached my hand out for the papers. On each were scrawled brief notes. Emily: poring over old photos from sixth grade. Aria: watching old films on her laptop. Spencer: appeared to be doing some kind of homework or flow chart. Hanna: painting her nails and not really seeming to think about anything.

I flipped the papers into the fireplace and lit them, then turned back to my mentor, who was watching the paper burn approvingly.

Trust Spencer to create a flow chart. Probably some method of trying to recall the events of that night. A timeline might be better… then again, it might not. My mentor had been annoyed by the re-enactment on TV a while ago-the one that showed the media interpretation of what had happened. Like they knew anything.

Good on Emily and Aria though. Trying faithfully to work out what had happened.

I was surprised at Hanna though. After what I had done to her room-surely, she would have learned a lesson. Namely, don't ignore A. Maybe I would have to teach her another lesson. I suggested this to my mentor, who looked thoughtful.

'You're right. After you trashed her room, she was shaken for a while but then seemed to relax. Even the paper plane note didn't seem to upset her much. I don't want it getting to be that A has less power over her' my mentor decided.

'What should I do next? Something on a similar scale to what I did the other week? Or just send her a note reminding her what I could do if she doesn't comply? I know something she doesn't want the school to know' I considered, stretching the last few words into a singsong tone.

'What do you know?' my mentor asked, barely hiding her curiosity.

'When she's feeling really down on herself, she binges on junk food and then… purges herself of it. If the entire school knew that, she would lose her Queen Bee ranking pretty damned fast.'

My mentor's eyes glittered. I knew one of the things she loved about this was finding out something she previously hadn't. New information, to A-or her mentor, was like giving a toy to a child. A sparkly, shiny, new toy. I'd specifically kept this from her for a while, letting her wonder what could be Hanna's secret.

Now she knew.

'I think I could use the same tactic to motivate her as I used on Emily. Reveal her secret very publicly-such as, at one of the swim meets-or do as I say. It should work. If nothing else, it would mean that I'm not messing around.'

She smiled. This kind of strategizing was our favourite, and she enjoyed it. The best part of it all was the potential to do something-get some bold marker pens and paper, create a flyer spelling everything out and then photocopy it a thousand times. Distribute the flyers around school and watch.

The potential to do such an action was exhilarating. And of course, once the fall out had settled there was the realization that someone was in control. Typically, that someone was A. Aria had already learned that firsthand, and I thought Hanna had… but maybe Hanna was stupid enough that she hadn't actually learnt much. Too many cosmetics cluttering up her brain and makeup lessons replacing the important life lessons she needed to know.

Well, I'd just have to rectify that somehow. I only needed to work out how.

HPOV

I knew I should be trying to find out what had happened that night. A had told me to-yet I didn't know what to do. Where did I start looking? Or did I start by talking to people, like her family? When I'd spoken to Emily, she said A had told her to start going through the old photos she had. And that the photos turned up nothing.

While I tried to figure out what I should do, I painted my nails and thought it all over. So far though, I was coming up with nothing. It was making me nervous. It would be just my luck if A happened to be watching and saw me painting my nails. I could only imagine what that would tell A about how I felt towards finding out the truth.

Doesn't seem to care-not interested in trying to find out the truth.

Worse, A was probably working out some kind of 'punishment', or that I needed to be taught a lesson. I'd already been punished enough, although I never did figure out A's motives for trashing my room and things. I mean, obviously she had wanted to punish me for something I had or hadn't done-I just hadn't worked out what it was she was punishing me for. It had been a pain too, replacing all the clothes, books and makeup that had been damaged. So really, I couldn't afford to just sit here and paint my nails. I needed to show A that I was actually doing something.

A had told me to try to recall if anything weird had happened when I was at Ali's house. The one thing that stood out in my memory was when Ali's mom had wanted to yell at her for something-she came downstairs later, wearing a different t-shirt and looking confused. Evidently, she had no idea what it was she'd been yelled at about.

I hastily scribbled that down and then decided to try to work out what it had meant.

Maybe that Ali had just felt like getting changed. Or that she got something on her top and had to put it in the wash.

It was possible that she'd been pretending not to remember, so she didn't have to tell us. Honesty was weird with us-we were all honest when telling Alison about our secrets, but lied to the others. Only Ali had had any clue about how I used to purge myself of food.

Really, I was surprised A hadn't made any mention of it to me. Unless it was some kind of power thing-I wasn't supposed to know that she knew, until she decided to tell me that she knew.

There weren't many other things that stood out in my memory. Before we were friends, there was the time when I went to steal her flag for the Time Capsule game. I'd not been the only one there-Spencer, Aria and Emily had all arrived there at the same time. The weird thing about this was, Ali came out and greeted us. She made small talk briefly with us, before going back inside.

I didn't know exactly how she treated the others, but she taunted me about my weight. I was sure that she and her posse had made fun of Emily for having green-ish hair from swimming, and that they would have taunted Aria for being outright weird. Spencer, she probably had the most respect for.

So, what had changed her mind? Why had she spoken to us that day? Then, later, she chose us to be her new best friends. We did almost everything together. We ruled the school, until she went missing. That was something else that was a puzzle-why she had chosen us to be her best friends. Rumours swirled that she, Naomi and Riley had had a huge fight, but she never said what it was about. Was it because she didn't know what the fight was about, or she just really didn't want to tell us? Maybe she hadn't wanted to tell us because it was something really bad, and she didn't want it getting all around the school.

Something about all this made me think I should talk to the others, to see what A had told them to do, to see if maybe we could somehow piece everything together.

SPOV

A had told me that I should try and work out what it meant when Ali was distracted or spacey. Really, I didn't want to try and figure any of it out. Ali was complicated-she could've been thinking about anything.

Regardless, I had to. The airplane note she'd sent the other day in the library had held a message for Hanna, warning her of something. I didn't know everything, but I'd guess that A had done something to punish Hanna. I really didn't want to be the next on A's list, just because I hadn't looked hard enough.

So, to start at the beginning. When we'd all shown up in the backyard to steal her flag, she'd appeared to not recognize us-even though we all went to school together.

I hadn't expected her to know all of us-the only reason she knew me was because we lived next door. But maybe that unfamiliarity had a deeper meaning.

Maybe, for some reason, she legitimately hadn't known who we were.

Amnesia was a small possibility, but unlikely. She had managed to remember my seventh-grade secret, and probably the other three had secrets.

Unless, of course, she just had them written down and occasionally reviewed them as a reminder of who did what.

During seventh grade, she seemed to space out more often. Not long before she went missing, she often went out of town. She said it was to visit relatives or spend time with her parents.

It seemed that at that particular time, she was spending a lot of time visiting family. That was strange, because in sixth grade, she hadn't been spending that much time with her family. Her brother was often away though-that could have had something to do with her absences.

As for who had possibly killed her, that was almost impossible to discern. It couldn't have been any of our classmates, because probably none of us was strong enough-physically or mentally-to do it. Besides, if anyone had done it and then confessed, they probably would have been sent away and suspected of making it up for attention.

Some people disliked Ali, but probably not enough to kill her. I was certain that for the people who didn't like her, expressing that ran to saying that she was a bitch, or wishing she would somehow stop being so damned perfect.

Many people were jealous of her. I was jealous. So were most of our sixth and seventh grade classes, along with the older classes and possibly half the rest of the people in Rosewood.

There was a possibility that Ian might have some knowledge of what had happened that night. He had apparently, been secretly dating Alison up until when she disappeared. I would have to talk to him sometime and see if he could tell me something I didn't know.

Everyone adored her too. She was smart, pretty, and fun to be around.

So trying to figure her out three years on, or who killed her, was proving to be somewhat impossible.

Mentor POV

I was focused on my planning. I knew Spencer was doing something to figure out what had happened, as were Emily and Hanna. I'd checked in on Hanna not long ago, and from what I could see, she was scribbling on a scrap of paper about Ali.

Aria was not doing much, but for now, A and I had to leave her alone. Other things demanded our attention.

Ian Thomas, for instance. He'd dated Melissa in high school. We weren't sure what Melissa knew, but we knew Ian was beginning to suspect something. If Melissa had confirmed it, he knew too much.

I'd sent a to check on Ian and then Melissa. When she arrived at Ian's house, she texted me to say they were there together.

That was good-it made her job easier. She now just had to listen to see what Ian knew, report back to me and then we would decide on our course of action.

While I waited, I wrote out a few basic next steps for myself. A would be going by these guidelines too-we had to be sure we were on the same page at all times.

Soon enough, A returned. She settled in and took out the iPod she used for recording such things.

'They both know too much. Melissa confirmed today what Ian had suspected all along.' A said, summarizing what she would have recorded just now.

I raised my eyebrows in thought. Interesting. Ian was now a threat to myself and A, since he knew what we knew.

'We can't allow him to stay. He knows too much and poses too big a risk. If he tells, some people will discount it as lies, but others will believe him. Melissa could back him up,' I mused.

I gave it a few more minutes of thought. A watched me patiently, waiting for my decision.

I made the decision that Ian had to go. Melissa would take it as a warning, while if she went; Ian could well take it as the initiative to tell everyone in Rosewood what happened.

A seemed to be losing patience.

'We'll have to work together on this one' I decided finally.

This would be more difficult than all of our other tasks, but it would work. It would be worth it too, to keep the secret until we were ready.

A/N: I'd really like more reviews. Towards the end of December 2010, this story had about 560 hits, and only a couple of reviews. I'm grateful for the reviews I have received, as I like to know people are reading my story. I'm not going to hold the next chapter hostage until I get X number of reviews, but this storyline is going to get more complex, and I'd like feedback.

If you want to see someone killed off, or you notice a plot hole, or require clarification, or have an idea for the next chapters-or anything, really, please tell me in a review. I want to know what you think should happen

I know I haven't updated much lately, but that's because I'm lacking a bit in inspiration to write something.

Also: thank you, Nicole, for the awesome review, it made me smile.

Lastly: Ian is not a suspect in this, as he is in the books. So, he is not in prison and he does know something-what? Anyway, that's why Ian is free and able to talk to Melissa, etc…

I hope to get the next chapter up soon J