Curiouser
Hanna and Emily are studying the newly revamped menu of the Apple Rose Grille.
“God,” Hanna says, frowning. “Everything is artisanal. Which is code for tiny. And there are no fries!”
“I’m having a salad,” Emily tells her. “With a side of what’s Mona doing here?” She nods to the large front windows, where Mona is checking her reflection and valeting her car.
“I invited her,” Hanna says, smiling in spite of the fact that a waiter is delivering three cupcake sized cheeseburgers on a cutting board to a neighboring table. She waves at Mona, the silver bracelets on her wrist jangling musically.
“Did I miss a vote?” Emily grouses. “Is she part of the group now?”
Hanna winces at Emily’s words. “She’s important. Not just to the mystery. To me.”
Emily’s eyebrows furrow, her face a pucker of concern. “Of course,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Besides, you still owe me for that day at the beach when you and Ali disappeared and I got stuck listening to Ben Coogan drone on about NASCAR for five hours.”
“That was nine years ago!”
“I love you, but I tanned unevenly,” Hanna responds.
“Only because you fell asleep.”
“Hello ladies,” Mona says brightly, setting down her purse. “I hear the beet salad is scrumptious here, FYI.”
Hanna scoots over to make room as Mona squeezes into the booth next to her.
“Where’s Aria?” Emily asks.
Mona shrugs and casually takes a sip of Hanna’s ice water. “She got super freaked out when we were digging around at the church. Said she needed to talk to Spencer. But we found some info on Charlotte and I traced that voting machine hack off three different satellite and I still had time for a pedicure at the mall!” She kicks one of her feet out of her open toed slingbacks and waggles her plum colored toe nails. “What did you two get up to?”
“We snuck Emily into the mental hospital for a visit with Alison, and then drove out to Hector Lime’s weirdo mask factory. He’s upgraded his operation to rubber movie masks, and he’s being bank rolled by Carissimi.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Mona says, raising her eyebrows.
--------
“He was there that night. Spencer, I don’t know what to to do! I think Mike may have killed Charlotte!”
“Slow down,” Spencer says, forcing her voice into a soothing tone, even as she feels every muscle in her body tensing at Aria’s words. “Tell me everything.”
“He’s been having a hard time,” Aria begins, her words tumbling out. “I don’t even think my parents know the worst of it. He got through the first semester at Ohio State, but then he stopped answering his phone. I was going to visit him for his birthday, but when I showed up at his dorm, his roommate hadn’t seen him for a week. I started asking around and finally the campus police found an incident report, they found him splashing around naked in Mirror Lake. He was still in the hospital when I got there - they were treating him for hypothermia and while he was there, they diagnosed him as bipolar. I was so relieved he was okay, but the meds made him - like he wasn’t even there.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” Spencer asks, aghast. “I would have been there in a second. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”
Aria shakes her head and squeezes Spencer’s hand tightly. “It wasn’t my secret. He didn’t want people to know. Eventually the doctors adjusted the dosage and he was better. He transferred to Central Penn to be closer to home. I thought everything was back to normal, but then a year ago he went off his meds. He was drinking a lot and he wasn’t sleeping, and I had no idea until I heard about it from Noel - Mike called him up rambling about angels and demons and then halfway through the conversation asked him for bail money. I guess he was eating at a Waffle House, and when he didn’t have the money to pay, he freaked out and started flipping the tables, smashed the juke box, broke a few windows. Noel helped him get a good lawyer and he went on a new medication and got sentenced to community service.”
“I tried to keep in better touch, I made him call me every week to check in. He was constantly preoccupied with why this was happening to him. He thought maybe it was the divorce or everything with Mona and Charlotte or me getting kidnapped - but his therapist kept telling him that it’s all about brain chemistry, it’s an illness, that we don’t know why it happens.”
“But he blamed Charlotte?” Spencer asks.
“I don’t know! Lately he’s been really hard on my dad, but in a quiet way. I was glad to be coming back here for awhile, I was worried he might be depressed.”
“But he was there that night? You saw him at the church?”
“He scared the hell out of me. Ezra put me in that cab, and we drove around the corner and a few blocks away and then the driver slammed on the brakes. It was Mike, and I hadn’t even recognized him. He had a bushy beard and wild eyes and he was ranting about how our parents should have known, how they could have changed everything and stopped the devil. I told him he was scaring me and he yelled at me to get out of the car. He said he had things to do, that he was going to heal the fracture, he was going to do it with his own hands. He was going to pull up the rotten tree by its roots. He wasn’t making any sense, I got out of the car just to try and calm him down, but he roared off back towards the town square.”
“Oh my god,” Spencer says, horrified. “Have you talked to him since then? Have you seen him?”
“He was supposed to meet me today,” Aria admits. “Before Liam and Ezra showed up to duke it out in the park. I spotted his cab, but he must have gotten skittish when he saw both of them there.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“No one,” Aria says firmly. “That’s why I went back to Boston, why I’ve been avoiding Ali. I was terrified I was going to slip and say something that might make him seem guilty. I mean, I knew it looked bad, but I didn’t think he was capable of hurting anyone. But then today - this part is a secret, okay? I don’t want the others to know. Not yet.”
Spencer nods. “I promise,” she says, her arm still protectively around Aria’s shoulders.
“Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Scott?”
“Your dad’s brother? The one who disappeared?”
“That’s the one,” Aria confirms. “I think Mike found some information about him. Spencer, he was in Radley. He’s Charlotte’s father.”