Early Tuesday morning, Spencer followed her sister up the steps of the Rosewood courthouse, the wind whipping at her back. Her family and relatives were meeting Ernest Calloway, the Hastings family lawyer, for the reading of Nana's will.
Melissa held the front door for her. The courthouse hallway was drafty and dim, lit only by a few yellow hallway lights—it was way too early for anyone who worked here to have arrived yet. Spencer shivered with dread—the last time she'd been here was for Ian's arraignment. And the next time she'd be here would be at the end of this week, to testify at his trial.
Their footsteps echoed on the hard marble floors as they climbed the stairs. The conference room where Mr. Calloway had scheduled the reading was still locked tight; Spencer and Melissa were the first to arrive. Spencer slid down the hallway's wall to the Oriental rug, staring at a large oil painting of a constipated-looking William W. Rosewood, who had founded the town in the seventeenth century with a bunch of other Quakers. For more than a hundred years, the town of Rosewood had belonged to only three farming families and had had more cows than people. The King James Mall had been built on top of an enormous old dairy pasture.
Melissa slumped against the wall next to her, pressing yet another pink Kleenex to her eyes. She'd been crying on and off since Nana had died. Both the sisters listened to the wind pressing against the windows, making the whole building creak. Melissa took a sip of the cappuccino she'd grabbed from Starbucks before they arrived. She caught Spencer's eye. "Want some?"
Spencer nodded. Melissa had been especially nice lately, a bizarre shift from the sister's usual pattern of cat-fighting and one-upmanship—with Melissa generally winning. It was probably because their parents were peeved at Melissa, too. She'd lied to the police for years, saying that she and Ian, who was her boyfriend at the time, had been together the whole night Ali went missing. Truthfully, Melissa had woken up at one point and found Ian gone. She'd been too afraid to say anything because she and Ian had been smashed, and Little Miss Perfect Valedictorian didn't do such tawdry things as get drunk and share a bed with her boyfriend. Still, Melissa seemed extra charitable this morning, which was settling off little warning bells in Spencer's head.
Melissa took a long sip of her coffee and eyed Spencer carefully. "Have you heard some of the news stories? They're saying there's not enough evidence for Ian to be convicted."
Spencer tensed. "I heard a report about that this morning." But she'd also heard a rebuttal from Jackson Hughes, the Rosewood D.A., saying there was plenty of evidence, and that the people of Rosewood deserved to have this horrible crime put to rest. Spencer and her old friends had met with Mr. Hughes countless times to discuss the trial. Spencer had met with Jackson a few more sessions than the others because, according to Mr. Hughes, her testimony—that she remembered seeing Ali and Ian together the split second before Ali vanished—was the most important piece of evidence of all. He'd gone through what questions she was going to be asked, how she should and shouldn't act. To Spencer, it didn't seem that different from performing a part in a play, except instead of everyone clapping at the end, someone was going to go to prison for the rest of his life.
Melissa let out a small sniffle, and Spencer looked over. Her sister's eyes were lowered and her lips were pressed together in worry. "What?" Spencer asked suspiciously. The alarm in her head was getting louder and louder.
"You know why they're saying there's insufficient evidence, right?" Melissa asked quietly.
Spencer shook her head.
"It's because of the Golden Orchid thing," Melissa glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. "You lied about the essay. So they aren't sure you're exactly…trustworthy."
Spencer's throat felt tight. "But this is different!"
Melissa pressed her lips together and pointedly stared out the window.
"You believe me, don't you?" Spencer asked urgently. For a long time, she hadn't remembered anything about the night Ali vanished. Then little pieces began coming back to her, one by one. Her final suppressed memory was of two shadowy figures in the woods—one was Ali, and the other was definitely Ian. "I know what I saw," Spencer went on. "Ian was there."
"It's just talk," Melissa mumbled. Then she glanced at Spencer, biting hard on top lip. "There's something else." She swallowed. "Ian sort of…called me last night."
"From jail?" Spencer felt the same sensation she had the time Melissa pushed her out of the big oak in their backyard—first shock, and then, when she hit the ground, searing pain. "W-what did he say?"
It was so quiet in the hall, Spencer could hear her sister's gulping swallow. "Well, his mom is really sick, for one."
"Sick…like how?"
"Cancer, but I don't know what kind. He's devastated. Ian was so close to his mom, and he's afraid that his conviction and the trial brought it on."
Spencer flicked a piece of lint off her cashmere coast, apathetic. Ian had brought the trial on himself.
Melissa cleared her throat, her red-rimmed eyes round. "He doesn't understand why we did this to him, Spence. He begged us not to testify him in the trial—he kept saying it was all a misunderstanding. He didn't kill her. He sounded so…desperate."
Spencer's mouth dropped open. "Are you saying you're not going to testify against him?"
A vein in Melissa's swanlike neck fluttered. She fiddled with her Tiffany key chain. "I just can't get over it, that's all. If Ian did do it, we would have been dating at the time. How could I not have suspected anything?"
Spencer nodded, suddenly exhausted. Despite everything, she understood Melissa's perspective. Melissa and Ian had been the model couple in high school in high school, and Spencer remembered how upset Melissa had been when Ian broke up with her halfway into their college freshman year. When Ian blew back into Rosewood this fall to coach Spencer's hockey team—creepy!—he and Melissa quickly got back together. Outwardly, Ian had seemed like the ideal boyfriend: attentive, sweet, honest, and genuine. He was the kind of guy who'd help old ladies cross the street. It would be like if Spencer and Andrew Campbell were dating and he got arrested for dealing meth out of his Mini Cooper.
A snowplow grumbled outside, and Spencer looked up sharply. Not that she and Andrew would ever be a couple. It was merely an example. Because she didn't like Andrew. He was simply another example of a Rosewood Day Golden Boy, that was all.
Melissa started to say something else, but the main doors downstairs opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Hastings strode into the vestibule. Spencer's uncle Daniel, her aunt Genevieve, and her cousins Jonathan and Smith followed behind. Daniel, Genevieve, Jonathan, and Smith all looked weary, as if they'd driven across the country to get here, when in fact they lived in Haverford, only fifteen minutes away.
Mr. Calloway was the last person through the door. He bounded up the stairs, unlocked the boardroom, and ushered everyone inside. Mrs. Hastings swept past Spencer, tugging off her suede Hermes gloves with her teeth, Chanel No. 5 wafting behind her.
Spencer sat in one of the leather swivel chairs around the large, cheery conference table. Melissa pulled out the seat next to hers. Their dad settled on the other side of the room, and Mr. Calloway sat down next to him. Genevieve wriggled out of her sable coat while Smith and Jonathan powered off their BlackBerrys and straightened their Brooks Brothers ties. Both boys had been prissy ever since Spencer could remember. Back when the families celebrated Christmas together, Smith and Jonathan always carefully sliced their presents' wrapping paper at the seams so they wouldn't rip it.
"Let's start, shall we?" Mr. Calloway shoved his tortoiseshell glasses higher up on his nose up on his nose and pulled and pulled a thick document out of a manila file. The overhead light glinted off the top of his bald head as he read through the opening preamble of Nana's last will and testament, indicating that she was of sound mind and body when she composed it. Nana stated that she would divide her Florida mansion, the Cape May beach house, and her Philadelphia penthouse apartment along with the bulk of her net worth between her children: Spencer's father, uncle Daniel, and aunt Penelope. When Mr. Calloway said Penelope were there and no one had noticed. Of course, she wasn't.
Spencer wasn't sure when she'd last seen Aunt Penelope. The family always grumbled about her. She was the baby of the family and had never married. She'd bounced from career to career, trying her hand at fashion design, then moving to journalism, even starting an online tarot card—reading site out of her beach house in Bali. After that, she'd disappeared, traveling the world, eating up her trust fund, and neglecting to visit for years. It was pretty clear that everyone was horrified that Penelope had been bequeathed anything at all. Spencer suddenly felt a kinship with her aunt—maybe every Hastings generation needed a black sheep.
"As for Mrs. Hastings's other assets," Mr. Calloway said, flipping a page, "she bequeaths two million dollars to each of her natural-born grandchildren as follows."
Smith and Jonathan leaned forward. Spencer gaped. Two million dollars?
Mr. Calloway squinted at the words. "Two million dollars to her grandson, two million dollars to her grandson Jonathan, and two million dollars to her granddaughter Melissa." He paused, his eyes landed momentarily on Spencer. An awkward look fluttered over his face. "And…okay. We just need everyone to sign here."
"Uh," Spencer started. It came out like a grunt, and everyone looked over. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered, self-consciously touching her hair. "I think you forgot a grandchild."
Mr. Calloway opened his mouth and closed it again, like one of the goldfish that swam in the Hastingses' backyard reflecting pond. Mrs. Hastings stood up abruptly, doing the goldfish thing with her mouth too. Genevieve cleared her throat, pointedly staring down at her three-carat emerald ring. Uncle Daniel flared his enormous nostrils. Spencer's cousins and Melissa gathered over the will. "Right here," Mr. Calloway said quietly, pointing to the page.
"Uh, Mr. Calloway?" Spencer goaded. She whipped her head back and forth between the lawyer and her parents. Finally, she let out a nervous laugh. "I am mentioned in the will, aren't I?"
Her eyes wide, Melissa grabbed the will from Smith and handed it to Spencer. Spencer stared at the document for a moment, her heart like a jackhammer.
There it was. Nana had left two million dollars to Smithson Pierpont Hastings, Jonathan Barnard Hastings, and Melissa Josephine Hastings. Spencer's name was nowhere to be found.
"What's going on?" Spencer whispered.
Her father stood up abruptly. "Spencer, maybe you should wait in your car."
"What?" Spencer squeaked, horrified.
Her father took her arm and began to guide her out of the room. "Please," he said under her breath. "Wait for us there."
Spencer wasn't sure what else to do but to obey. Her father shut the door fast, the slam reverberating off the courtroom's quiet marble walls. Spencer listened to her own breathing for a few moments, and then, suppressing a sob, she wheeled around, sprinted to her car, gunned the ignition, and peeled out of the parking lot. Screw waiting. She wanted to be as far away from this courthouse—from whatever had just happened—as she possibly could.