“These are the girls who’ve been causing so much trouble?” O’Neal jogged to Mrs. Fields, took Cassie from her, and pinned Cassie’s arms behind her back. Cassie let out a whimper and went still.

“That’s right,” Mrs. Meriwether piped up. “They broke into the country club. These are also the girls who vandalized all the other properties. The Sign of the Dove Church. All the front lawns. They’ve been causing mayhem for weeks.”

The cop looked the elves up and down and shook his head. “Come on, ladies,” O’Neal said, corralling the girls toward the SUVs. The elves trudged off with their heads down, not saying a word. Emily began to follow them, not daring to look at her mother.

Mrs. Fields grabbed her sleeve. “What are you doing, Emily? You can come home with us.”

Emily winced. The elves whipped around and stared at Emily and her mother. “Wait. How do you know her name?” Heather asked.

“Why does she get to go home?” Sophie piped up.

“She stole the stuff right along with us,” Lola spat.

Mrs. Meriwether shifted her weight. Emily’s mother smiled smugly. Emily saw the realization slowly strike each girl.

“Holy shit,” Sophie whispered.

“I told you!” Lola screamed. She jammed a finger at Emily. “I told you guys she was a narc! I could just tell the day she showed up as Santa! But you didn’t listen!”

Heather spat in Emily’s direction, which got her a cuff on the arm from one of the cops. Cassie glared at Emily with blazing eyes. “Is it true?” she said in a low, disappointed voice. “Did you set us up?”

Emily shook her head desperately. “I didn’t say a word about this prank to anyone. Honest.” She turned to her mother, who was now leaning against the Volvo wagon with her arms crossed. “How did you know we were going to be here?”

“We tracked your iPhone.” Mrs. Fields looked proud of herself. “Officer O’Neal suggested it. I suspected something was up tonight, so I called Judith and Officer O’Neal and we followed you.”

Emily thought of the iPhone still nestled in her bag. “You were spying on me . . . spying on them?” she sounded out.

“You were carrying that around to spy on us?” Cassie shrieked.

“It wasn’t like that!” Emily pleaded. “I mean, yeah, they gave me an iPhone, but I never used it on you guys! I swear! You know me, Cassie! Why would I do something like that?”

Cassie made an incredulous face. “Actually, Santa, I’m not sure I know you at all.”

“Cassie . . .” Tears rolled down Emily’s cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Emily, what do you care what these brats think of you?” Mrs. Fields yanked the car door open. “They deserve a strict punishment, and you helped us catch them in the act. Maybe we’ll even get my baby Jesus back.”

Suddenly, Emily thought she might explode. “Do you even care about your baby Jesus?” she bellowed at her mother. “You’re just going to sell it to buy stupid Christmas presents for everyone, gifts we probably won’t even remember next year! Why do you care so much about making the holiday picture-perfect? Why isn’t what we have right now enough?”

The words had flowed out of her mouth before she’d taken the time to think them through. Mrs. Fields stiffened and a hurt look crossed her face. Without saying a word, she marched around the car to the driver’s side, climbed in, and slammed the door shut.

The policeman pushed the elves into his squad car one by one. Just before O’Neal guided Cassie into the vehicle, Cassie swiveled around once more and gave Emily a seething stare. “Ali would hate you for this, you know.”

A tiny whimper escaped from Emily’s mouth. O’Neal slammed the cruiser door shut. The engine growled, and the car pulled away, sirens blaring. Emily didn’t move from her spot on the golf course until she could no longer see the lights or hear the sirens. It was only then that it hit her for real: She was alone again. She had no one.

Chapter 14

Santa to the Rescue

Later that night, Emily slipped out the front door, locked up, and pushed the Volvo down the driveway so her parents wouldn’t hear the engine start. She wasn’t supposed to be out this late, but she couldn’t lie in her bed for a second longer, listening to Carolyn snore and seeing Cassie’s wounded face in her mind again and again.

A light snow had begun to fall, dusting the streets, the rooftops, and the tree branches. She passed Rosewood Day, which was all lit up with lights around its stone perimeter, and then the turnoff to Ali’s street. But she didn’t feel like stopping by Ali’s house tonight. She felt too ashamed about what she’d done. It was almost like she was accountable to Ali, like Ali was watching her from beyond the grave.

Emily couldn’t get Cassie’s words out of her mind. Ali would hate you for this. It was absolutely true: Ali might have teased the four of them, she might have been growing apart from them at the end of seventh grade, but she never deliberately sold them out. The five of them had always had a pact, covering for one another when they got in trouble. It was why Emily, Aria, Spencer, and Hanna had told Ali’s parents all kinds of stories about where Ali might have been the morning after she’d vanished. They’d figured Ali would have wanted them to. Never in their wildest dreams had they thought she was dead.

Emily merged onto the bypass and followed the signs for West Rosewood. So what kind of person had she become now? Had she known, deep down, that her mom and Mrs. Meriwether were tracking her? Had she willingly led them right to the girls? She should have told Cassie and the others exactly what her mom was making her do. Even if it meant she wouldn’t have come along on the prank, even if it meant they wouldn’t have welcomed her into their clique, she would have extricated herself from the situation. But as it was, she just looked like a conspirator. A traitor. A narc.

The green sign for the exit for West Rosewood glowed in the distance. Emily hit the blinker and turned onto the off-ramp. Soon enough, she was pulling up to the West Rosewood police station, which she’d Google-mapped before she left home. It was in an old farmhouse. A bunch of squad cars sat in the parking lot, and a single light glowed in one of the ground-floor windows.

The elves were being held in the jail inside. If only there was something Emily could do, some way she could get them out. But how? Claim that she was the mastermind of the operation? Volunteer that she’d broken into the country club and stolen all that stuff herself? Her mother and Mrs. Meriwether had captured all of it on camera. The elves definitely looked guilty.

She pulled out her phone and looked at the picture of herself and the elves gathered around the barren Christmas tree inside the country club. Cassie had her arm slung around Emily’s like they were best friends. She clicked through the other photos she’d taken of the elves that week. Lola and Emily staging a sword fight with two long candy canes at Santa Land that afternoon. Cassie and Emily lounging in the gingerbread house on a break. There was a shot of the girls in the car after they’d spied on Stripper Santa. And then the photos of Stripper Santa himself, waving a T-shirt in the air, the housewives stuffing bills into his G-string.

All this time we thought you were a narc, Cassie had said that night. I guess we were wrong.

The door to the precinct opened, and Emily slid down in the driver’s seat. A uniformed cop strolled out of the station, lit a cigarette, and leaned against the brick wall. As he moved into profile, Emily realized it was Officer O’Neal. He shut his eyes as he took long drag after long drag, looking completely content, maybe even proud. It was probably a big win to capture the Merry Elves. Maybe he’d even get a bonus for this—maybe that was how he was going to pay for his daughter’s ever-growing Christmas list. How else was he going to buy all those toys on a cop’s salary?

A light flickered on in her head. She studied the smoking figure for a minute longer. There was something familiar about him, the shape of his broad shoulders, the jutting contours of his chin. Underneath his uniform, Emily was almost positive he had washboard abs and a broad, well-defined chest.

She fumbled for her phone again and called up the Stripper Santa photos. She looked at O’Neal once more, squinting hard. She looked from photo to cop until she was absolutely sure. “Oh my God,” she whispered, lowering the phone to her lap and starting to giggle.

Stripper Santa was . . . Officer O’Neal.

Chapter 15

A Christmas Miracle

Emily leapt out of the car and bounced toward Officer O’Neal. “I need to talk to you!”

O’Neal squinted at her. “Who’s there?”

Emily stopped next to him on the slate path. Snow spiraled around them. An ashtray filled with cigarette butts stood to their left, the burning ember from O’Neal’s cigarette right on top. “I’m Emily Fields,” she answered. “I was at the country club.”

“Oh, right!” O’Neal grinned. “You’re the girl who led us to them. Good job—they didn’t know what hit them.”

“Actually, I didn’t help bust them. In fact, I think you should let the elves go.”

O’Neal stared at her blankly. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Let them walk. They’ve learned their lesson.”

He drew up to his full height and barked out a laugh. “That’s a good one, Miss Fields. But I’ve already started their paperwork. They’re of age, you know. They might be facing jail time. Or at least some pretty strict community service.”

“They weren’t doing anything wrong,” Emily said. “Well, okay. They shouldn’t have broken into the country club and messed with private property. But they were just trying to send a message. They weren’t looking to hurt anyone.”

O’Neal crossed his arms over his chest and studied her. A few flakes of snow fell on the tip of his nose, but he didn’t wipe them away. “I don’t know why you care. They stole your family’s property, too. They confessed to everything.”

Then he turned on his heel and headed back into the station. “Wait!” Emily cried, pulling out her phone. “There’s something you need to see.”

She pressed the phone into his hands. When he looked down at the picture, the color drained from his face. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“Does it matter?” Emily snatched the phone away from him before he could delete the image. “But I don’t think you want this getting around.”

O’Neal’s eyes grew very wide. He seemed to shrink back a little. “You wouldn’t.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to.” Emily stepped a little closer. By the frightened look in O’Neal’s eyes, she knew she had him.

“What do you want me to do?” O’Neal asked in a defeated voice.

“Strike the elves’ confession from the record,” Emily said, thinking quickly. “Give them a slap on the wrist for breaking into the country club, make them go back there and return everything to where it belongs, but say you have no evidence about the other pranks and can’t charge them. Let them go free.”