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found a sign-in ledger from when the Radley was a mental hospital with Jason DiLaurentis’s name all through it. New A had also teased Aria that Jason was hiding something—possibly about issues with Ali—and tipped off Emily that Jenna and Jason were fighting in Jenna’s window. Aria hadn’t wanted to believe that Jason was guilty—she’d gone on a few dates with him the week before, fulfilling a longtime crush—but Jason had flown off the handle when Aria had gone to his apartment in Yarmouth on Friday.
    Wilden was shaking his head with utter disbelief. He seemed so blindsided by all this, which made Aria wonder if anything A had led them to believe was even remotely true. She gazed questioningly at her friends. Their faces were laced with doubt, too.
    Wilden shut Spencer’s door, then turned around and glared at them. “Let me guess,” he said in a low voice. “Did your New A plant these ideas in your heads?”
    “A is real, ” Emily insisted. Time and again, Wilden had insisted that New A was nothing more than a copycat. “A took pictures of you, too,” she went on. She rifled through her pocket, pulled out her phone, and scrolled to the picture message of Wilden going to confession. Aria caught sight of A’s accompanying note: What’s he so guilty about? “See?” Emily dangled it under his nose.
    Wilden stared at the screen. His expression didn’t change. “I didn’t know it was a crime to go to church.”
    Scowling, Emily stuffed her phone back into her swim bag. A long pause followed. Wilden pinched the flap of skin at the bridge of his long, sloped nose. It seemed like all the air in the room had seeped out the windows. “Look. I need to tell you what I really came in here for.” His irises were so dark they looked black. “You girls have to stop saying you saw Alison.”
    Everyone exchanged a startled glance. Spencer looked a bit vindicated, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow as if to say, I told you so. Predictably, Emily was the first to speak. “You want us to lie? ”
    “You didn’t see her.” Wilden’s voice was gruff. “If you keep saying you did, it’s going to bring a lot of unwanted attention on you. You think the backlash was bad when you said you saw Ian’s body? This will be ten times worse.”
    Aria shifted her weight, fiddling with the cuff of her hooded sweater. Wilden was speaking to them like he was a South Philly cop and they were meth dealers. But what had they done that was so wrong?
    “This isn’t fair,” Emily protested. “She needs our help.”
    Wilden raised his hands to the white popcorn ceiling in defeat. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing a tattoo of an eight-pointed star. Emily was glancing at the star too. From her narrowed eyes and wrinkled nose, Aria guessed she wasn’t a fan.
    “I’m going to tell you something that’s supposed to be top secret,” Wilden said, lowering his voice. “The DNA results for the body the workers found in the hole are at the station. It’s a perfect match for Alison, girls. She’s dead. So do what I say, okay? I really am looking out for your best interest.”
    At that, he flipped open his phone, strode out of the room, and slammed the door hard. The foam cups on the food tray wobbled precariously. Aria turned back to her friends. Spencer’s lips were pressed together fretfully. Hanna chewed anxiously on a thumbnail. Emily blinked her round, green eyes, stunned into speechlessness.
    “So now what?” Aria whispered.
    Emily whimpered, Spencer fiddled with her IV, and Hanna looked like she was going to keel over. All their perfectly crafted theories had gone up in smoke—literally. Maybe Wilden hadn’t set the fire—but Aria had seen someone out there in the woods. Which unfortunately meant only one thing.
    Whoever had lit that match was still out there. Whoever had tried to kill them was still on the loose, maybe waiting for a chance to try it again.

Chapter 3
    If Only Someone had Scammed Spencer