Unbelievable Read Online Free PDF Page B

super-strictness. They avoided anything that might trigger sexual impulses—even certain foods . As she scanned the crowd, Emily half-expected to see the stern, long-faced farmer and his plain, bitter wife from the American Gothic painting standing near the baggage carousel.
    “Emily.”
    She whirled around. Helene and Allen Weaver were leaning against a Smarte Carte machine, their hands clasped at their waists. Allen’s tucked-in mustard-yellow golf shirt prominently displayed his massive gut. Helene’s short gray hair looked shellacked. Neither was smiling.
    “Did you check any luggage?” Allen asked gruffly.
    “Uh, no,” Emily said politely, wondering if she should go in for a hug. Weren’t aunts and uncles usually happy to see their nieces? Allen and Helene just looked annoyed.
    “Well, then, let’s go,” Helene said. “It’s about two hours to Addams.”
    Their car was an old, wood-paneled station wagon. The inside smelled like fake pine-tree air freshener, a smell that always made Emily think of long, cross-country drives with her grumpy grandparents. Allen drove at least fifteen miles under the speed limit—even a frail old woman squinting over her steering wheel passed them. Neither her aunt nor her uncle said a word the whole drive—not to Emily, and not to each other. It was so quiet, Emily could hear the sound of her heart breaking into seven million tiny pieces.
    “Iowa sure is pretty,” Emily commented loudly, gesturing to the endless flat land all around her. She’d never seen a place so desolate—there weren’t even any rest stops. Allen made a small grunt. Helene pursed her lips even tighter. If she’d pursed any harder, she’d have swallowed her lips altogether.
    Emily’s cell phone, cool and smooth in her jacket pocket, felt like one of the last bridges to civilization. She brought it out and stared at the screen. No new messages, not even from Maya. She’d sent Aria a text before she left, asking how Hanna was doing, but Aria hadn’t responded. The newest text in her inbox was the one A had sent last night— She knew too much. Had A really hit Hanna? And what about the things Aria had told her before Hanna’s accident—could Spencer be Ali’s killer? Tears dotted Emily’s eyes. This was definitely the wrong time to be so far from Rosewood.
    Suddenly, Allen took a sharp right off the road, veering onto a bumpy dirt path. The car wobbled over the uneven ground, crossing over several cattle guards and passing a few rickety-looking houses. Dogs ran up and down the length of the path, barking viciously at the vehicle. Finally, they pulled onto yet another dirt road and came to a gate. Helene got out and unlocked it, and Allen drove the car through. A two-story, white-shingled house loomed ahead. It was spare and modest, sort of reminiscent of the Amish houses in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that Emily and her parents used to stop at to buy authentic shoofly pie.
    “Here we are,” Helene said blandly.
    “It’s beautiful,” Emily said, trying to sound upbeat as she got out of the car.
    Like the other houses they’d passed, the Weavers’ property was surrounded by a chain-link fence, and there were dogs, chickens, ducks, and goats everywhere. One brave goat attached to the cattle guard by a long chain trotted right up to Emily. He butted her with his dirty-looking horns, and she screamed.
    Helene looked at her sternly as the goat waddled away. “Don’t scream like that. The chickens don’t like it.”
    Perfect . The chickens’ needs took precedence to Emily’s. She pointed to the goat. “Why is he chained like that?”
    “She,” Helene corrected her. “She’s been a bad girl, that’s why.”
    Emily bit her lip nervously as Helene led her into a tiny kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the fifties. Emily immediately missed her mom’s cheery kitchen, with its chicken collectibles, year-round Christmas towels, and refrigerator magnets shaped like