Pretty Little Secrets

  A PRETTY LITTLE LIARS COLLECTION

  SARA SHEPARD

  Dedication

  To K

  Epigraph

  He sees you when you’re sleeping

  He knows when you’re awake

  He knows if you’ve been bad or good

  So be good for goodness’ sake!

  —“SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN”

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Christmas Stalking

  Hanna’s Pretty Little Secret

  Chapter 1: Home for the Holidays

  Chapter 2: Puke-a-tan

  Chapter 3: Old Habits Die Hard

  Chapter 4: You’ll Never Work in This Mall Again

  Chapter 5: Down from Mount Olympus

  Chapter 6: The Biggest Losers

  Chapter 7: Mazel Tov!

  Chapter 8: A Sexy Stretch Does the Body Good

  Chapter 9: Fake Boyfriends Are So Much Fun

  Chapter 10: That’s a Wrap

  Chapter 11: I Saw Someone Kissing Santa Claus

  Chapter 12: Soul Mates

  Chapter 13: Gotcha!

  Chapter 14: Mutually Assured Destruction

  Chapter 15: Operators Are Standing By!

  Chapter 16: Sunglasses Tans Are So In

  Unhappy Hanna-kah

  Emily’s Pretty Little Secret

  Chapter 1: All Emily Wants for Christmas

  Chapter 2: Away in a Manger

  Chapter 3: You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry . . .

  Chapter 4: Elves Have Feelings, Too

  Chapter 5: Every Good Spy Needs a Plan

  Chapter 6: Poor Little Wallflower

  Chapter 7: The Cool Crowd

  Chapter 8: Mission Impossible

  Chapter 9: Ants in Her Pants

  Chapter 10: Take It All Off, Big Boy

  Chapter 11: The True Meaning of Christmas

  Chapter 12: All the Whos Down in Whoville

  Chapter 13: A Mole Among Us

  Chapter 14: Santa to the Rescue

  Chapter 15: A Christmas Miracle

  Chapter 16: The Whole World Was at Peace

  Bad Santa

  Aria’s Pretty Little Secret

  Chapter 1: The More the Merrier at Solstice Time

  Chapter 2: Snug as Four Bugs in a Rug

  Chapter 3: Another Surprise

  Chapter 4: Icelandic Boys Are Hot

  Chapter 5: Sexy Straddle

  Chapter 6: Sound the Alarms

  Chapter 7: Party Like a Rock Star

  Chapter 8: Panther Porn

  Chapter 9: Big Winner!

  Chapter 10: I Do

  Chapter 11: The Couple Who Breaks the Law Together . . .

  Chapter 12: Mass Panic

  Chapter 13: Mistakes Were Made

  Chapter 14: Blowin’ in the Wind

  A Very Married Christmas

  Spencer’s Pretty Little Secret

  Chapter 1: Deep Freeze in the Warm Florida Sun

  Chapter 2: Cute Boys Make Everything Better

  Chapter 3: Some Girls Get All the Breaks

  Chapter 4: Smells Like Team Spirit

  Chapter 5: If Cosmo Says It, Then It Must Be True

  Chapter 6: Sail Away with Me

  Chapter 7: Shopping, with a Splash of Awkwardness

  Chapter 8: How to Get Lei’d

  Chapter 9: She Never Saw It Coming

  Chapter 10: New Year, New Girl

  Chapter 11: Battle on the Beach

  Chapter 12: Something Blue . . .

  Chapter 13: A Jump into the Unknown

  Chapter 14: Table for Two

  Chapter 15: Quit Your Crying

  Chapter 16: The Best Revenge

  Chapter 17: Stick with Me, Sister

  Happy New Year to Me!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Back-Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Christmas Stalking

  Here’s a pretty snow-globe scene for you:

  It’s December of Hanna, Emily, Aria, and Spencer’s junior year. Snow is falling, blanketing Rosewood’s perfectly manicured lawns and dusting the tops of luxury SUVs. Christmas lights brighten every window, and cherub-cheeked kids are busy making their lists for Santa. The whole town is at peace, especially the pretty little liars.

  Now that Alison DiLaurentis’s murderer is in jail and A is dead, they can finally relax. But little do they know that I’m going to pick up where A left off. I’m going to be the new A, and I’ve made a list of my own. Guess who’s at the top of the naughty column? That’s right: Hanna, Emily, Aria, and Spencer.

  And these liars have been bad! Hanna got caught shoplifting and totaled her ex-boyfriend’s car. Emily defied her parents so many times they sent her away to Iowa. Aria’s after-school smooch sessions with her English teacher got him fired. And Spencer may have been the naughtiest of them all. Stealing her sister’s fiancé wasn’t enough—Spencer also took her economics paper and pushed her down the stairs when Melissa found out what she’d done. Tsk tsk. These liars deserve coal in their stockings—or worse. Luckily I’m here to make sure they get what’s coming to them.

  It’s only a matter of time before the pretty little liars get their hands dirty again—especially now that they think A is gone. So what trouble will they get into next? Well, I’ll just have to lie low . . . and watch. I’ll watch and watch and come to understand exactly what kind of bitches I’m dealing with. I’ll find out everything.

  And once I do, I’ll know how to take them down.

  Let’s start with . . . Hanna. This girl’s undergone some major upheaval. Her mom ditched her for Singapore. Her estranged dad is moving in with his Stepford fiancée and her perfect daughter, Kate. At least Hanna has her loyal boyfriend, Lucas. Or does she?

  Let the stalking begin!

  Hanna’s Pretty Little Secret

  Chapter 1

  Home for the Holidays

  It was a blustery Wednesday in early December in Rosewood, Pennsylvania, a bucolic suburb twenty miles from Philadelphia. While many residents were cutting down Frasier firs at the local Christmas tree farm or adorning the outsides of their houses with pinecone wreaths, a moving van was pulling up to a Georgian house with the word MARIN stenciled on the mailbox. Three men disembarked and slid open the back door to reveal dozens of boxes. Tom Marin, his fiancée, Isabel Randall, and Isabel’s daughter, Kate, stood in the yard as the movers shuttled their belongings through the front door. Hanna Marin, who had lived in the house since she was five, observed from inside the foyer, biting her fingernails.

  “Be careful with that,” Isabel screeched to the burly guy who was hefting a medium-sized box. “It contains my vintage doll collection.”

  “And that box goes upstairs,” Kate called nervously to another mover. “Those are all my handbags.”

  Hanna snuck a peek at her soon-to-be stepsister, Kate, who had a slender body, long, lustrous chestnut-colored hair, and big blue eyes. She was carrying a Chloé bag Hanna had only seen on the pages of Vogue. When Hanna asked where Kate had gotten it, Kate had trilled that it was an early Christmas present, shooting a grateful smile at Hanna’s father. Ick.

  “Hanna?” Mr. Marin thrust a small box marked DELICATES at her. “Can you take this up to your mom’s—er, our—bedroom?”

  “Sure,” Hanna mumbled, eager to get away from Isabel and Kate—one of them was wearing a perfume that kept making her sneeze.

  She climbed the stairs, her miniature pinscher, Dot, following at her heels. Just a few weeks ago, before Thanksgiving, Hanna’s mother, Ashley, had dropped the bomb that she was taking a job in Singapore—and Hanna couldn’t come.

  Hanna would have loved to start over somewhere else. She’d had a horrible year. She’d been taunted by an evil text-messager named A. Her old best friend, Alison DiLaurentis, who’d been missing for three years, had been found under a concrete slab behind her old house in September. It turned out Ian Thomas, Ali’s secret boyfriend—who Hanna and her other best friends Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, and Emily Fields had all crushed on when he was a senior and they were seventh graders—had murdered Ali the night of the girls’ end-of-seventh-grade sleepover. The police had arrested him a few weeks ago. It had all come as a massive shock.

  But instead she was stuck here, with her father moving in with his new family—his replacement wife, Isabel, the ex-ER nurse who wasn’t nearly as pretty or interesting as Hanna’s mom, and his perfect stepdaughter, Kate, who’d taken Hanna’s place in her dad’s heart and who hated Hanna’s guts.

  Hanna padded into the empty master bedroom. It smelled slightly of mothballs, and there were four heavy indentations on the carpet where her mother’s sleek Danish-modern bed used to stand. When Hanna dropped the DELICATES box on the floor, one of the flaps popped open and a little blue gift box with a blank gift tag peeked out.

  Looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, she lifted the lid. Inside was a round white-gold locket with a cluster of pavé-cut diamonds in the center.

  Hanna breathed in. It was the Cartier locket that had belonged to her grandmother, whom everyone, even nonrelatives, called Bubbe Marin. Bubbe had worn it religiously when she was alive, boasting that she didn’t even take it off in the bathtub. She’d di
ed when Hanna was going into seventh grade, shortly after Hanna’s parents divorced; by that time, Hanna hadn’t been on speaking terms with her dad. She hadn’t known what had happened to the locket, or who it had been willed to.

  But now she did. She touched the blank gift tag and felt an angry pang. Her dad was probably going to give it to Isabel or Kate for Christmas.

  “Hanna?” a voice floated up from the first floor.

  Hanna shoved the lid back on the box and stepped into the hall. Her father was standing at the base of the stairs. “Pizza’s here!”

  The tantalizing aroma of mozzarella cheese wafted into Hanna’s nostrils. Just half a slice, she decided. Sure, her Citizens jeans didn’t button so easily this morning, but she’d probably left them in the dryer for too long. She walked down the stairs just as Isabel was carrying a pizza box to the kitchen. Everyone sat down at the table—Hanna’s table—and Mr. Marin passed out plates and silverware. It was weird how he knew exactly which cabinet and drawer to open. But Isabel wasn’t supposed to be sitting in her mother’s chair, using her mother’s cloth napkins from Crate & Barrel. Kate wasn’t supposed to be drinking from the pewter cup her mother had bought for Hanna on a trip to Montreal.

  Hanna let out another sneeze, her nostrils tickling with someone’s cloying perfume. Not one of them said Bless you.

  “So when are your entrance exams for Rosewood Day again, Kate?” Mr. Marin said as he grabbed a pizza slice from the open box. Unfortunately, Kate would be attending the same school Hanna went to.

  Kate took a dainty bite of crust. “In a couple of days. I’ve been going over geometry proofs and vocabulary words.”

  Isabel waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not the SATs. I’m sure you’ll ace the exams.”

  “They’ll be thrilled to have you.” Mr. Marin looked at Hanna. “Did you know Kate won the Renaissance Student prize last year? She excelled above her peers in every subject.”

  You’ve only told me that eight million times, Hanna wanted to say. She took a bite of pizza so she wouldn’t have to speak.

  “And her grades were outstanding at the Barnbury School,” Isabel went on, referencing Kate’s old school in Annapolis. “Barnbury has a better reputation than Rosewood Day. At least there, kids aren’t stalking other kids and running them down with their cars.”

  She shot a pointed look at Hanna. Hanna reached unconsciously for a second slice of pizza and pushed it into her mouth. Nice how Isabel was basically blaming her for her ordeals with A, the stalker who’d almost ruined her life this fall, and for tarnishing Rosewood Day’s sterling reputation.

  Kate leaned forward and stared at Hanna with wide eyes. Hanna had a feeling she knew exactly what question was coming next. “You must be so devastated that your best friend turned out to be . . . you know,” Kate said in a fake-concerned voice. “How are you holding up?” A tiny smile crossed her lips, and it was obvious what her real question was: How are you dealing with the fact that your BFF wanted to kill you?

  Hanna looked desperately at her father, hoping he’d put a stop to this line of questioning, but he was also staring at her worriedly. “I’m holding up just fine,” she mumbled gruffly.

  Not that it was true. Hanna was so mixed up about Mona Vanderwaal, her best friend since eighth grade who’d turned out to be A, the person who’d taunted her with her secrets, publicly embarrassed her more times than she could count, and yes, tried to run Hanna over with her car. There were still days when Hanna woke up, grabbed her phone, and started to text Mona about what shoes she was wearing to school before she remembered. At Mona’s funeral, Hanna had actually cried, eliciting gapes from her peers. Hanna knew she should despise Mona with all of her heart—and a big part of her did. But another part couldn’t just forget all the time they’d spent together gossiping, plotting their rise to popularity, and throwing fabulous parties. Before everything with A happened, Mona had been a better friend to her than Ali ever was—they’d felt like equals. But now Hanna knew it was all a lie.

  Hanna stared down at her empty plate. Two ravaged pizza crusts lay in a lake of grease, but she couldn’t remember eating the rest. Her stomach let out an unattractive gurgle.

  Mr. Marin wiped his mouth. “Well, we have a lot of unpacking to do.” He touched Kate’s arm. “You girls should take a break. Why don’t you and Hanna go to that new mall that just opened. What’s it called?”

  “Devon Crest,” Hanna piped up.

  “Ooh, I heard that place is very nice,” Isabel cooed.

  “I’ve been, actually,” Kate said.

  Isabel looked surprised. “When?”

  “Uh, yesterday.” Kate fiddled with the bangle on her silver David Yurman bracelet, which she’d bragged was a gift from Isabel for winning an essay contest last year. “You guys were busy.”

  “You two could go together, get to know each other a little better.” Mr. Marin looked back and forth between Hanna and Kate. “Go shopping. Buy something nice for yourselves. Leave the unpacking to us. What do you say?”

  Kate took a long sip from her water bottle. “Thanks, Tom. That sounds really great.”

  Hanna snuck a peek at Kate. Surprisingly, she looked sincere. Was it possible Kate had changed since Hanna had seen her last at a dinner in Philly, when she’d ratted Hanna out for stealing Percocet from a clinic? Hanna was back in touch with her old best friends, Emily, Aria, and Spencer, but none of them were big fashion followers, and she was kind of dying for a new best friend to replace Mona. Especially since she and her old friends had started attending group grief therapy together. She needed a break from all the Ali and A stuff—stat.

  “I suppose I have some free time today,” Hanna said.

  “Great. Run along, then.” Mr. Marin rose from the table and cleared everyone’s plates. “Izz? Which room do you want to unpack first?”

  “Uch, let’s start with the kitchen. I’m not drinking out of this for another second.” She wrinkled her nose at one of Hanna’s favorite mugs, a majolica goblet her parents had bought on a trip to Tuscany.

  The two of them left the room, chattering about which box their wineglasses might be in. Hanna rose from her seat. “So, I’m ready to go when you are,” she said to Kate. “Is their Nordstrom any good? Is it true there’s a Uniqlo? That place has amazing cashmere sweaters for pennies.”

  Kate let out a snort. “God, Hanna,” she said, her expression suddenly venomous. “I was just saying I’d go to the mall to get your dad and my mom off my back. Did you actually think I was going to go anywhere with you?”

  She sauntered out of the room, her chestnut ponytail swinging. Hanna’s mouth made an O. Kate had set a trap, and she was the dumb animal who’d walked right into its steel jaws.

  Kate paused in the hall, pressed some buttons on her phone, and then held it to her ear. “Hey,” she whispered to whoever had picked up. “It’s me.” She laughed flirtatiously. It figured. Kate had only been here for two days and she already had a boyfriend.

  Hanna twisted her napkin so forcefully she was surprised it didn’t rip. Whatever—she and Kate probably would’ve had a horrible time shopping together anyway. Then, she heard a faint snicker spiraling from somewhere close by. On instinct, she glanced out the windows, certain she’d see a blond flash slipping through the trees. That was crazy, though. A—Mona—was gone.

  Chapter 2

  Puke-a-tan

  A few days later, Hanna sat on the cushy microfiber couch at her boyfriend Lucas Beattie’s house, in front of the soft glow of the family’s tinsel-heavy Christmas tree. The TV was playing an infomercial for a new ab-crunching device—“Get your body ripped by New Year’s!”—the overly loud sales guy kept screaming. On the floor in front of them was a gift tin filled with butter, cheese, and caramel popcorn.

  “The Kate worship was even worse than usual at dinner yesterday,” Hanna moaned as she pushed another handful of cheese popcorn into her mouth. “All my dad and Isabel talked about was this absolutely wonderful speech Kate gave during tenth-grade commencement last year. And Kate just sat there beaming, all yeah, I know I’m awesome.”