As the words left his mouth, two trains of thought were running through Michael's mind.

The first, of course, was that he was completely crazy. Murdered? That seemed a little too dramatic for his taste. Plus, the cops would definitely not be interested in re-opening a case that they had already deemed to be a drunk accident.

The second was that murder made complete and total sense.

The rest of the group seemed to share the same opinion as Michael's first thought.

"Murdered?" Lindsey repeated distastefully, "I'm going to go with a strong no on that one. Are you completely insane? This isn't a TV drama, these are our actual lives."

"Yeah, sorry man. I don't think that one lines up very well." Roland agreed with the soccer star, shaking his head. "I know people hated my sister, but not enough to kill her."

Michael shot his twin a look as those words left Roland's mouth, and Mary seemed to sit up a little straighter in her seat.

"Wait, I think Michael might be on to something." The prima donna set down her coffee for a moment, "We all know that people in this town have threatened members of our family before. What if this time, some psychopath actually went through with their threats?"

"But why those four specifically?" Jordan asked, "Why wasn't it the five of us, or our younger siblings? I feel like we knew more about the secrets of Easton than those four did."

"Not necessarily." Michael could see the gears turning in Lindsey's head, "Towards the end of senior year especially, Victoria definitely seemed like she was hiding more secrets than usual. It was as if she were bearing something that she couldn't tell anyone." She shrugged slightly, "What if it was something that could have had her killed?"

"But would it have been a secret that all four of them knew about?" Roland asked, clearly still dubious of their murder theory. "Like we said before, none of our siblings really talked to each other...ever. They just ended up in the same car on a morning in June."

"Which should point out even more that they all knew something that no one else did." Michael couldn't believe that what he was saying made any sort of sense, "One person was after all of them, and that person got what they wanted by making it look like an accident. The police aren't even investigating anything."

"We need more proof before we decide that they were murdered." Roland stated firmly, "I'm not going to sit here and act like an idiot just because some of you have been watching too much Criminal Minds."

"Fine, then." Michael replied, "We'll get proof somehow."

"How?" Jordan shook her head, "It's not like there are any people that are just dying to reveal if our siblings knew their deepest secrets."

"So we'll find their secrets ourselves." Mary replied, "We'll figure out what they knew and we'll bring our case to the authorities when we have the proper means."

The table was silent for a moment before Lindsey sighed loudly.

"Alright. I guess we could make that work." She looked around cautiously, as if anyone could be listening to them now that they had this new theory. "Want to meet at my place sometime this week and start figuring things out? It's the least...conspicuous."

Michael shifted uncomfortably, as every person at the table knew Lindsey meant that she was the poorest.

"Sure." Roland nodded, "Let's do it tomorrow night at 8:00. We'll see if there's any merit to this insane theory."

***

"Knock, knock."

Mary walked into Michael's room that night without waiting for a response to her verbal knocking. Michael flipped over in his bed and closed his laptop, furrowing his brow as his sister perched herself on the edge of his mattress.

"Can I help you?"

"I think this is dangerous." Mary admitted, "If we look into what Eddie and the others knew, we risk them finding out about what we know. What we did."

"You're the one who suggested this all-on-the-table thing, Mar." Michael replied, "I don't know what you're getting so worked up about."

Mary's eyes grew huge as she stared at her brother in disbelief.

"You don't know what I'm getting so worked up about? Michael, they'll find out. About that night."

"Maybe." Michael nodded, "But if I come clean and tell them up front, then they won't think anything of it. They won't suspect me because I was honest."

"That's an awful idea." Mary shook her head, "You are not to tell them about anything, do you understand me? Anything you say could backfire on you. It's not worth the risk."

Michael rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, Mar. I'll make my own decisions when it comes to this stuff, thank you very much." He stood up and pulled his sister up by her arm, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do before school tomorrow."

He closed the door behind Mary and sat down on his bed again, opening up his laptop and taking a few deep breaths. No one needed to know what went on with him on that night, but at the same time, he didn't want to make himself a suspect by keeping it a secret.

Michael began to work on his homework before he heard a buzz coming from the direction of his phone. He turned over, silently hating himself for being so easily distracted from schoolwork that was due in the morning, and picked up the phone.

He had a new text message from an unknown number, except instead of listing the number at the top of the screen, it simply said, "Unknown". Michael unlocked his phone and looked at the message.

Furrowing his brow, Michael typed out a quick response.

He set his phone down and had been looking at his homework for less than twenty seconds before a reply came in.

Michael felt an involuntary shiver go down his spine as he took a few deep breaths, silently praying that this was all a prank and that no one besides Mary and a dead girl knew his actual secret.

A reply came within moments.

Michael heaved a quick sigh of relief. Hopefully whoever had sent that message had been playing a practical joke on him and their mother had taken their phone away before it went too much further. That made the most sense. No one could possibly know about what happened that night, and no one could possibly have heard him discussing it with Mary just a few minutes prior.

None of the fears circling around in the football player's subconscious were practical or possible in any way.