On last night’s exciting Pretty Little Liars (Season 3, Episode 10: “What Lies Beneath”), Emily (Shay Mitchell) and Hanna (Ashley Benson) discovered one of the biggest clues yet about the days leading up to Maya’s (Bianca Lawson) murder. They may have gotten trapped by “A” in the process, but what they uncovered was worth it.

After the Liars spotted a clue in the background of Maya’s photos, they realized that Maya was photographed at the Kahn brothers’ cabin in the woods. Until then, Maya’s only connection to Noel (Brant Daugherty) was a brief moment when Emily spotted Maya talking to him in a very friendly way in Season 2, Episode 18: “A Kiss Before Lying”. Also, Holden (Shane Coffey) recently told Emily that he’d seen Maya at the Kahn brothers’ roving parties.

When Emily and Hanna headed to Noel’s cabin to investigate, they found a sleeping bag and Maya’s bag in a hidden room. Inside, they found Maya’s unused bus ticket out of Rosewood. The makeshift bed, plus the photos of Maya there, Noel’s admission that Maya used to buy pot from him, and the security footage of Maya at Noel’s cabin on the day she died all suggest that Maya was hiding out there in the days before she died.

Our first question has to do with Maya’s secrecy. We know how much she loved and trusted Emily, so why would she make up such elaborate lies about heading to California when she was still in Rosewood? Why wouldn’t she tell Emily about her friendship with Noel? One theory is that Noel was protecting her from someone, maybe the same someone who wound up killing her. Or, perhaps Noel was setting her up.

In any case, we have a strange feeling that Noel was trying to help Maya. Why she needed help in the first place remains a mystery. Share your thoughts in the comments below!


