Chapter 10-Nobody's POV

Spencer returned home with a silly smile on her lips, unable to contain her happiness and excitement. She was about to call the girls, but decided that she wanted to check on her sister first, and she found her in the living room.

"Caitlin?"

"Oh, hey."

Once she noticed Spencer's joy, she asked, with a playful smile:

"What? What is it? What happened?"

"Gueeeeess…"

"Okay… Toby and you met at The Brew…"

The older girl nodded.

"Aaand you talked to him about what we saw…"

"Yeah, aaaaand?"

"Everything went alright, he explained it to you…"

Spencer moved her hands, telling her to keep going.

"Uh… -she went short of ideas for a moment and then brightened again- Okay okay I'm going to risk it and say… you kissed!"

Spencer's maxi grin confirmed her girls started to squeal and laugh in the most girly, immature way. Caitlin side-hugged her sister.

"You have to introduce me to him! And call the girls!"

"Alright, alright. But we're not, like, official yet." Spence laughed. For a moment she forgot about all the horrible stuff going on.

Melissa walked in. "What's going on? What's with all the squealing?"

The girls froze and fell silent. They looked at each other, and Melissa raised an eyebrow.

"I could kind of hear you, you know? Who are you going out with?"

Spencer closed her eyes. She knew Melissa would never approve her being with Toby. And she would probably tell their parents. On the other hand… She didn't care about Melissa's opinion. Or her parent's.

"I'm not like really going out, just…"

Melissa rolled her eyes.

"Stop the rambling, Spence. I guess you should know The Brew is not the most discreet place… I saw you getting out with that Cavanaugh boy."

Spence blushed. "His name is Toby."

Melissa let out a small smile. "Okay, Toby. Refresh my memory, wasn't he a murder suspect?"

The younger girl bit her lip. "Yeah… but, they're kind of dropping the charges, the evidence isn't good enough."

"Alright, well, be careful…"

Spencer snorted. "You sound like if you cared."

"Stop the drama, I might not be what you'd call the `best sister´ but I do care, Spencer."

Spencer picked her phone and dialed Emily's number, then Aria's and finally Hanna's. Every girl fangirled and told Spencer they were happy for her. They planned a sleepover for the next day, also to continue their investigation.

After Melissa headed back to the barn, Caitlin declared "I think we should check dad's office. He might have something."

"Alright, but, most of the drawers are locked. How do we open them?"

"Uh… I'll figure it out. Let's go."

The girls managed to open three drawers with a clip, but found nothing interesting, until Spencer pulled out a yellow folder. Opening it, the two girls gasped in shock.

"Alison?"

Inside of it, there were lots of pictures of Ali, alone or with family and friends. Why would Peter Hastings keep that?

It wasn't all. There were some printed documents, seemingly emails that he had sent to Byron Montgomery and his replies.

"Spence, call Aria!"

The brunette nodded and dialed her friend's number. "Aria? I'm sorry, I know it's late but we find something you maybe should see… It's about our fathers."

Ten minutes later, the petite girl was welcomed inside the Hastings residence.

"Look at this."

"Printed emails? Why-"

"We don't know. We haven't read all of them, we were waiting for you...

Okay, let's start."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAria's POVxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It had been an exhausting night. Those emails were weird, and didn't made too much sense.

In the first one, Peter had told my dad that he knew "Alison blackmailed him", not saying about what. My father had answered by saying he knew about Mr. Hastings' issues with Ali.

They crossed some emails, mentioning N.A.T. club members, and saying they knew about the Cavanaugh tapes and also the ones with Ali, but they seemed to have no idea their daughters were filmed too.

The troubling part was when they said they "had to do something about Alison." Something like what?

And that's when Caitlin found the crucial information: the date. That email, sent by Peter, was from August 26th. My father's response was dated from August 29th, days before Ali's murder. However, after that the emails stopped, and we conjectured they decided to do the rest of the talking in person.

It was creepy. "But, girls, why would your dad keep this? It's evidence against him."

"Yeah, Spencer replied, but it also incriminates your father and it could be used for blackmail if he decided to talk."

Caitlin looked up. "Blackmail… Wait do you remember that NAT contract on Ian's laptop? The one that said they had pieces of evidence against our parents if they talked? Maybe these are the pieces of evidence, and either our dad has a copy of them or he took them from Ian…"

"Is your dad aggressive to Ian?" I asked.

"Not at all, actually. In that phone conversation they sounded friendly…"

"Then he probably has those copies and Ian doesn't know it." Spencer chimed in.

"So, basically, in short: our parents were blackmailed by Ali over unknown subjects; they were tied to the NAT but might not know we got taped; the NAT knew about the Ali blackmail and our parents' intentions to end it, and maybe the way the wanted to; the NAT blackmailed our parents too; and all of this… still leads to the night Ali disappeared." I said.

Spencer shook her head. "I can't believe our families are tied to this. I know my dad isn't the most inoffensive guy but this goes to another level."

"We need to find out what exactly happened that night. Let's try to reconstruct it." I added.

"So, Ali saw you four in the afternoon, Caitlin started. She had dinner with her family that night and then came to the sleepover. You all passed out, and then Ali and Spencer were missing. Do you remember anything Spence?"

"Umm… I woke up, we had a fight inside the house about my kiss with Ian… She got out, I followed her and then I couldn't find her…"

"Wait wait wait. You… fought inside the house?"

"Yeah Cait, why? It wasn't-"

Caitlin's face blanked. "Oh God…"

We both looked at her. "What?"

"I woke up that night because I heard you two arguing. I went downstairs and you were already out, so I followed you. And I-I know there's more but I can't remember anything…"

"So, it means, you might have seen what happened?" I asked

She shrugged shaking her head "Maybe Aria but now I can't recall it…"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxSpencer's POVxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Aria was leaving when I turned to Caitlin. "Are you serious, you were there?"

Unexpected tears fell down her face. "Spencer please I said I don't know! Would you stop pushing? I'm tired of this!"

I pulled her close and whispered an apology. Truth was I was amazed at my sister. She had been holding this on in her head, she might have seen a murder, and now, Ian, my dad, -A… If we could find a way to make her remember we could solve Ali's death once and for all. But it was more difficult than just that.

Guys, I'm sooo terribly sorry for taking centuries to update this. I had a breakdown and well other things to do... But I'll keep going with this. Hope you enjoyed it, I love you all, please forgive me.

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-Luw