Killer Instinct

11 | Mary

"Hey, are you and Jordan together right now? I saw you on the Snap map and like I don't remember us having plans."

Mary rolled her eyes and mouthed the name "Kate" to Jordan from across the room, pointing to her phone. The third member of their group had been left out of everything they did lately, but it wasn't as if she would be interested in chasing down the supposed murderer of their older siblings. Plus, the more people that got involved, the more people they would have to trust with information they hadn't even brought to the police yet.

"Yeah, sorry K. We're just working on some things for one of our classes, it's not a big deal." Mary lied, hoping that the less-than-intelligent rich girl would accept the excuse. "Next time, okay?"

Kate let out a long sigh from the other end of the phone.

"Fine, whatever. I guess I should just get used to being left out of things by now. I always thought that Jordan would be the one that got phased out of the group, not me."

Mary held back a laugh.

"No one's getting phased out, Kate. We'll see you at school on Monday, alright?"

"Fine."

The other end went dead before Mary could say goodbye and she put her phone back in her pocket, rolling her eyes. "Kate's in a tizzy because we're doing something without her." She informed Jordan as they all gathered in Mary's bedroom; Jordan had been there for a few hours at that point, but the rest of the group had just arrived.

Of course, they hadn't always had to do things behind Kate's back. If anything, Kate was the one that did things behind their backs—Mary still remembered walking in on her and Landon at a party one time. Of course, since it had been Jordan's lowlife boyfriend and not Mary's, she hadn't cared enough to tell her best friend. Friendships were a fickle thing when popularity was all anyone cared about. More people liked Kate than liked Jordan, so Mary knew where her utmost loyalties had to lie.

Plus, Kate knew a few of Mary's secrets as well.

"So why are we here?" Lindsey asked as she perched herself tentatively on one of the many armchairs that littered Mary's bedroom, "I didn't expect to receive a text from you this soon, Hadden."

"Well, I'm nothing if not surprising." Mary replied dryly, "So I wouldn't hold any expectations of me at all. Michael and I simply figured that it would be...prudent to have everyone over again. You know, see if we can figure out anything more about what happened."

"Shouldn't that be up to the police?" Roland asked quietly, "I mean, we're kids, and they should be able to do more than us. Plus, they probably aren't having bricks thrown through their windows or threatening texts sent to them."

"Speaking of which, Mary still hasn't gotten a single text message." Michael reminded the group, "So I'm not really sure if the person even knows that she's working on this."

"They probably think that she's too caught up with her social status and party-throwing." Lindsey muttered.

"I heard that, Marcum." Mary snapped, "And no matter why I haven't been the recipient of any texts, the fact remains that there is someone out there who killed our siblings and is trying their hardest to ensure that we don't figure it out. And as for your idiotic idea," She continued, turning to glance at Roland, "The cops won't want to reopen a closed case for the hell of it. You're going to need to bring them more evidence than just a few text messages and a broken window."

"And along that line," Jordan piped up, "I was doing some research on the case that the police had open before they determined the crash to be a hit-and-run."