"I don't want to go into this house, Mary."

"And I don't want to have a brother who's a complete waste of space when it comes to one person's house, so I guess we're both going to be disappointed today." Mary snapped back to her brother, who directed his eyes at the ground in a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. Mary knew why he didn't want to go into the Green's house, but she treated him like he was stupid for it.

The restraining order he knew was in one of the bedrooms of the enormous mansion seemed to be laughing at him as he stood on the front step.

"Alright, I guess I'll knock." Mary rolled her eyes as Michael stood frozen in place, eyes trained on the ground and hands behind his back. She stepped forward and knocked three times on the giant front door, three quick raps before stepping back to where Michael was. Footsteps could be heard rushing towards the door as the twins stood waiting, Michael's heart racing as he remembered the last time he was in the Green house. He tried to forget it, but there was no forgetting anything of that magnitude.

Secrets never went away in Easton.

The Green's butler, Harry—who the Hadden twins had met multiple times before—opened the front door and seemed slightly surprised to see the two.

"Mr. and Ms. Hadden, how may I help you tonight?"

"By letting us in." Mary replied, "Roland's expecting us."

Harry's surprise was evident from his expression, as Roland Green had never had any friends outside of the two losers he usually hung out with, but he let the two inside anyways. He closed the door behind them and walked forwards a bit.

"I'll go and fetch Mr. Roland, but in the meantime, I'm sure that you can find your way to the dining room."

Michael nodded as the butler rushed off to find Roland, leaving the twins to find their way to the dining room.

Mary led the way, maneuvering through the house. She had been in the mansion far more times than her brother had, as she had greatly looked up to Erin Green while the socialite had been alive. Erin had begun to teach her ex-boyfriend's sister all about her life and, essentially, how to have a lavish life without doing any work at all.

They walked through the house slowly, Michael following behind his sister. They walked past the only room in the house that Michael knew the exact location of: Erin Green's room. And he felt his vision blur and colors pop up before his eyes as he tried to walk past it. He averted his gaze and kept going, trying his hardest to not act like the baby that he knew Mary thought he was.

A knock sounded on the front door just as the twins sat down at the dining room table, and two minutes later Jordan and Roland entered the room together, sitting down quietly across from the Hadden's.

"Should we wait for Lindsey?" Jordan spoke first, "I don't think she'll want to miss anything."

They group looked around at each other and Michael checked his watch: 8:11.

"She's past ten minutes late, so I think the time for courtesy has passed." Mary answered her best friend, "Is anyone else home, Roland? Should we go somewhere more private?"

Roland shook his head.

"No one's home, so we don't have to worry about it." He replied, "Just Harry and me."

"Harry and I." Jordan said immediately.

Roland raised his eyebrows.

"I'm pretty sure it's Harry and me." He said before turning to the rest of the group, "But that's beside the point. I kind of screwed up. Big time."

"What did you do?" Michael spoke for the first time since stepping foot in the Green's home, "I mean, we're all still alive, so I don't think it could have been that awful."

"I went to the police." Roland sputtered out, "And before you all start yelling at me, I had good reason. I thought they could help us, especially since Detective Barlow was the officer on the case in the first place."

"Detective Barlow?" Mary asked, "I thought he was just a uniformed officer."

"He got promoted." Roland replied, "And I'm not quite sure why. I went to him, specifically, and tried to explain what we found and what we were hoping the police could do for us, and he got angry with me. He said I didn't have evidence and that they had already done a thorough investigation into the crash, so they wouldn't be reopening the case. He also made fun of my relationship with Erin, which seemed like an odd and cruel thing for a detective to do."

He took a deep breath before continuing.

"And then I got a text from the unknown number, saying that the case would never be reopened, and that they had seen to that."

"So what does this mean?" Michael asked, "Is Barlow involved in this somehow? That would be so strange—he and my dad have been friends for years."

"It's not like we're accusing your dad of conspiring with this murder, but Barlow seems like a solid suspect at this point." Roland replied, "I mean, the way he acted...it was as if he were hiding something and was scared of it be discovered."

"I want to know how he got promoted so quickly." Jordan spoke up, "I mean, is that a normal thing to have happen?"

"I don't think so." Mary shook her head, "And he was there pretty quickly after the brick was thrown through Lindsey's window last week. Do you think he was following one of us?"

"Or all of us."

"That's not helpful, Michael." Mary rolled her eyes. "But if there's someone in the police department that is working against us, then we have to be even more careful than usual about this. We can't be seen sneaking around without raising Barlow's suspicions, but we need to find out what he knows and why he would be trying to hurt us or our siblings."

"Agreed." Roland nodded, and Michael couldn't quite believe that he was agreeing with Mary, "Barlow's dirty and we need to figure out a way to get rid of him. If we don't, we have no help from the cops, and we might end up needing that help."

"That's terrifying." Jordan shook her head, "I mean, why in the world would we need the cops? I know we're holding these little meetings, but it's not like we're seriously going to investigate our siblings' maybe-murder."

"We are so far past "maybe" at this point, Jord." Mary snapped, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Your brother was killed in cold blood and you don't want to bring justice for him?"

Jordan shrugged.

"I don't know. It seems dangerous."

"Don't you think Neil deserves to be avenged?" Mary asked, her voice getting a little louder as Michael worried that Harry might be listening in on them. "We have to catch whoever did this to him."

"And Eddie, and Victoria, and...Erin." Michael reminded his sister, unsure of why she was fixating on Neil. "In any case, we need to figure out what's going on with Barlow. But could we maybe continue this another night? I'm starting to get a headache."

It had happened a few times since that night in the woods—Michael's head had started throbbing, his vision would go fuzzy and his breathing would get quick whenever he stood up too fast or even bent over in a way his head didn't like. But he was ignoring it—he had his first football game as captain in four days.

"I think you have a concussion, and you need to stop brushing it off." Mary said as Michael rubbed the back of his head where the stalker had hit him, "Just go to a doctor."

"I'm fine, Mary." Michael shook his head, "I just want to go home."

"Fine." Mary nodded, "We'll pick this up tomorr—"

She didn't get the word out before the front door opened loudly and slammed quickly, followed by footsteps running through the house. The four looked at each other in alarm and Michael picked up a candlestick, ready to defend himself and his sister against whoever was running through the house like a madman.

But when the person rounded the corner into the dining room, it was just a short brunette ponytail and athletic shorts, not a black ski mask and a gun like Michael had been half-expecting. Lindsey ran into the room and stopped when she saw that everyone was there, her hand on her chest as she caught her breath.

"Geez, Lindsey. You can't be doing stuff like that when we're all on edge." Roland shook his head and put down the wooden music box he had grabbed for self-defense, "We were just about to have everyone leave, actually. You're kind of late..."

"I think my father murdered our siblings."

Michael felt his eyes bug out of his head as he stared at her, and everyone else reacted in the exact same way until Mary decided to be the one to speak.

"What?"

"You heard me, Hadden." Lindsey snapped. "My father murdered our siblings."

A/N: I am so sorry about the missing update, but I'm back with Wednesday's! 

Also, if you guys want to win a Kindle edition of Dear Sydney, head over to my Instagram (@officialkatherinepowell) and repost the image to be entered in the drawing! The giveaway is open until this Saturday, June 16.

-Katherine