Free Heartless by Sara Shepard Page A

then the teachers’ parking area. It was filled with cars that were considerably older and humbler than the ones in the student lot. “I wish you wouldn’t have said I put the idea in your head. Mom really whaled on me for that. She was ruthless.”
    Spencer felt a hot twinge of anger. Poor you, she wanted to snap. Like that really compared to what Spencer had been through.
    They came to a stop at the light behind a Jeep Cherokee full of meaty-shouldered boys in baseball caps. Spencer took a long look at her sister. Melissa’s skin looked papery and tired, there was a zit on her forehead, and ligaments stood out in her neck, as if she was clenching her jaw tight. Last week, Spencer had noticed someone who looked suspiciously like Melissa searching through the woods behind their house, not far from where they’d discovered Ian’s body. Aria had found Ian’s ring in the woods just before the fire started—was that what Melissa had been looking for?
    But before Spencer could ask, her cell phone bleated. She unclasped her purse and pulled it out. Take tomorrow off from school, a text said. Let’s have a spa day. My treat. Mom.
    Spencer let out an involuntary squeal of delight. “Mom and I are having a spa day tomorrow!”
    Melissa paled. Several emotions washed over her face at once. “You are?” She sounded incredulous.
    “Uh-huh.” Spencer hit reply and typed Yes! Definitely.
    Melissa smirked. “Is she trying to buy your love now?”
    “No.” Spencer bristled. “It’s not like that.”
    The light turned green, and Melissa hit the gas. “I guess our roles are reversed,” she said breezily, taking a corner too fast. “Now you’re Mom’s favorite and I’m the outcast.”
    “What do you mean?” Spencer asked, trying to ignore the fact that Melissa had referred to her as an outcast. “Aren’t you getting along?”
    Melissa rolled her jaw until the joint cracked. “Forget it.”
    Spencer debated just letting it drop—Melissa was always overly theatrical. But curiosity got the best of her. “What happened?”
    They whizzed past Wawa, Ferra’s Cheesesteaks, and the Rosewood Historical District, a string of old buildings that had been converted into candle shops, day spas, and real estate offices. Melissa let out a long sigh. “Before Ian was arrested, Wilden came over and questioned us about the night Ali went missing. He asked if we’d been together the whole time, if we saw anything strange, whatever.”
    “Yeah?” Spencer had never told Melissa that she’d spied on her and Ian from the stairs that day, worried her sister was going to mention the fight Spencer and Ali had had outside the barn right before Ali disappeared. It was a memory Spencer had suppressed for years, but she’d let it slip to Melissa, even mentioning that Ali had admitted that she and Ian were secretly together and teased Spencer for wanting Ian too. Spencer had shoved Ali out of frustration, and Ali had slipped and hit her head on the rocky path. Luckily, Ali had been okay—until a few minutes later, anyway, when someone else shoved her in that half-dug hole in her backyard.
    “I told Wilden that we hadn’t seen anything strange and that we’d been together the whole time,” Melissa went on. Spencer nodded. “But after that, Mom asked if I would’ve given Wilden the same story if Ian hadn’t been in the room with me. I told her it was the truth. But after she kept pushing, I slipped up and said we’d been drinking. Mom pounced on me. ‘You need to be really, really sure about what you tell the police,’ she kept saying. ‘The truth really matters.’ She kept grilling me about it until I suddenly wasn’t really sure what happened. I mean, there might have been a couple minutes when I woke up and Ian wasn’t there. I was pretty wasted that night. And I mean, I don’t even know if I was in my room the whole time or . . .”
    She stopped abruptly, a muscle in her eye twitching. “My point is, I finally buckled.